Television Review : A Comedy Whose Time Has Passed

“Working Trash,” starring George Carlin and Ben Stiller as a pair of Wall Street janitors turned crafty inside traders, is a dubiously timed comedy about the stock market, airing at 8 tonight, Channels 11 and 6.

The Fox Broadcasting Co.’s first original TV movie, launching “Fox Night at the Movies,” is a feckless romance about love and money and the little guys outwitting the big guys. But in the wake of a decade of scandals on Wall Street, the gaudy spree depicted in this story looks quaintly dated.

This is a comedy for the greedy ‘80s that has the ill-gotten luck to come out in the ‘90s. Real-life events have robbed the movie of its bite. There is one timely image, though, of a pair of crooked brokers (the dastardly Jack Blessing and Dan Castellaneta) pushing brooms in a jail.

Buddy Ebsen’s corporate snoozer, Leslie Hope’s vivid broker and Michael J. Pollard’s quirky shoeshine man (a performance that veers on the comatose) lend support. Carlin (who is testament to a theory which holds that older men look silly in ponytails) and especially Spiller are affable.

But the pleasant discovery, a character who stands out and steals the show even though she’s only on camera for a few scenes, is the nervous, loopy, tall brunette (Lisa Montgomery) who plays Ebsen’s secretary. She’s delicious, the quintessential not-so-airy airhead.