COMIC RELIEF WILL GIVE AID TO HOMELESS IN U.S.

It became laughingly apparent Tuesday that it is no joke that 1986 is shaping up fast as the year of Hollywood compassion for America’s poor and homeless.

Four star comics--Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and “Ghostbusters’ ” Harold Ramis--joined Home Box Office executives at a Beverly Hills press conference to announce the formation of Comic Relief. The fledgling charity is the latest Hollywood fund-raising effort in the now-familiar USA for Africa mode.

Unlike USA for Africa and most of its clones, however, Comic Relief plans to distribute all of its proceeds from an upcoming HBO special to this year’s American homeless, not last year’s African famine victims.

Goldberg likened the Comic Relief effort to “a hand across the street” rather than “a hand across the water.”

The comedian-actress said that she felt a special compassion for America’s poor and down-and-out because she was “one of them” just a few years ago.

Ironically, Comic Relief president Bob Zmuda traced the roots of his organization to last summer’s Live Aid concert, which benefited Africa. Zmuda told reporters that the initial idea to organize America’s comic talent to feed, shelter and clothe America’s 20 million poor went into high speed in November with plans for a March 29 live HBO broadcast of a benefit comedy show to be presented before an audience at the Universal Amphitheatre.

HBO is underwriting the show’s production costs, and talents like Goldberg, Williams, Ramis and Crystal will be appearing free of charge. Crystal, Goldberg and Williams will host the show. Ramis, who is one of the group’s board of directors, will be a performer. Names of other participants in the first Comic Relief show were not disclosed. Zmuda said that the group had been advised by undisclosed media consultants that the best way to keep the attention of the press was to make little announcements along the way rather than disclose everything at once.

Ramis, who lives on the beach in Santa Monica, said that he sees people sleeping there regularly. He denounced the contradiction between Hollywood’s concentration of wealth in the hands of the few while so many in Southern California have nothing at all.

The bulk of the money Comic Relief hopes to earn will come from phone pledges to be made by viewers through a toll-free 800 number that will be broadcast at the bottom of the screen throughout the program.

Zmuda, who was once a writer-producer for the late Andy Kaufman, promised that this would not be the last Comic Relief event. Like USA for Africa, the newly incorporated nonprofit agency plans to continue producing benefit performances indefinitely.

Zmuda said that HBO was selected to broadcast the initial Comic Relief program rather than one of the three commercial networks because “we would have had to deal with standards and practices” (the network’s censorship division). The comedy of many of the participants could be too risque or controversial and would be presented live, making network presentation a far more sticky problem, he said.

Comic Relief Vice President Dennis Albaugh said that the money raised would be specified primarily for basic health care programs operated at 18 urban centers throughout the United States, including Los Angeles. He said that the money would be distributed within 60 days of receipt through the National Health Care for the Homeless program.

Neither HBO officials nor Comic Relief members would specify how much they hoped to earn nor how much the cable special will cost to produce.

“Can you say how many figures?” one reporter asked an HBO official.

“In total, it’s one figure,” quipped the official. “There’s a three in it.”

That one-liner--one of dozens tossed out during the 30-minute press conference--was as close as reporters got to receiving concrete information on Comic Relief’s overhead, expenses and projected revenues.

Comic Relief’s is the first in several upcoming announcements from entertainment industry organizations that are shifting the focus from Africa to America in 1986, including USA for Africa, which plans its own star-studded press conference Thursday morning. That conference will kick off USA for Africa’s own American homeless project--Hands Across America. The project, first unveiled in October, envisions a May 25 line of 6 million to 10 million people holding hands from New York to Los Angeles in an effort to raise $100 million for American relief.

Asked if the homeless and poor who live on wine, scraps and what they can scratch up, will have an opportunity to see the initial Comic Relief program, Zmuda said simply “No” to stunned silence. A few seconds later he said loudly that he was just making a joke.

“They get to see it only if they’re subscribers to HBO,” Crystal joked.

HBO officials did say that arrangements probably would be made for people who live in cardboard boxes and other homeless to see the program.