Thursday, June 4, 1998 | 9:33 a.m.
SMILE: You're on Lifelong Camera.
Such is the -- I actually shudder when I write far-fetched, since that word loses meaning as modern media hurtles fearlessly forward -- premise of the new movie "The Truman Show."
Opening Friday, the film, the latest to satirize -- and perhaps, foreshadow -- the impact of TV in our lives (along with greats such as "Network" and "Broadcast News" and relatively recent efforts "Mad City" and "Up Close and Personal"), stars Jim Carrey as a man whose entire life, unbeknowst to him, has been televised to a riveted America. His hometown? One giant soundstage. The people in his life? Actors -- including his wife and best bud.
Like most effective satires, this concept is rooted in reality and taken to -- at least for now -- absurd lengths. Cinema verite, transferred to the tube as "reality programming," has been a staple for some time, now mostly in the form of such atrocities as 'When Animals Attack IV!" and "World's Scariest Police Chases" or series such as "Cops" and "Real TV."
As for the "Truman" conceit -- televising people's actual everyday lives as opposed to glimpsing only moments of heightened drama, such as getting mauled by animals or busted for beating a spouse or caught on video shooting a video store clerk in the head -- it has its own precedents.
Years ago, PBS televised the lives of The Loud Family, and we gawked as they devolved into disputes and divorce. And, of course, MTV's "The Real World," in its various incarnations, invited us to peek in at the intimate lives -- including everything from their hygiene habits to their sex lives -- of young people seemingly existing for the camera, and our national amusement.
But televising someone's life from birth -- without his knowledge or consent -- by literally creating his entire environment? A logistical impossibility -- make that extreme improbability (we did land men on the moon, didn't we?) -- but not a conceptual impossibility.
If network executives thought they could pull it off -- that the prodigious planning and mind-boggling expense and idea that one person's unedited life, in all its overwhelming tedium, marked only by very rare moments of drama and humor (never mind the legality of it all), would actually pay off in Nielsen numbers -- do you really doubt that they would try?
That may be over-reaching cynicism, but the ever-narrowing gap between media satire and media reality is unnerving. At the time they were made, "Network" and "Broadcast News" were distant warnings about an egomaniacal industry run amok ("Network") and TV news taken to style-over-substance extremes ("Broadcast News").
Yet, in the era of "Jerry Springer" (a concept that would have awed even "Network's" "I'm-mad-as-hell!" Howard Beale) and a Miami station -- as reported here last week -- that will feature the local news read by a "sexy pair of lips" in a tight shot, called "Lips at 11" -- the future doesn't seem as far-fetched as it used to.
Once again, I shudder when I write that.
PHIL-ED WITH SADNESS: The tragic death of Phil Hartman ("Saturday Night Live," 'NewsRadio") last week leaves TV noticeably diminished. A chameleon comic character actor, Hartman was a joker-of-all-trades, as "SNL" fans knew well. Prime-time viewers were mostly privy to his pungent portrayal of ego-riddled news anchor Bill McNeal on the renewed-for-fall "NewsRadio," but got a delicious taste of his twisted versatility when he turned up as a menacing kidnapper on the sublimely silly season finale of "3rd Rock From The Sun."
An outstanding ensemble player, Hartman might also have headlined his own series someday. That, sadly, is now condemned to eternal speculation. And "NewsRadio"? Expect the series to soldier on in a bittersweet tradition:
"Cheers" lost Nicholas Colasanto -- who played delightfully dense Coach Ernie Pantusso -- to a fatal heart attack in the third season. Woody Harrelson bumbled in as equally addled barkeep Woody Boyd -- sort of a younger Coach -- for the rest of the sitcom's long, healthy run; "Dallas" survived the death of Jim Davis, who played rugged family patriarch Jock Ewing. For years afterwards, "Dallas" prominently displayed a Jim-as-Jock portrait at Southfork Ranch and Ewing Oil; and when Michael Conrad, the warm, avuncular, "Let's be careful out there" sarge of "Hill Street Blues" succumbed to cancer, Robert Prosky rolled in for roll call over the next three seasons. All three series, in their fashion, mourned the actors and characters they lost.
With nimble writing, "NewsRadio" can likewise survive, both paying tribute to Hartman -- and, regretfully, moving on. That will soften -- but never fully absorb -- the blow of losing a very talented comedian in his comic prime.
SPIEL'S ZEAL: After swallowing the Sominex tablet the networks shoved down our collective gullet with their been-there, done-that fall schedules, at least the WB is pouring a caffeine chaser: "Invasion America," described as "prime-time television's first animated dramatic science fiction series," debuts 9 p.m. Tuesday. Produced by Steven Spielberg, it follows a 17-year-old boy -- half-human, half-alien -- destined to lead Earth's defense against invaders from his own father's planet.
Think of it as "Star Wars" Meets "Knots Landing" Meets The Cartoon Network.
As cable casts longer and longer shadows over broadcast TV, credit the weblet and Spielberg for paving a new path -- an absolute must for broadcasters under siege -- with prime-time animation drama. This is not, after all, "The Simpsons" or "King of the Hill" -- comedy being the viewer-accepted vehicle for prime-time animation thus far.
This is a hybrid that risks striking viewers as more Saturday morning kid-com than prime-time powerhouse. In the end, the writing, execution and, yes, maturity of the production must separate "Invasion" from, say, "Johnny Quest," and earn it prime-time status.
Of course, different doesn't always equal dynamic -- producer Steven Bochco learned that painful lesson after his singing flatfoots, dancing crack addicts, melodic murderers, rappin' street mobs and hanging/harmonizing juries triggered national giggling in 1990's "Cop Rock" -- but hot new trends don't spring from stone-cold concepts. They spring from daring -- even daffy -- ideas.
CROON A TUNE: Takin' a break from all her worries, reader Marilyn Kaufman knew it would help a lot to tell us that "Makin' your way in the world today takes everything you got" was the first line of the "Cheers" theme.
Well, Marilyn, now everybody knows your name -- and we'll always be glad you came.
Next? What enduring theme song rhapsodized about finding "oil ... black gold ... Texas Tea." Well, the first thing you know, you'll contact Dial File. The kin folks say it'll all be worth your while. So just be the first one to nail the homey theme, and you'll find your name in this space is not a dream.
Wee-doggy! It's even better than digging into a heaping plate of viddles.
ROSIE FUTURE: Roseanne's got fair warning: The readers of Total TV magazine, in its annual readers' poll, voted The Bellicose One's new project "Upcoming Talk Show That Should Not Happen." It beat out -- by 50 percent! -- the coming gabfests of Howie Mandel and Donny and Marie for that singular honor.
With such wisdom pouring forth from the masses -- who needs critics?
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