The Sour and the Saccharine

You tellin’ me there’s a short, middle-aged Jewish guy who talks with a thick Yiddish accent like this ? And he lives with his mother ? And he’s havin’ a relationship with the 6-foot Catholic woman next door ? But his mother doesn’t know and he’s afraid to tell her because she wants him to marry a Jewish goil? And this is supposed to be funny ?

It will be to die-hard Jackie Mason fans, perhaps. Otherwise, ABC’s “Chicken Soup” is a matzo bomb, a stereotyping, gimmick comedy premiering at 9:30 tonight (on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42) in a time slot behind the hit “Roseanne” that guarantees enormous exposure, if not instant hitdom.

This gives ABC back-to-back former stand-up comics in Roseanne Barr and Mason. A veteran ethnic comedian who has rejuvenated his career in recent years, the Mason of “Chicken Soup” is Jackie Fisher, who begins and ends each episode with a monologue on the roof of the apartment where he has a flat that he now shares with his pushy mother, Bea (Rita Karin).

Karin makes an appealing Bea, a relatively modern woman who nevertheless would be horrified to learn that Jackie had a little something going with Maddie Peerce (Lynn Redgrave), “the shiksa next door” who is a widow and mother of three. Will Bea find out? The tension mounts.

Jewish comedies have an old, if spotty, tradition on TV, starting in 1949 with “The Goldbergs,” starring Gertrude Berg. “Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Bloom!” Molly Goldberg would shout to her neighbor in the Bronx.

Making Molly sound like a nun, however, Mason’s exaggerated Jewish character works much better in stand-up comedy--as isolated farce--than in a set piece as part of an ensemble. Credibility is stretched when Jackie Fisher turns out to be more of an old woman than his mother. And as a romantic item, Jackie and Maddie are as hard a sell as most of tonight’s jokes.

Yoo-hoo and goodby.

ABC’s lead-in strategy is clear here: “Roseanne” delivers a huge audience to “Chicken Soup,” which then passes on its huge audience to “Life Goes On,” the 7 p.m. Sunday series that is being introduced at 10 tonight, with the premiere to be rerun at 9 p.m. Friday.

The best that can be said for “Life Goes On” is that it’s historic: TV’s first series featuring a mentally retarded character played by someone who is mentally retarded. That’s a fine precedent and another door opened for actors with disabilities.

The purpose of this drama may be to make your heart melt, but it’s your patience that melts first in a slow-moving premiere that is so warming that it creates its own heat wave while acquainting you with the middle-class Thachers:

Drew Thacher (Bill Smitrovich) is a construction worker who is trying to scrape together the money to start his own business. Libby Thacher (Patti LuPone) worries about turning 40. Their biggest concern tonight, though, is their middle son, Corky (Chris Burke), an 18-year-old with Down’s syndrome who is being “mainstreamed” into a public high school as a freshman. Paige Thacher (Monique), who has just returned home after breaking up with her boyfriend, is supportive of Corky. But the Thachers’ younger daughter, Rebecca, is a freshman herself, and fears she’ll be embarrassed by Corky’s presence.

The nice cast provides a few nice moments, and the hour is best when dealing honestly with Corky’s limitations as well as his strengths. As his mother says: “He can only do what he can do.”

He can do plenty, as it turns out, for it appears that Corky’s role in this series will be to inspire everyone he meets. His assimilation turns out to be an exercise in predictability. After placing a series of obstacles in Corky’s path, executive producer Michael Braverman’s script then proceeds to artificially knock them down one by one, allowing Corky to reach the end of this rosy hugfest unbruised and with great prospects for becoming the toast of the freshman class.

Life goes on, and so does TV.