Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 5, 1995 TAG: 9504060019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
After all, its beauty is in its glib specificity, its this-is-what-I-am-take-it-or-get-over-it brand of attitude.
And yet, unwittingly, this witty little talk show (which is tucked away on Comedy Central weeknights at 11 p.m.) breathes new life into the largely witless TV talk-show genre. Indeed, ``PI'' threatens singlehandedly to revive the art of conversation on TV.
The secret? Under the stewardship of puckish provocateur Bill Maher, each ``PI'' half-hour convenes celebrities and other public figures - and a wildly disparate foursome it is likely to be! - to talk about something other than themselves.
Something like real ideas and issues: Do technological advances ultimately disable you? Should multiculturalism be taught in public schools? What is class, and did rocker-widow Courtney Love display a lack of it when she appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone? And what about those animal-rights extremists?
For once, guests on a talk show aren't selling anything. For them, as much as for the viewer, it's like a night off. You can feel their relief.
But this is no Mensa meeting. ``PI'' is funny and irreverent. Even the show's set, the wryly apocalyptic-looking ruins of a Greco-Roman forum, tweaks talk-show convention. In its third season, this show still seems delightfully unlikely.
``It doesn't seem like it should work,'' admitted Maher (pronounced ``marr'') last week during a chat in his mid-Manhattan office. ``After a show I think, jeez, what happened there? It worked again, and I don't quite know why.''
The big reason it works is Maher, whose mission it is to keep the discussion lively but civilized, and somewhere between silly and wonky.
One way he does it is by baiting his panelists without fear or favor.
``When gay people see everything through a gay perspective,'' he told playwright-gay activist Harvey Fierstein on one show, ``I think it probably hurts the cause.''
On another, he confronted fundamentalist Christian writer John Lofton: ``If Jesus was here right now,'' Maher said, ``I think he would take a dim view of someone who is as mean-spirited and truculent as you.''
Then again, Maher might bring a guest back down to earth with a deadpan reply like, ``Is that a clip-on tie?''
``My conception of the show is, it's a cocktail party more than anything,'' Maher said. ``People at a cocktail party mostly have fun, but they also get into arguments. And they mostly behave.''
The cocktail party atmosphere is what makes ``PI'' perhaps the most illuminating of the talk shows, by letting personalities, along with ideas, shine in a novel way. The panelists - whether Ralph Nader, Sandra Bernhard, Kiss' Paul Stanley, Republican political consultant Ed Rollins, Morley Safer, Fran Lebowitz, Sen. Arlen Specter or Howard Stern sidekick Robin Quivers - have to let their guard down to play with the others.
Or, in ``PI'' parlance: They really have no choice but to get over themselves.
Last Thursday, during the first of two weeks of shows from Los Angeles, Maher convened a panel composed of Garry Shandling, law professor and former Michael Dukakis presidential campaign manager Susan Estrich, actor LeVar Burton and, of all people, Kato Kaelin. (This show repeats Friday.)
Wearing his trademark boy-that-canary-tasted-swell grin, Maher threw out the opening topic: Why can't politicians take a joke?
The question arose from his much-talked-about appearance at last month's Radio & Television Correspondents' Association dinner, which was attended by Washington bigwigs from President and Mrs. Clinton on down.
At the dinner, as Maher reminded viewers, he had been criticized by some for crossing the line with his humor.
But had it really been wrong, Maher asked his panelists, for him to tell the Washington gathering (which also included D.C. Mayor Marion Barry) that Barry, convicted several years ago for cocaine possession, ``had a plan to get drugs off the street - one gram at a time''?
``I'm offended by that,'' Shandling fired back. ``You do NOT do crack jokes in front of Marion Barry. You do hooker jokes.''
Before this riotous 45-minute edition was over, Maher told an arguably tasteless - and arguably funny - O.J. Simpson joke whose punchline was at the expense of the overeager Kaelin.
Shandling, whose joke it was but who had refused to tell it, hid his eyes.
``I can laugh,'' Kaelin stammered.
He wasn't alone.
by CNB