Laughs From the Past: Milton Berle’s Big Week

TV or not TV. . . .

LAUGH TRACKS: Great chance tonight to compare TV comedy past and present.

From the past, it’s Milton Berle and Lucille Ball co-starring from 8 to 10 p.m. in a couple of old specials on KTTV Channel 11.

From the present, in the same two hours, ABC offers “Who’s the Boss?,” “Head of the Class,” “Roseanne” and “Coach.”

Progress?

Flip around and decide for yourself.

It is, meanwhile, a big week for Berle:

On Sunday, he’s featured on KCET Channel 28’s “Great Performances” program, “The World of Jewish Humor,” introducing footage of Eddie Cantor and Fanny Brice.

Others highlighted on the 8-10 p.m. show include Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, Billy Crystal, the Marx Brothers, Jackie Mason, Joan Rivers and the great vaudeville team of Smith & Dale.

A COUPLE OF SWELLS: Those Sid Caesar-Imogene Coca shows on the new Ha! channel alone are reason enough to demand that your cable company carry the service. Ha! is vastly superior to its competitor, the Comedy Channel.

CUT RATE: KCOP Channel 13, which already carries reruns of “The Cosby Show,” has nailed down “Roseanne” repeats as well, starting in 1992. The reported price per episode for “Roseanne” was about $150,000--half as much as KCOP paid for “Cosby.”

UPSCALE: Oprah Winfrey looks better now that she’s put on some weight again. Seems more natural, more real.

THE INVISIBLE MAN: If Warren Littlefield is the new president of NBC Entertainment, how come Brandon Tartikoff, who moved upstairs, still seems to make most of the big announcements?

BIG BART: Sure, NBC’s “The Cosby Show” is still winning on Thursdays, but “The Simpsons” has done everything that Fox TV hoped and predicted it would--finishing a strong second.

MISSING LINK: Stepfanie Kramer’s departure from “Hunter” apparently has hurt the series more than NBC expected. If the ratings continue to waffle, it could be the show’s last season because the pairing of Fred Dryer and Kramer was what made it click.

FINISH LINE: Can’t imagine why ABC would continue the Diane Sawyer-Sam Donaldson “PrimeTime Live” series after its two-year commitment runs out this season. It’s hard to think of a more disappointing, misguided series, given the real chemistry between the anchors in live promotions before their show debuted.

WILD THING: I’ll miss “Cop Rock,” warts and all. But there’s no truth to the rumor that ABC is developing a series called “News Rock,” about a newspaper where editors and reporters burst into song while working on stories.

THE FRANCHISE: With Angela Lansbury making an unexpectedly strong showing this season in “Murder, She Wrote,” wouldn’t it behoove CBS to at least think about trying to woo her back for another year?

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: If memory serves, Malcolm Muggeridge, the acerbic British journalist who died recently, once said on American television that he didn’t vote “because it only encourages them.”

WINNING TICKET: You can catch the Nobel Prize ceremonies on cable’s TBS superstation Dec. 15, at 8:05 p.m., with Mike Farrell (“MASH”) as host.

ALL-PRO: If you’re lucky, you’ve caught Ray Stricklyn’s one-man stage show as Tennessee Williams, “Confessions of a Nightingale.” And Wednesday at 9 p.m., the gifted actor guest-stars on KCOP’s “Shades of L.A.” series, playing an old science teacher in a performance that had crew members calling us with praise.

VERDICT: What if they gave a TV season and nobody came? That’s what’s happened.

ABOUT TIME: If all those hams can have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, then so should KCBS Channel 2’s Ruth Ashton Taylor, a credit to Los Angeles TV and radio news for four decades. And she will, too. The ceremony is set for Dec. 13.

TIMING: NBC has been getting killed Sundays at 8 p.m., so Dec. 9 it has scheduled an hour about Robert Redford--and imagine, it’s just in time for his new movie, “Havana.” The TV show’s called “Robert Redford: The Man, the Movies and the Myth.” Myth? What myth? What have we been mything?

OLD IRONSIDES: Caught Walter Cronkite on C-SPAN in a session at Harvard, and there he was hammering away at two points that he never tires of making: (1) TV is not enough for news--you have to read; (2) He doesn’t like the way features have replaced hard news on the networks’ nightly roundups.

ALL-POINTS BULLETIN: When are we going to get another series from “Moonlighting” creator Glenn Gordon Caron? Come home. All is forgiven.

WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER: The November Nielsen ratings sweeps end Wednesday, and the top show was a tribute to a series that’s in its ninth season, “Cheers.” That says it all.

SLEUTH: How’s this for an inspired TV premise? A 1930s private eye (played by Tony Peck, Greg’s son) has as his clients famous novelists working in Hollywood: F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Dashiell Hammett. His job: Research their film scripts and provide clues for the ending. The premise is being turned into a drama series for cable’s Arts & Entertainment channel. You sure won’t find it on CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox.

BEING THERE: “There are cookies in the jar and milk in the refrigerator.” --Donna Reed in “The Donna Reed Show.”

Say good night, Gracie. . . .