TV REVIEW : Weatherman Puts On a Sunny Variety Show

As long as there is weather, Fritz Coleman will always have at least one easy job to fall back on.

But Coleman, KNBC-TV’s warm weeknight weatherguy who moonlights in comedy clubs as a stand-up comic and even turns up occasionally on “The Tonight Show,” does a pretty smooth job of running a comedy-variety hour too.

Not that anyone is going to die laughing at “Fritz,” Coleman’s variety special tonight at 9:30 on Channel 4. But the show’s relaxed, we’re-just-having-a-little-fun-here attitude and brisk pace keep the entertainment level from ever sinking too low for too long.

Coleman delivers some sharp lines about the old year’s events (he says the Iranian navy is a bunch of “wind surfers with Uzis”) and his new experience as a father (most maternity clothes look like fashions you would “find at a Sears in Czechoslovakia”).

Veteran L.A. rockers Jack Mack and the Heart Attack supply some energized shots of soul music. Starr Parodi is the hot one-woman house band and comedian Pam Stone’s stand-up routine is peppered with good stuff.

Interest wanes several times, as when an audience member takes a current events test. But little surprises such as a Gorbachev look-alike, complete with purple splotch on his forehead, pick things up. So do the arrival of Dancing Danny of the Lakers and the Doo-Dah Parade’s Synchronized Briefcase Drill Team.

No one will ever accuse Coleman of being too hip for any room, even the rec room. But if Coleman were given a team of bright and crazy writers like another ex-TV weatherman, David Letterman, it’s not too hard to envision him hosting a national talk show.

For now though, Coleman, producer Ernest Chambers and director Terry Kyne have whipped up a better than decent hour of mid-level frivolity that hardly suffers at all from its heavy local content.