
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 12, 1995                   TAG: 9501200006
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CHARLES GRODIN'S SHOW IS ODDLY LIKEABLE

``Anybody can get their own show, can't they?'' That's what actor Charles Grodin snapped at host John McLaughlin on a nearly legendary edition of McLaughlin's old talk show on the CNBC cable network in 1993. McLaughlin's program was soon wisely canceled by CNBC, but now Grodin, as if fulfilling his prophecy, has a nightly CNBC talk show of his own.

Grodin was hilarious in movies like ``Heaven Can Wait'' and ``The Heartbreak Kid'' but developed a second career as a talk-show guest, adopting the persona of a bellicose crackpot who picked fights with Johnny Carson and David Letterman. Grodin said on the premiere of his own show that he was just being prankish and facetious in those appearances - but he said even that in a prankish and facetious way.

``Charles Grodin'' debuted Monday on CNBC with Martin Short and Art Garfunkel, both friends of Grodin's, as guests. CNBC took out newspaper ads proclaiming that Grodin had ``no qualifications'' for the role of talk show host, and Grodin then set about proving it. And yet the hour was oddly likable, largely because Grodin is oddly likable.

Any positive adjective one might apply to Grodin would probably have to have ``oddly'' in front of it: Oddly amusing, oddly talented, oddly odd.

Grodin is filling the space formerly occupied by Tom Snyder, who has moved uptown from CNBC to ``The Late Late Show'' following David Letterman's ``Late Show'' on CBS. In a very classy gesture at the end of his first show, Grodin wished Snyder well and plugged Snyder's program, even though on a competing network. ``Very classy?'' Well maybe, ``oddly classy.''

Short is a foolproof guest and to make him even foolproofer, Grodin had Short do one segment as Katharine Hepburn, one of Short's most accomplished and hilarious impressions. Piped in from Los Angeles where he is making a movie, Short was all charm and funny stories. Unfortunately the conversation got awfully show-biz insidey. Can there be many viewers who recognized Short's reference to the breakup of long-forgotten comedy team Allen and Rossi?

Even Allen and Rossi probably don't remember Allen and Rossi.

It's clear Grodin wants to maintain a jokey tone for the whole show, and that may be hard to do. It was clumsy of him to have Short as a guest and not ask him about the failed prime-time comedy series Short had for about two weeks on NBC earlier in the season. The series went back to the shop for repairs and has yet to be seen again. Grodin has no journalistic instincts whatever, however, so this matter never came up.

Hardly any matters came up, but maybe it doesn't matter.

Grodin did ask Garfunkel about ``the breakup with Paul Simon,'' which occurred a couple of decades ago, but the question was just the setup for some wisecracks. ``I wanted to call the group Garfunkel and Simon and Paul felt it should be alphabetical,'' Garfunkel said, a quip he appears to have used dozens of times over the years.

At the start of the show, alone before the camera, Grodin told viewers, ``As I see it, my major problem is, you know, a lot of people hate me.'' Grodin has dead eyes like Bruce the Shark, the blandly blank face of a department store mannequin and the dazed demeanor of Tommy Smothers. But beneath this unimposing exterior, there is an antic, agile mind. When Short explained that one of his comments had been ``an analogy,'' Grodin said, ``I didn't want any analogies on the first show.''

On that fabled edition of McLaughlin's show, Grodin was wonderfully insulting and uncooperative, at one point barking at McLaughlin, ``This isn't what you call interesting television. ... Why don't you act like a host and ask interesting questions?'' But if Grodin is going to be nicey-nice with all the guests on his own show, the fun factor will plummet. It'll be like tuning in Siskel and Ebert and finding out they suddenly agree with each other on everything.

``Charles Grodin'' is a typical poverty row production for CNBC, with an aura of cheapness and lots of tacky ads. But even shortcomings can be pluses; sometimes cable in its low-budget desperation invokes the pioneering spirit of early television, when all performers had to rely on was their wits and their charisma. Those are two qualifications that Charles Grodin does have. Oddly enough, his debut was oddly enjoyable.

- Washington Post Writers Group

Tom Shales is TV editor and chief TV critic for The Washington Post.

by CNB