LAUGH LINES : PROMISING DEBUT FOR ‘3 GUYS NAKED’

“I’m sorry, boys, but the public just isn’t ready for your kinda music,” says the agent, waggling his cigar. “These days you gotta play stuff that people can dance to.”

Remember that one? Change “music” to “comedy” and you’ve got the storyline of “3 Guys Naked From the Waist Down” at the Pasadena Playhouse (through Sunday). To allay reader anxiety--or save you a trip to Pasadena--nobody literally gets naked in this mini-musical, written by Jerry Colker (words) and Michael Rupert (music). The phrase is a show-biz synonym for being left with egg on one’s face.

This is the story of three young comics who get lucky, get famous and get thrown off the truck, all in virtually the same motion.

Not everything that happens to them is to be believed. It’s hard to imagine three bright, subversive guys signing up for a network sitcom without inquiring what the idea of the show was to be. On the other hand, I liked the part when the guys finally get to perform their kind of material and their agent proves to be right: The public isn’t ready for them.

On balance, “3 Guys” would have been a more interesting show without its book, which says nothing about the cost of instant stardom that hasn’t been said before. (Bruce Feirstein said it last Sunday in a dead-on Calendar piece, “The History of Celebrity in America--in Nine Days.”)

One isn’t convinced, either, that this show needed to be a musical. Does Phil have a child because it’s an integral part of the story or because it gives him a chance to sing “A Father Now”?

And yet “3 Guys” passes the time quite pleasantly in Pasadena. We don’t care that much about Phil, Ted and Kenny as people. But as an act, we can see them making it in a comedy club, a “Bosom Buddies”-style sitcom or even a big movie. Maybe they’re not the Marx Brothers. But they’ve got something.

Phil (Colker) has a problem with his temper. When he’s in a good mood, he’s as lyrical as Fred Astaire. But when he’s in a bad mood, he wants to break your kneecaps. And being from New Jersey (something about his basketball jacket suggests this), it takes very little to put him in a bad mood. You have to be careful around Phil.

Ted (Scott Bakula) is more of an Ivy League type, and a bit of a skunk. He likes to strike up an acquaintance with someone in the audience, whom he will then try to embarrass. He calls himself a “deep” guy, and may even believe this. Women, especially, would do well not to trust Ted.

Kenny (John Kassir) is the quietest and craziest of the three. He might come on stage in a monk’s hood with a noose around his neck and a cassette recorder in his hand, ready to tape his own suicide. Equally, he might walk offstage and not come back. He’s Harpo, the lost one.

They work well together, these three. Sometimes it’s these six. Each has a little Jerry Mahoney-style dummy. When the dummies and their masters get to squabbling, the cross-talk is enchanting. Interestingly, the guys don’t bother to not-move their lips, and we still believe.

All this is quite convincing as post-Steve Martin comedy, and this updated edition of “3 Guys” (the original version played Off Broadway last season) has some welcome cheap shots about Irangate. “This is some fine mess you’ve landed us in, Ollie. . . . “

So we’ve heard “3 Guys” before, and yet we’ve not heard it. Think of it as a debut for a promising, if fictitious, comedy trio which hasn’t quite hit its stride. Anybody can do plots. What Kenny, Ted and Phil need are more routines. They play tonight through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 9 p.m., Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. at 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena, (818) 356-PLAY.