TELEVISION : A Little to the Right This Time : Henry Winkler has longtime credentials as a Hollywood liberal, but in his new series, “Monty,” he plays a Limbaugh-like talk-show pundit. Will conservative views get a fair shake, or is Monty TV’s next liberal goat?

Looking relieved to be playing his own age, someone he does not have to hold his stomach muscles tight for, Henry Winkler, 48, stands in a cold, cavernous, nearly empty sound stage in Hollywood at lunch break, doing a promotional interview for Fox Television’s “Monty.” That’s the former Fonz’s new comedy series, in which he plays a brash right-wing talk-show host who sees himself as “the conscience of America” and whose credo--”I’m right. I’m right. I’m right. Shut up! “ -- he’ll turn into a book. Sort of a Rush-Limbaugh-in-waiting.

But Monty Richardson, whose platform is a small cable station on New York’s Long Island in the middle of media nowhere, has no army of boosting “dittoheads.” Instead, this “Archie Bunker of the ‘90s,” as Winkler sees him, becomes a lightning rod for his equally outspoken family, whose views on hot-button political and social issues tend to be (gasp!) liberal. He gets as good as he gives. Even the set of his program, “Rightspeak,” isn’t exactly a safe house. Sure there’s Clifford, the resident sycophant (Tom McGowan), who is a dead ringer for the real Limbaugh, but Monty’s foil is Rita Simon (Joyce Guy), whom he exaggeratedly introduces as “my African American producer” when the color of her skin is quite obvious. She, in turn, easily retorts, “Thank you, ‘white boy,’ ” drawing little quotes with her fingers.

The soft-spoken Winkler explains that Monty went to the station when his public-relations job in a defense plant was eliminated. “They gave him a talk show,” says Winkler, executive producer of the series along with creator Marc Lawrence (screenwriter and co-producer of “Life With Mikey” and a writer of “Family Ties”). Suddenly, Winkler, a longstanding liberal Democrat who campaigned for President Clinton, is Monty. “Now there is no stopping him,” he proclaims in the promo for the series, which debuts Tuesday at 8 p.m. “Donahue, watch out. Oprah is on her last legs. Monty is coming!”

There is a perverse, against-the-grain pattern to the roles Winkler has undertaken on series television. For 10 seasons--1974-84--he was the Fonz, creating a character who became an American pop cultural icon and making himself a fortune. So identified was he as Arthur (Fonzie) Fonzarelli on ABC-TV’s “Happy Days” that you didn’t realize how different Winkler was: Son of wealthy German Jewish refugee parents who thought he would make a fine diplomat, he was educated at private schools in Manhattan and Switzerland, then later graduated from Emerson College in Boston and got a master’s degree from the Yale School of Drama.

The role may have submerged him to such a degree that he now says that for years he thought of himself as “younger brother,” even with TV and movie executives his age. “I had to rip that little boy away and replace him,” Winkler confides, grabbing a private moment in the makeup room, surrounded by mirrors. “I mean I was a dad now. I was a mature human being. I had to start thinking-- no, I had to start feeling --in those terms.”

So the actor, who had done the movies “Heroes” and “Night Shift,” became an executive, co-producing “MacGyver,” directing movies like “Cop and a Half” and starring in TV movies.

Winkler insists he has no regrets. The leather jacket wound up in the Smithsonian while the Fonz, he says, “changed my life.”

“It was a steppingstone, a foundation; I traveled everywhere because of him. He gave me tremendous pleasure. There are no downsides, no downsides.”

In 1978, Winkler took on instant fatherhood with his marriage to Stacey Weitzman (who had a son, Jed, now a “Saturday Night Live” production assistant, from her first marriage, to criminal attorney Howard L. Weitzman). The Winklers--she is a commissioner with the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services--have since had two children of their own, Zoe, 13, and Max, 10.

At President Clinton’s inauguration, Winkler learned just how potent Fonzie, still seen on Nickelodeon and in 126 countries, is. As the actor related recently on “The Tonight Show,” someone tapped him on the shoulder, asking for his autograph. “I said, ‘Well, sir, I don’t usually do that.’ And I turned around and I said, ‘But for you it would be an honor.’ ” It was former hostage Terry Anderson, who told him: “You and your show kept us going.”

So why would Winkler choose “Monty” as his series comeback? In his production office on the Warner Bros. Hollywood lot, gazing at a framed photo of himself and Hillary Rodham Clinton, he answers matter-of-factly: “I need to play a larger-than-life character. The Fonz is a large character, but that’s who I am. I can’t just play the dad.”

The character--perhaps even Winkler himself--is a nice intersect with Limbaugh, whose combination of self-confidence and talent created his own larger-than-life talk-show persona. Limbaugh, however, is saying little about “Monty.”

A Limbaugh radio producer said last month that he himself was aware of “a possible sitcom” involving a conservative host and went to query his boss. “I asked Rush, and he looked at me funny--said, ‘There is (such a show)?’ I think he’d have to see it in context. . . . You can (just) say we have no comment.”

“Monty’s” producers acknowledge Limbaugh as the inspiration for the character, but Monty is not, they insist, meant to be a carbon copy of Rush. Monty also contains elements of such confrontational hosts as Joe Pyne, Wally George and Morton Downey Jr.; he’s being billed as “stuck somewhere” between ‘50s McCarthyism and the right-wing hosts of the ‘90s.

Is Winkler presenting a legitimate portrayal of Monty? Or is he mocking him? “I don’t know that legitimizing or mocking are the right words,” the actor says. “I am breathing life into a guy who is outrageous. Do I like Monty? There are times I would like to sock him in the mouth. . . . Other times I find him to be very dear.”

Winkler’s ambivalence reflects the real issue that the makers of “Monty” are grappling with. As the 12 episodes Fox has ordered unfold, the question is whether the sitcom will be seen as just another Hollywood Revenge of the Liberals, or whether conservatives will quietly cheer Monty on, the way some did Archie on “All in the Family.” Yet again, the series might simply be viewed as offering another take on family values.

Monty’s family--which brings out the best, or worst, in him, depending on your view--consists of wife Fran, who teaches second grade (Kate Burton--Richard and Sybil Burton’s daughter); son Greg (David Schwimmer), a Yale graduate dropping plans for Yale Law to become a chef; 14-year-old son David (David Krumholtz), who sees himself as a loser, particularly with girls, and Geena (China Kantner--Grace Slick and Paul Kantner’s daughter) as the performance artist-writer-hairdresser whom Greg brings home from Europe, a vegetarian with a ring in her nose.

For the pair of liberal Democratic producers--Winkler and Lawrence--there is an almost built-in tension on “Monty” between promoting the viewpoint of the lead character and intrinsically wanting to denigrate it.

At first, Winkler declined playing Monty until he warmed to the character’s flamboyance. “He’s going to outrage everybody,” Winkler says with delight.

Lawrence, 34, who grew up in Plainview, Long Island (where “Monty” is set), and readily describes his politics as “New York, liberal--the last Republican I liked was Lincoln,” worried as well:

“Friends of mine, other writers, say to me, ‘Gee, if (“Monty”) is successful, it winds up promoting a dangerous viewpoint.’ I’d be lying if I said I have an unbelievably well-constructed argument against that. Except he almost winds up getting beaten down in every show, sort of exposed. . . .”

Lawrence amends: “I like to see him humbled and leveled. What we don’t want--you can’t have Monty state a conservative viewpoint and then, because we’re mostly liberals writing this show, have him knocked down and say, ‘You’re wrong.’ Because I can’t judge that.

“We have to give fair credence to what we perceive (conservative) views to be, as long as we have viewpoints and mouthpieces for the opposite point of view in terms of Rita and Fran at home and certainly Geena. If we’re going to do this character, we have to commit to him . . . saying things that we find objectionable.”

There is also the actor factor. It’s the performer who gives texture to a character. Lawrence likens Winkler’s portrayal of Monty to Michael J. Fox’s depiction of young Reaganite Alex Keaton on “Family Ties”: “Clearly Henry is playing this part that allows the warmth to come through--the other side, the likable part about Monty.”

At Fox, they see “Monty” striking a “balance” between conservative and liberal viewpoints, as Dan McDermott, senior vice president of current programming, suggests. According to Lawrence, Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, a political conservative, said he “loved the fact that the show is political, that Monty was a guy who could pronounce views to the world and then come home and get kicked in the teeth about it.”

Monty’s “Rightspeak” monologues--cameo centerpieces for each show--could, in isolation, cause conservative hearts to purr.

On Clinton: “First he says, ‘I’m not going to raise taxes.’ Then he does. Then he says, ‘I’m going to send troops to Bosnia,’ but he doesn’t. Then he says he’s going to create more jobs for the country--unfortunately that country is Mexico. Can you imagine if this guy did inhale?”

On a grade school book about lesbian parenting--a takeoff on “Heather Has Two Mommies,” which here is called “Mary Has Two Mommies”: “What’s going on with the teachers in this country? What are they going to be teaching next . . . ‘Mary Has Three Mommies and a Little Lamb Who Lives With Another Little Lamb’?”

On teen-age sex: “Abstinence.”

The “Two Mommies” idea came from Robert Shrum, a top Democratic political ad maker whose clients have included Ted Kennedy, George McGovern and Dick Gephardt. Shrum, a close friend of Winkler’s who recently sat in for a week of production, going from table reading to taping, has also suggested a monologue on health care--”The government can’t deliver the mail. Now they’re going to deliver babies?”

Yet conservatives who laugh at an excerpt or two nevertheless promise to monitor “Monty.” L. Brent Bozell III, chairman of Media Research Center, a watchdog group, says he is “as skeptical of Henry Winkler knowing what conservatives would think as Winkler would be of Brent Bozell writing a script for liberals.” He adds that he doesn’t “trust” Winkler. Bozell claims that a 1991 CBS-TV docudrama in which Winkler starred, “Absolute Strangers,” about Martin Klein, a Long Island accountant who battled antiabortion activists and went to court to save the life of his comatose wife by aborting her pregnancy, was inaccurate. (CBS and Winkler dispute that.)

Sandy Crawford, editor of TV Etc., the center’s monthly newsletter, which attacks what it considers liberal bias in Hollywood, notes that the monologues notwithstanding, what’s crucial is “who has the last word.”

The core of “Monty” is not tennis-match debate, but life and politics colliding. In the pilot episode, Monty can’t stand Geena, but when Greg packs his suitcase after Monty puts his foot down against her, he relents and allows them to stay under his roof. “He loves his family,” Winkler notes. “And no matter how disrespectful he is sometimes, he thanks his lucky stars Fran is in his life.”

In another episode, Monty discovers that 14-year-old David has been given a condom--not for immediate use but because all his friends have them. Monty goes against his better judgment and takes David to a drugstore to show him how to buy more, for the future. Problem is, he runs into a female viewer, who’s shocked.

In still another episode, Monty discovers that Fran is being sexually harassed by her principal. Though he basically believes his wife, he faces an awkward moment when he confronts the principal, who says anyone can “misinterpret” a situation.

“Hey . . . I’m the guy who devoted a whole month of shows to Clarence Thomas vs. Anita (Make-a-Mountain-Out-of-a-Mole) Hill,” Monty says, “but we’re not talking about Anita Hill. We’re talking about my wife here.”

Probably the harshest treatment of Monty comes in an episode titled “Wild Wild Willy and His O.K. Corral,” in which he gets caught up in his ambition for a better time slot and “outs” the gay host of a children’s show, forcing the man off the air. Monty’s family is furious.

This episode, Lawrence explains, will soon undergo rewriting--and some retaping--so that Monty will come upon letters from children who loved the host and will feel some guilt for what he has done.

Though he does use pejoratives for gay men, Monty appears to eschew Archie Bunker’s racial slurs. In a dispute with an Italian American neighbor over the neighbor’s cats ripping up Monty’s lawn, he originally referred to the neighbor by a name based on a popular Italian cheese. The producers later removed the language. Lawrence maintains that making him overtly racist would “make me sick to my stomach.” While he notes that Bunker and Monty might be “distant cousins” in their attitudes, Monty “would say them differently. . . . I don’t think Monty’s racist--his political philosophy is actually libertarian.”

Indeed, there are times when Monty is a hero. In one episode, Geena’s father, a former ‘60s folk singer, now owner of a string of fast-food health restaurants, wants to cut Monty in on a lucrative deal. But Monty withdraws when he realizes the father is and has been abusive to Geena.

“There is a moment in that show,” Winkler explains, “when I come in and the man has his hand up to hit her and I say, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’ And I walk up to her and say, ‘Are you OK? . . . Shall I take you ho-ho-hom-home ?’ “--his voice growing more tremulous. “Like, ‘God almighty, I’ve got to do this, but I dread it.’ ”

That love of family, Winkler suggests, makes him “relate to” Monty, “even if I don’t share his political views.”

It was while filming “Absolute Strangers” that Winkler realized how much he missed acting. He was going to develop a series with Gary Goldberg, his longtime neighbor on the Paramount lot, but “Gary came to me and said, ‘I’m just burned out.’ I said, ‘I understand. We’re good friends, we’ll work again.’ ”

So Winkler went on the hunt. “I had a lot of French toast, a lot of breakfast meetings.”

Along came Lawrence, who got the idea for “Monty” after tuning into Limbaugh’s TV show. “I said, ‘Oh, please, Marc, come on. This is so controversial. I want to be on the air for seven years.’ ”

But as Winkler tells it, it took only two more meetings to persuade him. Lawrence had a contract with Disney, which sold NBC on making a pilot. In the original version, giving the story added edge, Monty had a gay daughter who brought home her gay friend. The pilot never aired, and NBC passed on going to series. Winkler and Lawrence say it was because of the gay daughter. NBC spokeswoman Dawn Dubovsky said the decision was made “for creative reasons that had nothing to do with the gay daughter.”

Disney took “Monty” to Fox. Winkler says Fox asked them to “rethink the concept because the gay daughter, in the beginning anyway, might be too controversial.” He and Lawrence agreed.

Winkler has a lot riding on this series. He has a tough time slot, with competition from ABC’s “Full House” and CBS’ “Rescue 911.” Winkler knows it. But he says he doesn’t stay awake nights worrying over things he “cannot control.” Shrum likens his mood to that of a candidate gearing up for a campaign. And Fox knows the pitfalls of Tuesdays at 8 p.m. McDermott says the network wanted “a noisy show that’s star-driven (with) a loud, provocative concept to be able to cut through all the clutter and immediately distinguish itself.”

“Monty” should get noisier. Winkler and Lawrence, having conceded the gay daughter, now intend to give him a gay sister.*