TV REVIEW : George Foreman Learns the Sitcom Ropes

Remember how funny former heavyweight champ George Foreman was when he used rambling monologues to charm the press and build interest in his comeback fights against a string of pre-comatose opponents?

Those were the good old days, when Foreman relied on his own considerable wit. Now he has “professionals” writing for him, and the result is ABC’s “George,” a lumbering palooka of a comedy series premiering at 8:30 tonight on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42. It returns in its regular time period at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Tonight we meet Foreman as George Foster, a comfortably retired heavyweight champ being chided by his wife, Maggie (Sheryl Lee Ralph), for spending his days in an easy chair, eating ice cream in front of the TV in an apparent quest to become the Goodyear blimp.

Sparked by this encounter, he shows up at the high school where Maggie works as a guidance counselor and where he takes it upon himself to straighten out and become a role model for her angriest and most rebellious kids. Do they resist? Yes. Does he ultimately win them over? Well, George--Foster or Foreman--is nothing if not lovable.

If not for that quality, “George” would be nearly unwatchable, for most of its humor is as barren as the top of Foreman’s head. Under that category are the wisecracks of the African-American Fosters’ mouthy white housekeeper (Anne Haney), a sort of reverse stereotype who addresses George’s wife as Miss Maggie.

A subsequent episode, in which George attempts to stop one of his charges from dropping out of school to become a prizefighter, is a little funnier, at least somewhat shortening the odds that Foreman will avoid the kind of swift KO that greeted the sitcom efforts of two other former star jocks, quarterback Joe Namath and baseball hurler Jim Bouton.