A Return to Live Series TV? For Jon Lovitz, Yeah, That’s the Ticket

America’s best-known liar (professional politicos aside) is returning to live television, ready for prime time.

In the ‘80s Jon Lovitz made “ Yeaaah , that’s the ticket” into “Saturday Night Live’s” insinuating all-purpose emblem. Now having established himself as a big-screen character actor, with two summer features soon to be released, he’s returning to series TV with a ‘50s Golden Age of Television concept: the live theatrical teleplay.

Modestly titled, “The Please Watch the Jon Lovitz Special” airs live Sunday (it’ll be tape-delayed out here) as a Fox pilot, with--as the Master Thespian, another Lovitz character, might unctuously declaim--surprise guest stars, including Sharon Stone, Rob Reiner and Ed O’Neill.

Lovitz calls the new show “kind of a throwback” but with a “twist on it.” And, he says, it’s the perfect vehicle for him.

“After I left ‘Saturday Night Live,’ it was like I had this skill--you know, writing comedy and performing on live TV. If you said, ‘Job Wanted: Performer for Three-Camera Live Television Sketch Comedy,’ well, I can do that. It’s what I do.”

Like his high-profile summer picture, “A League of Their Own,” starring Madonna, Geena Davis and Tom Hanks, Lovitz’s special is baseball-themed. But “League” wasn’t the first time Lovitz worked with the Material Girl. “The first thing I ever did on (“SNL”) was with her,” he says. “She just never complained, and she always wanted to rehearse.”

In shooting “League,” Lovitz says, “the days they had baseball practice, she’d be running eight miles before practice started. She seemed exactly the same as she was seven years ago. I like her.”

His mix of big-screen roles and TV suits Lovitz just fine too. “I’m having the life I’ve always dreamed of,” the actor-comedian says. “On the whole it’s great.”