The Topic Is . . . Drivel

Talk shows: fiscally flourishing but intellectually dead.

The last national talk series to stress ideas over idiocy at least some of the time was “The Ron Reagan Show,” a short-lived syndicated hour whose host made a stab at feeding brains rather than libidos.

Although “The Ron Reagan Show” had its clunkers, you could tune in and stand a fair chance of learning something or hearing someone address a topical issue with intelligence.

But lookee here.

Appropriately following raunchy “Benny Hill” on KCAL-TV Channel 9 at 11:30 p.m. these days is “NightTalk With Jane Whitney,” whose Warners Bros. bio contains this paragraph:

“When the guerrillas attacked the Salvadoran president’s house, she was on the air providing an eyewitness account for NBC News. When President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua asked voters to judge the Sandinista revolution, Whitney was one of the few who reported the groundswell for Violetta Chamorra, the silver-haired grandmother who swept to victory.”

Very impressive.

No wonder, then, that the topics of the first batch of her shows that aired in Los Angeles earlier this month were as follows: “Teen Sexual Harassment,” “Casanova Con Artists,” “Sex Addiction,” “Stalked Like Animals” and “Manufactured Macho.”

And this week: “Lesbians,” “Marriage and Weight Gain,” “Older Men, Younger Women,” “Errin Cosby Claims Mike Tyson Tried to Rape Her” and “Plastic Surgery Addiction.”

The show is formulaic, with Whitney operating--and doing a lot of sermonizing--from a studio audience opposite a panel on a stage. Even when her topics have apparent legitimacy, the treatment is mundane, superficial and hyperbolic, making broad generalizations based on narrow samples.

Typical of the genre, titillation is emphasized over illumination.

Even worse, though, is “Cristina,” the new CBS talk series airing at 9 a.m. weekdays on KCBS-TV Channel 2. Havana-born host Cristina Saralegui brings nothing new to the table outside of her Cuban accent.

For some years now the stony Saralegui has hosted another Miami-based talk show on Spanish-language Univision. It’s taken her only a few weeks, however, to lumber across the ground (Gargantuan-bosomed babes, gay husbands, life after death, et al) that Oprah, Phil, Sally Jessy and Geraldo have taken years to wear thin. The big difference is that, unlike them, Cristina has the personality of a brick.

Last Friday’s show, “Doctors in Love,” was a pip. “They spend their entire day examining your most intimate parts,” Saralegui said suggestively about her physically attractive guests: a female urologist, a female gynecologist and two male gynecologists.

“Why did you pick your profession?” Saralegui asked one of the male gynecologists, straining for a sexual twist. “You could have picked other parts of the body. Why that one?”

In Saralegui’s dream of dreams, the doctor would have confessed that he got the idea to become a gynecologist while slobbering over girlie magazines. Much to her dismay, however, this guy and all the other physicians turned out to be straight arrows, and there were no “Doctors in Love,” only a talk-show host in love with exploitation.

Fast Study: When Dallas Judge Catherine Crier joined CNN as a big-time news anchor in 1989, she was presumed to be just another gorgeous face. Skeptics regarded her hiring as an insult to serious journalism, and some CNN hands were especially outraged that such an apparent news lightweight was being paired with thoughtful veteran Bernard Shaw.

What a difference 3 years make.

Crier today is one of CNN’s best and brightest. Not only is her anchoring exemplary, but so is her interviewing. In being able to swiftly process information and make unscheduled hairpin turns during an interview, she gives even ABC’s Ted Koppel a run for his money. She always does her homework, and rarely is caught short.

Plus, she ranks behind no one when it comes to keeping someone on track, evidenced by the manner--it’s almost brutal at times--in which she moderates her own 8:30 a.m. weekday discussion show, “Crier & Co,” a biting half-hour with a refreshing female perspective.

Our Town: The Los Angeles on Huell Howser’s “Videolog Listens” is vastly different than the angry, volatile town you see on local news night after night.

Starting tonight, KCET-TV Channel 28 is airing two weeks of “Videolog Listens” at 7:30, with repeats at midnight, as a temporary replacement for the station’s grand public-affairs series, “Life & Times,” which is on hiatus after its first season. “Videolog Listens” deserves a permanent time slot too.

Accompanied only by camera operator Luis Fuerte, Howser visits Los Angeles neighborhoods and, by having casual discussions with folks and taking the time to celebrate the routine of their lives--no 20-second sound bites here--proves that good news is not necessarily boring.

In fact, “Videolog Listens” is invigorating television, and its unhurried pace is seductive. It opens tonight with a half-hour reminiscent of Studs Turkel’s “Working,” its subjects being a crew of L.A. firefighters who reveal that, with the city’s recent riot still resonating in their minds, they now sometimes wear bulletproof vests on the job. Says one man: “I never thought I’d see the day when a fireman would have to wear a bulletproof vest.”

Meanwhile, no sooner has one firefighter said that he and his colleagues never rescue cats than they are summoned to pull one from a hole. Also on the scene is a camera operator from KABC-TV Channel 7, thinking it was a girl who fell in the hole.

Channel 7 leaves, Howser stays. Viva la difference.

On Tuesday, providing a commercial for education, Howser visits an East Los Angeles learning center for adults, where those he meets include a 74-year-old great-grandmother whose story is inspirational. She talks, he listens, as L.A. is introduced to L.A.

Our Clowns: Who else would they be but those human fright wigs at KCBS-TV Channel 2’s “Action News”? Beating its chest over becoming a two-chopper station, Channel 2 increasingly has been interrupting its afternoon soap operas to bring viewers live, late-breaking news about nothing.

On Friday, the victim was “As the World Turns,” interrupted for a live report of police capturing a fleeing forger at a school occupied by some special-education children. A forger ! Besides the chopper coverage, there in front of the school was anchor Tritia Toyota, getting the scoop from a detective.

“No problems?”

“No.”

“No hostages?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

All right, Tritia . She promised that Channel 2 would have more about the “dramatic capture” of the forger at 5 p.m.

Two choppers, zero brains.