Ice-T to Host ‘70s Black Film Series on HBO : Cable: The rapper will offer commentary on ‘blaxploitation’ movies with the help of guests. ‘The tone of the show is going to be very playful,’ says an HBO spokesman.

Rapper Ice-T will comment on black-exploitation movies from the 1970s with help from celebrity guests in a new late-night comedy series for HBO that begins shooting next month, the pay-TV company confirmed Tuesday.

Home Box Office Inc. is a unit of Time Warner Inc., which was the target of national protests and boycotts last month for its Warner Bros. record release of the song “Cop Killer” by the controversial performer.

But the half-hour HBO program, called “Ice-TV,” has been in development for six months, before the release of “Cop Killer.” The controversy over the song, which Ice-T dropped from his “Body Count” album two weeks ago, did not have any impact on “Ice-TV,” according to HBO, which has ordered four episodes of the series for next year.

“The tone of the show is going to be very playful,” said HBO spokesman Richard Licata. “It’s more Elvira meets Siskel and Ebert, rather than what you may think would come from Ice-T, which would be a heavy political show.”

Ice-T will not perform musically on “Ice-TV,” although he will record the theme song.

Earlier this year, Ice-T and his manager produced a Sire Records release called “Pimps, Players and Private Eyes,” featuring soundtrack music from such 1970s “blaxploitation” movies as “Shaft,” “The Mack” and “Trouble Man.”

Now, in the same spirit, “Ice-TV” producer Carl Craig, who produced four Robert Townsend comedy specials for HBO, is pursuing rights to some 50 films from that era, including “Superfly,” “Blacula” and “Three the Hard Way.”

Ice-T and celebrity guests--Arnold Schwarzenegger was mentioned as one possibility--will screen clips and comment on them, using the movies as a springboard to talk about pop culture.

“There will be portions where Ice gives his realistic viewpoint of what’s going on around him, current events,” said a source in Ice-T’s management company, Rhyme Syndicate. “But it’s not going to be serious. There’s a flair of comedy involved. They’ll just look at the best, funniest, hippest scenes from these films.”

Ice-T is apparently a fan of black movies from the 1970s, and doesn’t view them in a negative light, even though many were accused of glorifying drug pushers and pimps when they were released.

“We’re just thinking with the resurgence of black directors and filmmakers, which is happening now in the ‘90s, people don’t realize black films were a major thing in the ‘70s,” said the source at Rhyme. “There were a lot of films churned out in the ‘70s that went unnoticed, and we’re going to put them in their historical context.”