Heeeere’s Ernani! : L.A. City Councilman Stars in His Own Cable TV Talk Show

It was Friday evening on United Cable Television, and in viewers’ homes across the East San Fernando Valley a shot of Los Angeles City Hall faded to a darkened room where four men sat, silhouetted, around a broad table.

This was no “Dragnet” re-run. It was the first episode of Councilman Ernani Bernardi’s talk show, featuring newspaper reporters talking about their favorite topic: current events.

Billed as the local version of “Washington Week in Review,” Bernardi’s “Los Angeles News in Review” is scheduled to run every two weeks on Channel 45. Bernardi and his producer, retired Los Angeles Times reporter Erwin Baker, plan to distribute a tape of the show to cable stations around the Los Angeles Basin for possible future broadcast.

Bernardi, who at 77 is the dean of the council, said he came up with the idea after discovering that most people get their news from television. “What do you get from television? Nothing,” he said.

Bernardi is the moderator. Despite his reputation for loud interruptions of his colleagues during council meetings, he vowed to let the reporters do the talking.

“I have to shout at them to get the message through,” he said of his council antics. “But tonight is the reporters’ show, not mine. . . . If they fall on their face, that’s their problem.”

His first guests were Bill Boyarsky of the Los Angeles Times, Rick Orlov of the Los Angeles Daily News and John Schwada of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

The subject was hardly light and airy for an amateur debut: the investigation of Mayor Tom Bradley and the more general problems of political ethics.

At 6:30 p.m., Bernardi was ready for the 7 p.m. taping--natty tan suit, powdered pate, miniature microphone clipped to his lapel. He was the only cast member present.

“You know reporters. They’re always late,” he said, hardly pacing at all.

Then they arrived, one by one. Everyone was jovial.

“I’m not like Nixon, I don’t sweat,” Boyarsky told the makeup man.

“My distinguished colleagues . . .,” Orlov said during his sound check.

“You got a restroom around here?” Schwada asked as the countdown began.

The dry run of Bernardi’s introduction boded badly. “Tonight we are ina, inauga, inagurating . . . They give me these big words to say. I’m better with dees, dems and does,” he said, breaking into a grin.

Then cameras began to whir and everyone froze.

But considering the lack of rehearsal and the inexperienced crew of Valley College students, who studio manager Scott Merrifield said were “scared to death,” the program went amazingly well.

There were no noticeable pauses. No indecipherable word garbles. No fistfights.

After the first few minutes, only remnants of initial jitters remained.