The Buzz in Show Biz--Don’t Blame Us for Real-Life Violence

Common sense dictates that people shouldn’t have to be told that fire burns and lying in the middle of a busy street is dangerous--if not downright stupid.

But they will let anybody with seven bucks into the movies.

Such were the sentiments--some bitter, some biting--from the regulars at Residuals, a Studio City bar haunted by the worker bees of the entertainment industry. Violence in the media was all the buzz Friday. It had been a week in which Atty. Gen. Janet Reno told TV executives to clean up violence on television, MTV removed fire jokes from its popular “Beavis and Butt-head” series after a 5-year-old set a blaze that burned his 2-year-old sister to death, and Disney cut a scene from “The Program” after teen-agers tried lying in the middle of traffic with a fatal result.

The folks at Residuals had watched all of this in jaw-dropped astonishment.

“You can’t hold a film liable for everything because there are morons in this world,” said Jeff Miller, a Studio City photographer, addressing anyone who was listening. “It’s just not fair. Movies are make-believe. They’re a made-up creation and if someone can’t realize that, then they got what’s coming to them.”

Miller’s observations at the bar echoed through a constantly changing group of writers, producers and others who churn out movies, sitcoms and commercials.

“If your kids are dumb enough to lay down in the middle of a highway as a test of manhood,” mused former “Studs” writer Gary Marks, sipping a coffee, “then I don’t think the problem stops at television.”

Like several others, Marks wondered why parents are not taking more responsibility for what their children watch.

As a kid, he said, he was not allowed to watch “Star Trek” because “my parents thought it would freak me out.”

He wondered what today’s parents are thinking.

“If you bring kids into this world, you have to accept the responsibility for them,” Miller said. “If you don’t want the responsibility, then don’t have the kids. People are more concerned about training their pets than in teaching their kids to be good human beings.”

Jim Palmer, who packages videotapes for the studios, suggested a compromise: teaming the dinosaur Barney with MTV’s vidiots.

“They could do ‘Barney and Butt-head’ or ‘Beavis and Barney,’ ” he said. “There is a little onomatopoeia in that.”

As his lunch partner, Doug Bambridge, called last week’s TV tempest “crazy,” Palmer offered a reporter and Bambridge a way to live on the edge.

“Go out and interview him lying in the middle of the road.” he said.

Bambridge, an operations director for Paramount’s home video division, said Disney shouldn’t be too worried about the impact of “The Program.”

“Judging by the numbers, I don’t think very many people saw the thing.”