‘Real Life’ May Be a Real Hit for Jane Pauley

TV or not TV. . . .

GOAL TO GO: Round Two tonight for NBC’s “Real Life With Jane Pauley.”

If the featurish newsmagazine keeps scoring as well in the ratings as in last week’s premiere, it seems sure to crack the network’s regular lineup this season.

NBC News President Michael Gartner, eating crow since Pauley was forced off “Today,” told TV columnists here on their summer tour:

“I wish she were on ‘Nightly News’ every night with Tom (Brokaw). I wish she were on the ‘Today’ show every morning with Bryant (Gumbel) and Willard (Scott) and Deborah (Norville) and everybody else. I wish she were a third co-anchor on ‘Sunday Today.’ And I’d like it very much if she’d do the ‘news-at-this-hour’ updates.”

He was kidding--I think.

Pauley says that while many viewers are “pulling for me,” she doesn’t believe that will draw them to the show: “No, I don’t. Absolutely not.”

Not forever, anyway.

When the second installment of “Real Life” airs at 10 tonight, its competition will be two reruns--the CBS TV-movie “Tarzan in Manhattan” and ABC’s “thirtysomething,” which Pauley walloped last week.

GUNS OF AUGUST: Two major TV gambles--the switching of “Twin Peaks” to Saturdays and Fox’s tossing of “The Simpsons” against “The Cosby Show”--may yield clues to the future within just weeks from now.

But an unexpected first challenge for “Twin Peaks” comes from Madonna.

ABC’s spooky soap opera begins summer reruns with a repeat of its two-hour premiere Sunday, Aug. 5.

But that’s the same night that HBO will present--at exactly the same time, from 9 to 11--its concert from Europe, “Madonna--Live! Blond Ambition World Tour 90.”

And many of the same viewers who might be part of the “Twin Peaks” audience figure to watch Madonna instead.

On Aug. 23, meanwhile, “The Simpsons” and “The Cosby Show” finally square off, although both are in reruns.

It’ll be miraculous if “The Simpsons,” going into its third rerun cycle, continues to hold up. But it’s red-hot, and animated shows often fare better in repeats than live-action series.

Nonetheless, a “Cosby” source is delighted that new “Simpsons” episodes won’t arrive until mid- or late October.

And NBC, the “Cosby” network, thinks that its longtime champ--rather than the youth-oriented “Simpsons”-- will inherit the older viewers of Dan Rather’s “48 Hours,” which is leaving the Thursday time slot.

ON THE ROPES: Filmmaker Roger Corman visits NBC’s “Later With Bob Costas” in a two-parter starting tonight, and he recalls making “Machine Gun Kelly” with Charles Bronson:

“He and I were sparring one time by the side of the set and I kind of put out a left. He knocked the left down and came in and very lightly put, I would say, 20 blows into my stomach within maybe 10 seconds. . . . I never sparred with Charlie Bronson again.”

NIGHT WATCH: “Saturday Night Live” regular Nora Dunn isn’t expected back next season, but “she is not being punished” for refusing to appear when Andrew Dice Clay was a guest, says NBC’s Brandon Tartikoff.

ON THE HOUSE: C-SPAN says you can expect to see more sessions of Britain’s House of Commons now that the often rowdy, boisterous parliamentary body approved permanent TV coverage of its proceedings last week. Much more fun than our stuffy old Congress.

UPSTAGED: That cow-calling woman guest was a lot funnier than Roseanne Barr and husband Tom Arnold on Johnny Carson’s show the other night.

PURIST: A letter-writer asked Dave Letterman, “If Ivory Soap is only 99 and 44/100% pure, what’s the other 56/100% and why is it still in there?”

CHANGE OF HABIT: If you flipped around cable at 10 p.m. Friday, you could have seen “Frank’s Place” on Black Entertainment Television and “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” on Lifetime. And that’s why some viewers are deserting networks.

FRENCH PASTRY: That was some double feature that KCET Channel 28 ran on Saturday night--Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” followed by Max Ophuls’ “La Ronde.” It’s the kind of programming that keeps public TV fresh--and healthy.

DATE BOOK: We almost missed it, but KCET is packaging Huell Howser’s swell “Videolog” shorts about Southern California as a weekly half-hour series on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Title: “Videolog Summer.” It repeats Sundays at 6:30 p.m.

MUSICOLOGY: The usually dependable anchor Jann Carl of KTLA Channel 5 must have made Cab Calloway fans cringe when she called his classic song “Minnie and Moocher.”

DISCOVERY: It’s been called “the best newscast that no one’s ever seen”--but you should seek it out: “World Monitor,” with John Hart, on the Discovery channel at 4:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. weekdays.

FAST COPY: Strong casting in CBS’ new fall series “WIOU,” about a failing local TV news department--John Shea, Helen Shaver, Mariette Hartley, Harris Yulin and Dick Van Patten. And this exchange between a woman anchor and a producer: Anchor--”I just want to be good.” Producer: “And they (management) just want you to be good-looking.”

FINE WINE: Told myself I wouldn’t watch Billy Wilder’s “Sabrina” again last weekend on American Movie Classics. But of course I did. I always do. Bogie . . . Audrey Hepburn . . . sublime.

Say good night, Gracie. . . .