TV Reviews : ‘Grapevine’ Is Ripe With Ribald Humor

Get the headline Teletype ready: “Dan Quayle Has Coronary.” The VP almost certainly will if he stays up past “Murphy Brown” any of the next few Monday nights to watch “Grapevine” (premiering tonight at 9:30 on CBS, Channels 2 and 8), which almost makes the Candice Bergen show look like a Donald Wildmon/Vatican co-production by comparison.

“Grapevine” may be the most boldly, ribaldly, envelope-pushingly sexual series ever put on prime time by one of the three major networks.

Get ready for more riots.

And proverbial laugh riots? Maybe those, too. Perhaps the most shocking thing about “Grapevine” is that it’s crass and sophisticated in just about equal measure, which makes for one uneven but inordinately engrossing comedy. Some of writer-creator David Frankel’s lines in this sort-of-anthology series are worthy of Benny Hill at best, others closer to Albert Brooks or Woody Allen.

The cheatin’-heavy sexual mores on display here tend toward the disturbingly callous and glib, yet the glibness often has real wit, and occasionally gets much closer to some kind of recognizable truth than you’d imagine.

Frankel’s fractured format has three continuing characters--restaurateur David (Jonathan Penner), girlfriend/cruise exec Susan (Lynn Clark) and brother/sportscaster/lothario Thumper (Steven Eckholdt)--narrating, or “dishing,” a different story each week about the romantic travails of their oversexed friends.

All these pals are young, very, very beautiful, and usually strip down to their skivvies at some point in the show. If that doesn’t sound unpromising enough, factor in a hyper style that mixes MTV-era quick cuts with the conceit of having even incidental characters share their reminiscences with the camera, like an epic phone-company ad.

Somehow, though, this oddball creation actually works--focusing on super-tight editing of one actor after another letting off split-second relationship zingers, but occasionally broken up by a domestic scene that’s wisely allowed to play out at a standard length.

Tonight’s premiere is the weakest of three episodes made available for review: A 26-year-old overweight woman turned bombshell plans to lose her virginity to a sweet mechanic, but gives it up instead to her wily, middle-aged ex-boss. Adultery and commitment also weigh heavy (or, more often, light) in the better shows that follow, with wisdom proffered like “I sometimes think men have two emotions: ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ ” and “When a man says ‘I need more time,’ it means ‘In my next life.’ ”

But to get to the gems, you do have to wade through incest humor, videotaping-in-bed humor, urinal humor, you name it--your propensity for which may determine whether you, like Dan, will want to call it an early night.