Dial File: Cracking the 'code of conduct'

Forget the high-priced hacks who scribble the scripts of your favorite sitcoms. This season's funniest phrase was penned by a pair not known for their hardee-har-har-diness.

The phrase, roughly translated, is "Please Behave Yourselves." The kicker -- get this -- is that it isn't the title of a snickering new sexcom but a plea from Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut democrat, and Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas republican, for a "voluntary code of conduct" among TV types. To make the plea, the senators took a breather from the snickering sexcom currently consuming them.

Applaud the intention. Expect inaction.

Sorry to pour on the pessimism, people, but this is, after all, an America in which Howard Stern can shave the pubic hair of a woman on national TV and still get out-sleazed by a good cigar and a Starr-y-eyed storyteller. And American television has much more immodesty to master before it catches up to -- or strips down to -- the whipped cream-and-nipples level of European TV. (It's good to have a goal, though, isn't it?)

"Voluntary code of conduct"? Consider:

* A gay man confessed his carnal cravings for a straight acquaintance with a low threshold for national humiliation on "The Jenny Jones Show," earning him an early grave. Trash-'n'-bash gabbers (Geraldo, Maury, Sally) were widely tsk-tsked into temporary quasi-respectability. Rosie O'Donnell surfaced as daytime's new Messiah of Morality. And then along came ... Pontius Pilate/Jerry Springer.

* Five of the six commercial broadcast networks, shamed into what turned out to be a sham, concocted a counterfeit "content ratings" system that actually trusted programmers to rate their own programs (think: foxes and hen houses), with predictable results -- parental outrage at being monumentally ... misled. (The president must be proud of his proteges.)

* NBC was the only network that refused to pretend to embrace the content ratings. That made it, in theory, the lone unrepentant peddler of unrated raunch -- and in reality, the only non-hypocrite among six unrepentant peddlers of unrated raunch.

* The content ratings predictably devolved into an excuse for excess -- as long as it's rated, raunch on! -- upping the ante on TV's "adult" antics. The V-chip? A license to be V-ery adult. Examples? Hmmmm ...

* Two new series clearly inspired by wacky Washington and its libidinous leaders -- "D.C." and "The West Wing" -- are in the works. And, with an eye toward the evening news, the producers will be hellbent to make sure fiction tops fact, if that's possible.

"Voluntary code of conduct"? Memo to the senators: Thanks for the giggle, guys.

Croon a Tune: For nailing our final Croon-a-Tune (for now) -- the dramatic "Perry Mason" theme -- our congrats to First Caller Andrew Hatcher and fellow crooners Kim Andersen, Dan Brown, Alex Jeanos, Rich Kackstetter, Augie Kunkel, Joe Lacy, Linda Noel, Kristin North, John Paine, Mark Ritchie, Patrick Roach, Dan Ryan, Henny Trichter, Tim Victor and Nancy White.

We're giving Croon-a-Tune a temporary rest. Thank you for sharing my passion for TV themes, and for your spirited involvement.

Keep the songs in your heart.

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