TV REVIEWS : Ethnic Comedy at the Heart of ‘Rhythm & Blues’

“Where the hell is that new deejay, Bobby Soul?” snaps a nervous Veronica Washington about the high-powered talent she has hired sight unseen to single-handedly restore her floundering radio station to its former glory as “the voice of black Detroit.”

But when the “brother” they hope will be their savior walks through the door, Mrs. Washington and her WLBZ staff are stunned. “I can’t believe it,” she says. “I hired a white man!”

So go the first few bars of “Rhythm & Blues,” the NBC comedy series premiering at 8:30 tonight on Channels 4, 36 and 39.

Roger Kabler is a kinetic tornado as the neurotic, tightly wired soul- sounding Bobby, whom the doubting Mrs. Washington (Anna Maria Horsford) retains despite her wish to uphold the station’s all-black tradition established under her late husband, whose ashes she keeps in an urn on her desk.

Although overbearing at times, hair-trigger impressionist Soul is funny in spurts as he plays off the skepticism of his new employer, who grants him a week’s trial in this African-American station where he immediately becomes the butt of ethnic jokes.

He gets a taste of it when meeting another deejay known as the Love Man (Troy Curvey Jr.).

“I’m the Love Man.”

“I’m the white man.”

“All in all, I’d rather be the Love Man.”

Other staff members support Bobby. His main nemesis seems to be Mrs. Washington, whose coolness he directly confronts. “Give your favorite white person a hug,” he says. She does, but uncomfortably, as if being forced to embrace a sewer rat. And her shocked reaction to the kiss he gives her recalls Sammy Davis Jr. planting a wet one on a horrified Archie Bunker.

Whether “Rhythm & Blues” becomes a sort of reverse “All in the Family” remains to be seen. Whatever the case, though, its ethnic dynamics may turn out to be at least as notable as its comedy.