Kinnear’s ‘Later’: A Comedy Soup : Television: The host is smirky, self-deprecating and sometimes quite funny--a good fit for the anything-goes ambience of the talk show.

It was late Wednesday (or early Thursday, if you prefer) on NBC’s “Later With Greg Kinnear,” the half-hour series that succeeded “Later With Bob Costas” two weeks ago.

Kinnear’s guest was Ben Stiller, the now-famous young director and co-star of “Reality Bites.”

Kinnear asked: “Now, everybody’s saying, I know you must hate the burden of this, that this is some sort of movie that speaks to this Generation X. Generation gap. What are you? Are you comfortable? You can’t be. . . .”

Stiller replied: “No, I don’t know. I, y’know, it’s like, I’m such a non-expert on that, and the whole, I don’t know, just, y’know, X Generation, y’know, it’s just a term that’s like. . . .”

Like, y’know, Stiller is a superb farceur, witness his 1992-93 Fox series, “The Ben Stiller Show,” whose brief but streaky-brilliant 12-episode life was sufficient to earn an Emmy Award for writing. But no, he wasn’t satirizing Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” He was actually attempting to answer a question. A quasi-question. Almost a question. Actually, not much of a question.

All right, the level of discourse on this Monday-through-Thursday show will never compete with Mortimer Adler’s “Six Great Ideas.” And Greg Kinnear is no Bob Costas, who, despite being known as a sports specialist, was an interviewer for all seasons who operated a half-hour of chat that ranged from breezy to subtle and sophisticated.

For one thing, Costas’ New York show was an intimate klatch that was taped without the intrusiveness of a studio audience. Kinnear’s comedy-heavy Burbank show has a studio audience of hooters who appear to have come by because they couldn’t pass the I.Q. test to get into “The Arsenio Hall Show.”

Here’s another revelation, though: Bob Costas is no Greg Kinnear.

Kinnear is essentially a performer. He has better stand-up skills (and better hair days) than Conan O’Brien. He’s smart-ass smirky, caustic, self-deprecating and sometimes quite funny--all in all, a good fit for the anything-goes ambience of 1:35-2:05 a.m. As he’s fond of saying: “It’s 2 o’clock in the morning. You can do these things. They don’t have to mean anything.”

And, of course, they don’t. “Later With Greg Kinnear” wears its irrelevance like a chest full of medals.

The show sometimes starts with a comedy bit in the guest’s dressing room. On one episode last week, for example, you had George Carlin getting bleeped every time he mentions a four-letter word he wants to say on the air. Kinnear: “Hmmm. No, look, you stay away from those seven words, George, you’ll do just fine.”

Then comes the “Videologue,” with Kinnear reacting to goofy news clips with the same biting ridicule that he applies to the daytime talk-show clips on “Talk Soup,” the show he hosts on cable’s E! Entertainment network.

Then comes the guest (most have been comics so far), some warm-up questions, the obligatory clip of the guest’s work, some more interview and then whatever happens . . . happens.

Some of it isn’t pretty, ranging from sophomoric to plain awful. In that category was a scene from “The Bodyguard,” with Kinnear reading Whitney Houston’s lines and Martin Short (probably wishing he hadn’t shown up) doing Kevin Costner’s.

On the same banal level is a regular feature known as “Later Letter,” with Kinnear reading a message to the present guest from the previous night’s guest. Phil Hartman to Carlin: “What’s your advice to aspiring stand-up comedians?” Carlin: “Do the jokes in front of an audience.”

On the other hand, Short was funny even when hopelessly sinking; Kinnear and Marilu Henner turned out to be an infectiously free-wheeling pair; Stiller was refreshingly natural and unpretentious, and Carlin turned out to be one of those rare comedians who actually can be interviewed.

Kinnear wondered about Carlin’s Catholic background. “Did the nuns leave any permanent impression on you?” he asked. “Oh, boy, all over,” Carlin replied.

The question is whether “Later With Greg Kinnear” leaves much of an impression. Well, nothing permanent. Its impact is glancing. No one will risk oversleeping the next morning just to see Kinnear raise an eyebrow at some silliness or to hear Henner reminisce about “Taxi” or to hear Stiller say, “Generation shmeX, Y, Z, I don’t know.” You don’t stay up late for this show. You watch it because you’re already there at 2 in the morning, it’s there, and why not?

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ONE MORE TIME. Tuning in once more to Kinnear’s older 12:35-1:35 a.m. lead-in, “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” you discover that there’s no reason to tune in. You learned from Wednesday’s show that O’Brien is on the same treadmill after six months.

He’s still likable, but his rhythms are all wrong. He still can’t deliver a monologue or interview with authority, and he still can’t rescue unfunny material. Unlike his predecessor, David Letterman, he cannot create gold from dust.

Actress-model Kathy Ireland showed up to plug her swimwear line (“These suits are great”) and “NBC Dateline” correspondent Stone Phillips talked at length about the previous night’s show that featured his interview with serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer and Dahmer’s father. Phillips mentioned the “general lesson” that viewers of the interview were supposed to have come away with, but was unclear about what that lesson was. Abundantly clear was that the stench of tabloid was now smelling up even benign “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”

The comedy portion of the hour ended with some unevenly funny nonsense about two elderly spies duking it out. It was promising, but like much else on the show, it didn’t quite work. “I think we’ve seen enough,” O’Brien said. Yes.