‘Sabotage’

We usually read press releases with half an eye--but, hey, we had to hand it to the folks who concocted the one touting last week’s episode of ABC’s “Sledge Hammer.”

The series, which has done takeoffs on a spate of classic pics (like “Clockwork Orange”), delivered an episode titled “Vertical”--a sort-of homage to Alfred Hitchcock.

That is, the episode (as related by the PR people) places “Detective Sledge Hammer alongside ‘The Birds’ on a precarious ‘Rear Window’ ledge 15 stories, ‘North by Northwest,’ above a street as he was about ‘To Catch a Thief,’ who is under ‘Suspicion.’ Without a ‘Rope,’ or a ‘Lifeboat’ and in ‘Frenzy,’ ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ has a ‘Notorious’ case of ‘Vertigo,’ rendering him virtually ‘Spellbound’ until he can confront his ‘Psycho.’ ”