TV REVIEWS : ‘Rock the Vote’ Mostly Misses the Mark

The right to cast ballots to determine this great nation’s future, and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing the bass in his Jockey shorts. . . . Together again.

Such are the occasional incongruities--or are they?--of the Fox special “Rock the Vote” (airing at 9 tonight on KTTV-TV Channel 11 and XETV-TV Channel 6). Like the organization of several years’ standing whose name it bears, “Rock the Vote” aims to get the 18-to-24 crowd to register, figuring here to entertain ‘em right out of their seats and into the polling places, where--who knows--they might just be pulling levers alongside Madonna, Robin Williams, Michael Stipe or Rebecca DeMornay.

“We’re not going to tell you who to vote for,” Michael Douglas tells the young target audience at the beginning. He’s right, although most of the celebrities connected with the show are very public Democrats and/or social liberals--so that when the talk turns to “change,” or a rap group chants that “we got to kick some butt at the polls,” you might get the sneaking suspicion they aren’t lining up with Bush in favor of turning out the Congress.

The special is at its worst when patronizingly painting today’s young adults as some sort of oppressed minority. “This survey says young people have been ignored for too long!” intones a very serious Tom Cruise, reporting the unsurprising results of an MTV poll and insisting that politicos better listen , as if warning of an imminent riot on the Sunset Strip.

The skits fare a little better than the straight public-info spots. Madonna, in particular, offers an amusingly ornery take on voting that begins, admirably, with her acknowledging the controversy over her previous failure to register while promoting Rock the Vote.

Less successfully, documentarian-comedian Michael Moore does businessman-on-the-street interviews that are derivatively Letterman-esque in the extreme. Danny DeVito hams it up as a Mephistophelean political consultant. Hep-ster Whoopi Goldberg talks downs to the kids with a brief lecture on civic duty. And R.E.M. and U2 check in with made-for-order videos that rock the screen, if not necessarily the voting conscience.

(The special repeats on Fox Oct. 3 at 11 p.m.)