COMMENTARY : An Antidote for TV’s Talk Soup : ‘The Dysfunctional Show’--hosted by Whitey Fjord--gives us a functional and funny look at society’s freak shows.

Now that NOW’s “Flush Rush” campaign has persuaded the Florida Orange Juice people to unhire Rush Limbaugh (those juice folks really know how to pick spokespeople, don’t they?), the National Organization for Women is pushing to rid the airwaves completely of the smug darling of the lazy right.

Chances are, however, “Flush Rush” will only bring its target more and more attention. No, the correct antidote to Rush Limbaugh is not NOW but Whitey Fjord.

Whitey Fjord, you see, is the overfed, overconfident, overly right-wing host of a talk-show parody, otherwise known as “The Dysfunctional Show,” played as improv by a troupe of stand-up comedians and actors every Saturday night at 10:30 at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood.

Each week, Whitey (Dan Rosen) and his guests explore topics that you might actually find in your TV Guide, often on shows with more left-leaning, seemingly compassionate hosts.

Some of Whitey’s recent topics: “Gay Men and the Women Who Want Them,” featuring a Ph.D whose book is called “I’m OK, You’re a Faggot”; “The Rap on Gangster Rap,” on which Whitey explained that the violence depicted by rappers was worse than movie violence because “when you talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger, you’re talking about a guy who shoots foreigners,” and the always timely “O.J. Simpson--Martyr or Mandingo?”

In the multicultural tinderbox that is Los Angeles, people officially discuss race, religion and gender in language so thickly powdered and polite that it sometimes obscures the anger that is often really at issue. “The Dysfunctional Show” blasts through all of those minefields. Rosen, his fellow creators Phil Emmett and Warren Hutcherson and their revolving and racially mixed cast walk a dangerous line as they enter these discussions from the opposite direction--that is, head-on, with guns blazing, insults flying and subtext unearthed.

Whitey beholds an African American woman and muses, “You’re at the bottom of the totem pole, aren’t you?” When she answers, “First of all, have you been examined?” Whitey shoots back with, “Yes, I’ve been examined and I’m 100% American.” He is too.

Whitey’s insensitivity is just a shade more manifest than what actually gets on the air. When confronted with a Puerto Rican manicurist (Emily Cutler), he asks, “Your boyfriend, Hector, an Hispanic man, is what, a gardener?” On the same show he inadvertently exposes the stupidity of the nation’s debate about homosexuals in the military: “You’re a lesbian. How do you feel sitting next to all of these women and yet not having sex with them?”

“The Dysfunctional Show” does not really explore the paper-thin “controversies” that overflow the airwaves. Instead it exposes how the passion for cheap drama that makes TV producers book guests according to their confrontation value, or their sideshow-freak appeal, can inflame real discussions that are at the heart of how we all live together.

The laughter is cathartic for several reasons. The parade of weirdos and angry righteous people who appear on Whitey is pathetically familiar not only because of television but because we have all passionately defended some feeble nonsense that made enormous sense at one moment in time. Blacks against whites, men against women, straights against gays. This show revels in how asinine all of these divisions really are.

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And of course, there’s everyone’s favorite excuse for a talk show: Mindless titillation masquerading as social commentary. Hence, Whitey is apt to introduce a program with, “Today we’re going to explore the hopes, the dreams, the fears of women and we’re going to do it all in lingerie.”

In this show Whitey pits four women (in lingerie) against a fully dressed Dr. Chris Robinson (the hilariously hostile John Ridley), who has written several books, such as “Whores Who Lie: Sexual Harassment in the ‘90s” and “A Whole Lot of Nothing: Women’s Collective Consciousness.” When the women turn on him (I believe it was after he said, “Women, basically, have nothing to talk about”), Dr. Robinson, who is black, fights back Clarence Thomas-style with, “This is nothing but another high-tech lynching!”

Whitey makes a high art of insincerity and constantly congratulates himself by murmuring his trademark tag line, “Tough talk,” after he shoots off a particularly embarrassing question. If he brings on three bare-chested male dancers during a show called “What Women Really Want,” he’ll inevitably turn to the one African American dancer and ask, “You’re black. How has this O.J. thing affected your dancing? (Tough talk!)” The dancer returns a blank stare; another offers thoughtfully, “I think it’s improved it.”

In the hands of Dan Rosen, Whitey is an extremely useful creation, a tool for exploring TV personalities from Jerry Falwell to Rush Limbaugh to Geraldo, whose pious sentiments mask their own bloated egos.

Shameless about exploiting his or anyone else’s tragedy, Whitey has a daughter, whose name mysteriously changes from Courtney to Chelsea during the course of one program, who is in a coma. He constantly brings up that coma, unctuously thanks viewers for their cards and letters and then asks for a round of applause for “the power of prayer, ladies and gentlemen.”

Here’s how the show works: On Sunday, Rosen, Emmett and Hutcherson choose the next week’s topic and cast actors from a pool of about 40. Actors are given bios of the characters they are to play.

Everyone has other TV and movie gigs so there is no time for rehearsal, keeping the show spontaneous and fun. Actors and roles vary from week to week, so that reappearing characters might be played by different actors. A few jokes or book titles may be thought out in advance, but essentially no one knows exactly what will go down once the show begins.

But the best thing about “The Dysfunctional Show” is that the audience implicitly understands its role, inventing its own perfectly ridiculous questions (some planted, some not) and applauding the most inane points.

It’s as if we all naturally understand our part in the circus that is what Greg Kinnear calls “talk soup.” “The Dysfunctional Show” allows us to play that role, expunge it and laugh the entire time.*

* “The Dysfunctional Show,” Hudson Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Saturdays, 10:30 p.m. $10. (213) 850-7573.