TV REVIEWS : Forecast Looks Good for ‘In Your Dreams’

Fritz Coleman, discarding his weather vane, sprinkles some Hollywood stardust on a flabbergasted singing waiter and baby photographer in a droll California dreamin’ special, “In Your Dreams,” tonight at 8 on Channel 4.

Coleman, in his wry and self-mocking way, has hit upon the true meaning of Christmas in Hollywood: giving some wanna-bes powerful connections and a shot at the brass ring.

In one instance, Coleman, rather like a leering David Letterman prowling a Hollywood yellow brick road, scrounges familiar watering holes looking for aspiring actors. No problem there.

One frumpy waitress at Du Par’s, who looks as if she should be playing waitresses in the movies, unwittingly discerns that she must be on “Candid Camera,” which is not far from the truth.

Finally, Coleman plucks a waiter (the balding, eager Danny Roque) out of Miceli’s, an Italian restaurant where the help warble arias, and away they fly to chat about career opportunities with Dick Clark, Jackie Collins (“I like your house,” the waiter tells her, trying to be cool) and, in the funniest encounter, producer Stephen Cannell.

Auditioning by singing for a polite but obviously pained Cannell in the back seat of a limo, the waiter is abruptly interrupted by a ringing phone. It’s Cannell’s hair stylist. End of audition.

The waiter, wonderfully deadpan, winds up impersonating a bloodied miner on location in Agoura next to a solicitous Jane Seymour in an upcoming scene from “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

Changing reels, the peripatetic Coleman next invades Sears and taps a long-maned baby photographer (Jeff Gregg) in the middle of posing a baby and gives him the chance to fulfill his fantasy shooting fashion pictures of super-models. Cut to three towering models (Maria Von Hartz, Caprice and the absolutely breathtaking Garcelle Beauvais), giddily chomping down at Fatburger, where beautiful models supposedly always lunch.

“In Your Dreams,” if it kept its satiric edge, could be a welcome antidote to “Entertainment Tonight” and all those other fawning, self-congratulatory looks at Hollywood.