Funnyman Gets Serious About Unemployment : Television: Radio’s Brian Phelps documents the plight of his jobless father today on ‘Home.’

In a departure from his role as half of the top-rated duo of morning drive-time funnymen on KLOS, Brian Phelps is scheduled to tackle the issue of unemployment on ABC-TV’s “Home” show this morning.

Last week on KLOS’ “Mark and Brian Show,” Phelps told listeners that his father, Art Phelps, had lost his job a few days earlier after 27 years as a supervisor at a grain elevator company outside of Moline, Ill.

The disclosure elicited an emotional outpouring of calls from other jobless people as well as from potential employers offering jobs to Phelps’ father and other unemployed persons, said KLOS officials.

And when Phelps took a trip last week to Cambridge, Ill., to offer support to his father, the “Home” show cameras went with him to document the plight of the laid-off worker, symbolized by the elder Phelps.

The 10-minute segment, scheduled to air at 10 a.m. today, features Brian Phelps at home with his father sharing a frank conversation.

“This son can make me laugh anytime,” said Art Phelps to “Home” reporter Robin Young. “And I needed to be able to laugh. I’m not one to wallow in self-pity but . . I needed Brian to hang onto to tell me, ‘Hey, we’ll sue the bastards.’ I needed a rock.

“I feel somewhat betrayed,” he continued. “Even my family has suffered a little over the years because of my commitment to the job. All of the times I didn’t make Brian’s football games. It all comes floating back to me right now.”

At first, the elder Phelps did not want to tell his son about losing his job.

“All of my life I’ve been able to make it on my own,” he said. “Even though (Brian is) bigger than I am, I always felt he looked up to me. I felt I deserved that respect, but all of a sudden in the course of 10 minutes I go from that position down to the bottom. You lose your self-esteem and don’t want to look at people in the eye.”

Brian Phelps tells the interviewer that learning one’s father has lost his job is “like seeing your father get run over by a car and there’s nothing you can do about it. And you say, ‘Oh my God, that’s my dad,’ but there’s nothing you can do.”

Phelps initially refused to allow cameras to accompany him on his trip home fearing exploitation of his father, according to “Home” show spokeswoman Patty McTeague, but then changed his mind when he concluded that a lot of people could benefit from a frank discussion of sudden joblessness.

The segment also offers advice to the newly unemployed as well as to their families.