Two ABC Sleepers Are Snoozers Too : Programming: ‘Full House’ and ‘Family Matters’ have two things in common: Both are bland fare and both contain key title words that are audience-grabbers . . . <i> house </i> and <i> family.</i>

TV or not TV . . .

GO FIGURE: You could have retired to Fiji by now if you had bet that the ABC sitcoms “Full House” and “Family Matters” would be major hits.

Bland is beautiful.

Would you believe that this Friday-night pairing is now right up there in the ratings with such other hit TV tandems as “Murphy Brown” and “Designing Women,” as well as “The Golden Girls” and “Empty Nest”?

“Full House” obviously isn’t too mentally demanding on its cast because the star, Bob Saget, also has time to host another weekly ABC series, “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

What are “Full House” and “Family Matters” about? Basically, they’re about kismet. The message is that if you put the words house and family in the titles of TV shows early on Friday nights, when many families presumably are together in the house, you are probably a genius.

OK, OK. In our admittedly few, brief, futile attempts to hang in there with these two family sitcoms over the last several seasons, we sensed a dollop of energy and friendliness on the screen. That may account for a lot--maybe everything.

No use being snide. Some things are just too deep and complex to analyze. In TV terms, all that matters is that ABC has the sleeper combination of this season in “Full House” and “Family Matters.”

COURT OF APPEAL: With NBC’s “Night Court” renewed for its ninth season this fall, everyone who’s gotten rich off the series should say a little “thank you” each day to “The Cosby Show.”

In case you’ve forgotten, the extraordinary lead-in strength of “Cosby” at its zenith helped create major hits out of the series that followed it--”Family Ties,” “Cheers,” “A Different World” and “Night Court.”

Without “Cosby,” there’s a strong possibility that none of these series, even including “Cheers” and “Family Ties,” would have achieved the phenomenal success that they reached as part of television’s strongest night of shows.

In the 1986-87 season, for instance, “The Cosby Show,” “Family Ties,” “Cheers” and “Night Court” were all among TV’s top seven series.

PAST PERFECT: The March issue of Egg magazine offers a nifty list of “100 favorite moments in television,” and we thought we’d pass on a few. To wit:

“Lucy mirrors Harpo (on ‘I Love Lucy’) . . . . Simka marries Latka (on ‘Taxi’) . . . . Maddie does David (on ‘Moonlighting’) . . . . John and Yoko co-host with Mike (on ‘The Mike Douglas Show’) . . . . Sonny & Cher reunite to sing ‘I Got You Babe’ (on David Letterman’s series) . . . . Mario Cuomo delivers the keynote address (at the 1984 Democratic convention).

“Joan Rivers gives out Victoria Principal’s home phone number on the air (on Rivers’ late-night Fox show) . . . . Miss Jane Pittman drinks from the water fountain (in ‘The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman’) . . . . Maude has an abortion (on ‘Maude’) . . . . Kirk Gibson hits a ninth-inning home run off Dennis Eckersley (in the 1988 World Series).”

AFTERTHOUGHTS: Peter Arnett, whose CNN war reports from Baghdad made him the center of controversy, was asked by talk-show host Larry King, “Were you fully aware of how much you were discussed back here?”

“To tell you the truth, I was not,” said Arnett after leaving the Iraqi capital. “I think that was a conscious decision by CNN. . . . I think they made the decision to keep the brickbats and the praise away from my ears. Another factor was that every communication was being monitored by the Iraqi government. I think my company decided the less I knew about what was going on, what was being said, the better, certainly for me. And certainly, they didn’t want to let the Iraqi government into too much.”

Asked by King whether he agreed with CNN’s handling of the matter, Arnett said:

“Yes, I certainly do. I think it would have been disturbing for me. It would have taken my mind off the important matter of finding information out and trying to figure out how to deliver it without endangering CNN’s position in Baghdad, endangering our continued coverage from there.”

DRAWING BOARD: Paula Zahn, co-anchor of “CBS This Morning,” will host the 1992 Winter Olympics with Tim McCarver, which means she’ll spend three weeks in prime time. Since she debuted on “This Morning” one year ago, the show’s ratings have gone up 9%, an increase of 235,000 viewers.

MUSIC PLUS: What an inspired idea: ABC’s “Life Goes On” used Leon Redbone as a mystical, musical narrator of an episode in which Chris Burke, the young actor with Down’s syndrome, got lost in a tough Chicago neighborhood. Good, gritty, lovely television.

BILLING: Whoever gave Robert Mitchum and Robert Young the headline in TNT’s press release for the 1947 film “Crossfire”--which airs April 2--is hereby informed that this movie belonged lock, stock and barrel to the late Robert Ryan as a sadistic, anti-Semitic soldier. Next to him, everyone was wallpaper.

FAST FADE: All that early-season publicity about the raunchiness of CBS’ “Uncle Buck” series didn’t help the show at all. It’s now almost invisible in the ratings. No tears, please.

THE BUZZ: There’s talk that Julie Andrews may do a pilot for an ABC series. The network says there has been contact, but that there’s no deal yet.

MISSING LINK: “Married . . . With Children” and “In Living Color” just don’t have the same hot aura that surrounded them when they were joined by “The Simpsons” in Fox’s Sunday lineup.

SIGN OF THE TIMES: Many show-business figures got their start as NBC pages, and the closing of that department in Burbank is another indication of just how hard-pressed the networks are.

BEING THERE: “My name is Rhoda Morgenstern. I was born in the Bronx, New York, in December of 1941. I’ve always felt responsible for World War II.”--Valerie Harper in “Rhoda.”

Say good night, Gracie . . .