Cable Official Wants Local Show Axed : TV: Administrator says a public access comedy program lost its right to air after its co-host urged viewers to bash gays.

West Hollywood’s cable television regulator has called for the suspension of a public access comedy program that he says urged violence against gays during a recent show.

Ian Tanza, cable administrator for the city, maintains that the controversial program “Dino and Rocco’s Back Alley” lost its right to air over the Century Cable Television system when a co-host signed off a live call-in show by telling viewers, “If you haven’t bashed a gay today, do it tomorrow.”

David DiNatale, the co-host who made the remark, said he did not intend to encourage violence against gays and acknowledged that it was stupid. He said the remark may have reflected his frustration with the way the half-hour call-in program had disintegrated into a stream of profanity-laden insults from viewers.

“Some unprofessional stuff might have come out that shouldn’t have,” DiNatale said, offering to make an on-air apology.

Tanza said an attorney for the cable company told him that, although the program apparently violated Century’s public access rules, he had decided to issue a warning to the producers, rather than bar the show. The New York-based attorney declined to comment.

Tanza oversees Century’s overall performance in serving West Hollywood’s 14,300 cable homes, but has no voice in the content of its shows. He said he has complained to Century officials about previous “Dino and Rocco” programs, but said the Jan. 11 show went “beyond sick humor.” He criticized company officials for not issuing warnings earlier or monitoring the show more closely.

“Gay-bashing is up around the city and it’s a problem everywhere,” Tanza said. “What concerned me was that some 15-year-old kids are going to see this and have a few beers and go out and beat somebody up.”

Tanza asked West Hollywood City Atty. Michael Jenkins to review a tape of the program to see if producers may have violated hate crime laws. Jenkins said he has viewed parts of it but has made no determination yet.

Though the taped program normally appears late at night, the live show aired at noon over Century’s local public access system, which is wired to about 166,000 homes on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley.

Through franchise agreements with the communities served, Century sets aside designated channels and provides taping equipment for public use. Users are required to abide by company guidelines, which include a ban on material inciting violence.

Gail Fetzer, Century’s local public access supervisor, said the company must be careful not to infringe on users’ free speech rights. She described the “Dino and Rocco” show as “crude and pointless,” but said it was difficult to judge whether it was so offensive as to warrant censorship.

“It’s an interpretation,” Fetzer said. “I’d rather err on the side of caution and allow it than push a panic button.”

For more than a year, DiNatale and co-host Todd Colby have cultivated an image as bad boys of public access television through crude jokes and skits that often rely on negative racial or sexual stereotypes--gays are a frequent target--and bathroom humor. Straddling graffiti-spattered trash cans, the two stab at the air, hurling schoolyard taunts and, according to DiNatale, saying “things that people want to say but are afraid to.”

A recent program opened with Colby pretending to vomit what appeared to be oatmeal into a toilet bowl that is a central part of the show’s set. At another point, the two displayed racist material purportedly sent from a supporter of presidential aspirant David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader. The next shot showed two actors in blackface and wigs wolfing down wedges of watermelon and mumbling exclamations.

In other routines, the hosts sang and danced as Hasidic Jewish lawyers, designed “fag flags” for gay-rights demonstrators and proposed team logos depicting Americans Indians as thieves and drunks.

The program has brought Colby and DiNatale notoriety, if not acclaim, and produced a list of critics that includes representatives of gay-rights groups and Jewish organizations.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, called the program juvenile and beneath contempt. He said that although he and others had been offended by the show, the center had registered no formal complaints in order not to draw more attention to the program.

Tanza said residents had called him to complain that the show had served to incite violence against homosexuals. West Hollywood has a large gay population and is an important social center for the area’s gay community.

“These two guys for the past year or so have been pushing the envelope of propriety,” Tanza said. “People are committing violent acts against gays. . . . It’s programs like this that fuel those terrible acts.

DiNatale, 31, acknowledged that the show at times had used inappropriate images for comedic shock value. He said that some of those, such as the actors in blackface, would be discontinued. But he denied that the show was racist or encouraged violence against anyone.

“It’s done in fun,” DiNatale said. “We haven’t done anything that hasn’t been done before.”

He said his goal for the show is to go “one step further than (Howard) Stern,” the controversial broadcast personality, and to attract the kind of notice that might vault the producers from public access to higher profile television work.