Move Over, Jay, Arsenio, David, Dennis and . . .

He stands.

Behind him is the curtain, facing him the studio audience, the camera and millions of faceless Americans preparing, once again, to be sent off to bed with an hour of light amusement and verbal vapor loosely defined as communication.

He speaks.

“Anyway, so how many of you saw Bill Clinton. . . .”

He finishes the joke, then waits for the audience to finish laughing.

He could be Carson or Leno or. . . .

But he’s not. He’s Garry Shandling, playing fictional Larry Sanders, focal point of television’s latest satiric probe of that evening institution that originated in 1951 with a short-lived NBC series called “Broadway Open House,” which was succeeded four years later by the future golden goose of the genre, “Tonight!” Later, it became “The Tonight Show.”

Steve Allen . . . Jack Parr . . . Johnny Carson . . . Jay Leno . . . David Letterman . . . Arsenio Hall . . . Dick Cavett . . . Merv Griffin . . . Pat Sajak . . . Alan Thicke . . . Joan Rivers . . . Dennis Miller. And so on and so on, with many such shows--where the host sits behind a desk and trades lines with a blur of Zsa Zsas who spew mostly blather from the couch--congealing into an anonymous monolith.

The traditional, good old-fashioned talk show.

SCTV’s “The Sammy Maudlin Show,” the syndicated “My Talk Show” and Norman Lear’s “Fernwood 2-Night,” which later became “America 2Night,” all had their fun at the expense of the talk show.

But none gave it as good as “The Larry Sanders Show,” a 13-part parody arriving at 10:30 p.m. Saturday on HBO. Real talk shows should be as acutely funny.

In fact, “The Larry Sanders Show” at times is a twin of the real thing, from its “Tonight Show”-cloned set to its Letterman-style theme to its cameos of such stars as Dana Delany, Jon Lovitz and Carol Burnett playing themselves. Much like “Tanner ‘88,” HBO’s brilliant political satire of four years ago, “The Larry Sanders Show” makes its point by smudging the line separating mockery and reality.

That is its strength--that and a very strong cast and an ability to slip behind the talk show’s curtain of forced amiability to spoof the hypocrisies, fragile egos and bottom-line pragmatism that exist off camera. To say nothing of insincerity. This is a world in which characters speak circuitously, rarely saying what they’re really thinking.

As a comic whose own career was boosted by talk shows (he even subbed for Carson on “The Tonight Show”), star/executive producer Shandling knows this turf well. His Sanders is host of a late-night network talk show that’s successful despite getting squeezed by Leno and Arsenio. Rip Torn plays his savvy, show-biz-hardened producer, Arthur, who lives for “huge laughs, huge.” Jeffrey Tambor is his insecure, Ed McMahon-type (“Yes, sir!”) sidekick, Hank, and Megan Gallagher plays his too-rarely-seen second wife.

On Saturday, Larry is anguished when ordered by the network’s tyrannical late-night programming chief to do live commercials on the show for a product called Garden Weasel. That would be “a little bit unethical,” he tells Arthur, limply. “Unethical!” the incredulous producer responds. “Larry, don’t start pulling at that thread. The whole world will unravel.”

Although frequently funny, the episode itself ultimately unravels, resolving Larry’s dilemma in an artificial way that undermines the half-hour’s many subtle truths. The second and third episodes are better.

Next week’s installment includes a devastatingly witty sequence with Burnett. Its slashing assault on phony conviviality just puts you on the floor: When the talk-show camera is on, Larry and Burnett are euphorically chummy. But when the show goes to commercial break, there is absolute silence on the set; each ignores the other as if they had never met. There is no connection, only discomfort. Burnett impatiently glances at her watch. Finally, host and guest do chat briefly, tossing each other insincere compliments.

“The Larry Sanders Show.” Huge laughs, huge.

*

Coincidentally, a real talk show debuts this weekend on cable’s Arts & Entertainment network, but one as atypical and inventive as Larry Sanders’ late-night hour is hopelessly derivative.

“The Full Wax”--a BBC “chat” show that American Ruby Wax has been hosting for nearly two years in London--premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday. A&E; is airing four episodes.

Wax can be very funny. She’s a short, brash, blabby comedian whose aggressive style is that of talk-show dominatrix who punishes her guests by gabbing right over them. In the main, somehow, it works.

Guests and her weekly co-hosts are interviewed at various locations in an inspired two-tiered domestic set that Wax traverses like a mincing Bette Midler. The guest roster is dominated by Americans, not all of them appreciative of her stream-of-consciousness, chain-talking style. In the second episode, there seem to be genuine sparks flying between her and Sandra Bernhard, who at one point apparently blows up at her questioner: “Who the hell wants to be in England hosting a talk show?”

Yes, Wax does have on some of the usual suspects, including Zsa Zsa (whom she easily outtalks) and Joan Rivers. And yes, she can be gross: witness her Sunday monologue about eating chicken.

However, if you want proof that being different is possible on talk shows, catch her Aug. 23 chat with Grace Jones in the ladies room. Plus, the hour’s talk is interwoven with creative bits and sketches, some of which are comic joys. They include overseas reports from TV reporter Taffy Turner (actually Mo Gaffney), who is inside America “so you don’t have to be.” In St. Louis, Taffy discovers a mystic who is inhabited by the spirit of Ethel Merman. Enjoy.

“I think, frankly,” says Wax, “we would never get a show like this on American television.” Unfortunately, she’s right.

Repeat Offender: How would you have played the story about President Bush having an alleged affair in 1984? I would have reported it--only because such stories can’t be ignored once they’ve assumed lives of their own and because the Bush campaign has lectured Democrats about “family values”--but I would have buried it in the newscast.

Regardless, good people can disagree about where to draw the line in opening the private lives of candidates to scrutiny.

Yet no right-thinking person would endorse the exploitative treatment of the story Tuesday by KCBS-TV Channel 2, whose red carpet is permanently rolled out to sleaze. Besides bannering the unsubstantiated allegation on its evening newscasts, Channel 2 urged viewers to call a 900 number to vote on whether they thought Bush “had an affair.”

A news organization conducting a phone poll that, by its very existence, gives credibility to a rumor? When the presidency may be at stake? Is there a line KCBS won’t cross, any self-serving gimmick it won’t employ to draw attention to itself?

If only one could call a 900 number to vote on whether “Action News” should go dark.