The Ollie Show

Forum Home Video hopes Ollie fans will salute its new stocking stuffer, “Lt. Colonel Oliver North’s Secret Slide Show,” due in video stores Dec. 16 for $24.98. It offers the famous pro-Contra slides that the Iran-Contra investigating committee nixed for broadcast during its inquiry (Ollie, you’ll recall, was only allowed to describe ‘em).

The first 20 minutes: Ollie at the Iran-Contra hearings . . . Reagan at a press conference . . . the Contras at play . . . more emotional Ollie at the hearing . . . Reagan fielding another question . . . a beaming Contra showing his gun to the camera--and so on.

Then come the secret slides, which Forum obtained from an “independent news organization”: 60-odd pictures of Soviet tanks, over-head shots of strategic communist air bases, world maps, baseball fields, etc.

Not exactly a showstopper. Which reminds us that earlier this year, an Ollie doll bombed (230 orders instead of an anticipated 20,000), and MPI Video of Chicago produced 102,000 copies of “Oliver North: Memo to History” but sold only half, mostly in D.C.

Cathy Mantegna, Forum’s ad-pub veep, is undaunted: “There are enough news junkies out there who want to see this.” She reminded us that Forum’s first Ollie project, “Oliver North: His Story,” sold 40,000 when first released.

Neither Ollie nor the Contras benefit from sales, added Mantegna: “Oliver’s not involved.”