TV REVIEWS : ‘Johnny Bago’ Not Ready for Prime Time

From the producers of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and “Back to the Future” comes Back to the Drawing Board.

That’s where “Johnny Bago” should be going instead of to prime time, where the CBS action-comedy series premieres at 10 tonight on Channels 2 and 8. It’s a slapsticky Mafia spoof that, despite occasional glints of humor, just doesn’t click.

Johnny Bago (Peter Dobson) is the name taken by the thickish dolt of a protagonist--a bumbling small-time street hustler--when he goes on the lam from both the mob and the cops after he’s framed for the murder of another hood. Also pursuing him, as he crisscrosses the country in an RV, is his obsessed, screwball parole officer, Beverly Florio (Rose Abdoo), who also happens to be his ex-wife. The broadly played sequences with Beverly are especially unfunny.

There are times when “Johnny Bago” comes very close to something good, teetering right on the edge, but can’t quite deliver. “Prizzi’s Honor” was ample proof that gangsters can be funny, and with sharper scripts “Johnny Bago” itself could be a sophisticated farce worth watching.