ADVENTURES, CELEBRITIES : ‘GEO’ RANGES THE WORLD ON A BASEMENT BUDGET

Mike Cerre leans back in his chair, bares a toothy grin and talks about the good ol’ boys who sit around the fountains in town squares across America swapping stories to pass the time.

“If you ever sit down with them, you’ll hear some of the greatest stories. And the guy who tells the best stories of all is the fountain man,” he says. “And that’s who I want to be--the fountain man.”

As originator and executive producer of the slick “GEO” documentary series, Cerre may yet win the title. He’s already off to a pretty good start. In just his first year of shooting the quarterly series, he has:

--Sailed through a cyclone near Bora Bora while searching for a transpacific rower.

--Watched .50-caliber machine guns being set up in Bangkok on the eve of a Thai coup.

--Been grabbed by the Hungarian secret police after accidentally snapping a photo of their secretive boss.

--Missed a bombing in Paris’ Metro by five minutes.

--And found himself hanging from a branch 160 feet over a Costa Rican rain forest when his climbing rope snagged.

Not bad. But Cerre (pronounced sir-RAY) is saving his best stories for “GEO’s” fourth show, which will air in more than 100 cities on a syndicated network over the next two weeks. (The program will be seen in Los Angeles Saturday at 1 p.m. on KNBC-TV Channel 4.)

The upscale television magazine draws from five continents and includes stories on sports, mystery, fashion, science and pop culture. Cerre is joined by all-star storytellers Charles Haid of “Hill Street Blues,” “Dynasty’s” Pamela Bellwood and model-actress Lauren Hutton.

Cerre, a smooth talker even for a fountain man, managed to convince the West German publishing giant of Gruner-Jahr that he was doing them a favor by using the name of their prestigious magazine for free. And he’s managed to cling to a budget Scrooge might have drafted by getting a sponsoring airline to cover travel costs and by convincing stars to put up with conditions better suited to vagabonds.

The producer says talent agents complain he doesn’t pay enough and that he doesn’t provide limousines for the celebrities, “ . . . and we say, ‘Let’s get the rules straight: No chauffeurs, we can’t guarantee meals on time, and we fly coach class.’

“The agents don’t like it, but the (stars) love it. And I think the celebrities like to work with us because they want to be perceived in a little different light. They don’t want to be perceived as airheads.”

The stories, inspired by the upbeat styling of GEO magazine, feature well-photographed and tightly edited glimpses into worlds most Americans will never see. The focus is often on the people as much as the subject.

Haid starts off the current show with a report on Australian rules football, a head-bashing spectacle that makes up in action what it lacks in finesse. The segment includes interviews with some of the game’s best players, including a stockbroker who leads the league in scoring and zany Jacko Jackson, whose on-field antics have made him a New Wave pop star.

Bellwood follows the mysterious trail of a former American spy named Jim Thompson, who revolutionized Thailand’s cottage silk industry before disappearing into the highlands of Malaysia. Lo1852252258personal interest.

Hutton’s story on the sensual history of the tango traces its steps from the brothels of Buenos Aires, through the ballrooms of Paris and finally to the Broadway stage.

Cerre climbs to the treetops of the Costa Rican rain forest for a story on naturalist Donald Perry, who explores the biology of the jungle canopy with the help of delicate rope walkways that might leave Indiana Jones feeling a bit wimpy.

The weakest segment shows the faces and flash of the pret-a-porter , which is kind of the crystal ball of French fashion. But even this overly covered story is given new life by emphasis on the designers rather than their designs.

Cerre’s experience as an award-winning reporter in the San Francisco Bay area shows itself both in his direct approach to the subjects and the high quality of the writing. The technical work by his hand-picked associates often surpasses the images offered by the three networks.

Because most of the profits from one show are pumped back into the next, Cerre says the company he runs out of the basement of his Sausalito home is still barely hanging on. And the real adventure for him is trying to line up sponsors while pulling together the stars, subjects, crews and a network of stations interested in airing the finished product.

“We’ve used up all nine of our lives,” said Cerre. “We’ve called in a lot of markers. We’ve really tapped a lot of people to give us their all for low compensation with very difficult deadlines and situations. You can do that once or twice, but you can’t do it on a continuing basis.”