‘CUCKOO’ TO FLY UNCUT ON CHANNEL 5

Film director Milos Forman complained to a gathering of TV programming executives last month that a station editing films to fit time constraints was like an art gallery chopping off the feet of Michelangelo’s “David” because the ceiling was too low.

He apparently made a couple of converts--temporarily, at least--out of Steve Bell and David Simon, respectively the general manager and program director at KTLA Channel 5.

They’ve decided to air Forman’s Academy Award-winning “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in its entirety Feb. 18--uncut and uncensored, despite language that traditionally has been bleeped on commercial television. A common euphemism for sexual intercourse, for example, is used in the film more than 30 times, according to one KTLA official.

Bell and Simon maintained in an interview that this is an exception to their policies about editing films for television and not the beginning of an “anything goes” trend. It is warranted, they contended, by “One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest’s” stature as what Bell calls a classic film, which would suffer if edited.

He cited the Academy Awards it won in 1975 for best picture, best actor (Jack Nicholson), best actress (Louise Fletcher), best director (Forman) and best screenplay--making it only the second film, after “It Happened One Night” in 1934, to sweep the top Oscar categories.

The film, which is set inside a mental hospital, has aired in its entirety on cable television but was edited for two broadcasts on NBC. This will be its first screening on KTLA. It will run from 7:30 p.m. until approximately 10:15 p.m.

The KTLA executives said their decision to telecast it uncut was influenced in part by Forman’s remarks at a panel at the annual convention of the National Assn. of Television Program Executives in New Orleans last month. Forman, whose other directing credits include “Amadeus” and “Hair,” appeared with fellow directors Warren Beatty and Mark Rydell to discuss how their films are cut for television exhibition.

But Bell and Simon also said that they considered the fact that audience familiarity with explicit language, violence and sexuality has increased with the spread of pay television, and that there is precedent for such strong fare on commercial TV here with KCOP’s presentation of “The Deer Hunter” and KTLA’s own documentary “Scared Straight.”

“This is a big, cosmopolitan city,” Bell said. “The audience is grown-up and can certainly distinguish between what is gratuitous and exploitative and what is an American cinematic masterpiece.”

Simon said KTLA plans to run advisory warnings in its ads for the film, and again on the air before it begins and after each commercial break, cautioning that because of its “explicit language and adult situations,” it is recommended for mature audiences only.

Bell and Simon said that, depending on the audience reaction, they would like to do more of this in the future, when particular films warrant it. But they made clear their belief that most don’t, that some even improve with editing and that, in any case, financial considerations dictate fitting most into the convenient two-hour time block.

NEW SHOWS: Valerie Harper, the former star of “Rhoda,” and Jack Klugman, the former star of “Quincy” and “The Odd Couple,” will be joining the NBC lineup in new comedy shows next month.

They will star back-to-back in, respectively, “Valerie” and “You Again,” which will air Mondays from 8 to 9 p.m., beginning March 3. “TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes,” currently in that time slot, will reappear intermittently as specials, the network said.

Three other NBC series will be shifting time slots in March.

“Remington Steele” already had been slated to give up its 10 p.m. Tuesday period for the news magazine “American Almanac,” which bows in on a weekly basis March 4. The romantic detective show will move to Saturdays at 10 p.m., starting Feb. 22.

It will dislodge “Hunter,” which will move to Tuesdays at 9 p.m., beginning March 4, bumping aside “Riptide.” The latter series will turn up three days later in the 8 p.m. Friday slot, replacing “Misfits of Science,” which will have completed its first-run episodes for the season.

“You Again,” which will get a “sneak preview” presentation Feb. 27 after NBC’s top-rated “The Cosby Show,” stars Klugman as a man whose quiet life is disrupted when his 17-year-old son comes to live with him. John Stamos plays the son and Elizabeth Bennett plays Klugman’s housekeeper.

“Valerie,” also due for a “sneak preview” on March 1, features Harper as the mother of three teen-age boys (Jason Bateman, Danny Ponce and Jeremy Licht). Josh Taylor portrays Harper’s husband, an airline pilot whose job keeps him away from home much of the time.