Can Tinseltown Take a Joke? : Gerard Alessandrini’s ‘Forbidden Broadway’ spoofed the Great White Way for 12 years. Now he’s set his sights on Hollywood.

Gerard Alessandrini can’t wait for Oscar night. While millions of Americans are sitting at home, waiting to see who wins what, Alessandrini will coil in front of his television, watching for gaffes that rank among the truly memorable.

Moments like the streaker dashing past David Niven, Sally Field crying to the audience, “You like me, you really like me!,” and Jack Palance doing one-arm pushups.

That’s the kind of material Alessandrini is hoping to slip into his new show, “Forbidden Hollywood,” now previewing at the Coronet Theatre before opening April 16.

“Someone always humiliates himself at the Oscars,” Alessandrini says with a wishful look. “I can’t wait to see who.”

Writer-director Alessandrini, famed for bashing the Great White Way in New York’s long-running “Forbidden Broadway” is finally taking on Hollywood.

Satirizing movies is hardly new ground--Carol Burnett has done it to perfection and “Saturday Night Live” has been sending up movies for years, often with the stars participating in the skewering.

But Alessandrini’s quirky humor is especially focused and sly. First, the two-hour show is devoted entirely to movies, stars and movie-making--from “The Wizard of Oz” to “Forrest Gump” and from Julie Andrews to Rosie Perez. There’s even a number about dueling versions of “Oklahoma!”--the one shot in 24-frames-per-second Cinemascope and the other in 30-frames-per-second Todd-AO.

As in “Forbidden Broadway,” his wildly versatile four-person cast sings 90% of its spoofs.

And finally, there’s his particularly twisted point of view. Alessandrini’s take on “Pulp Fiction,” for example, has the characters singing “Make ‘Em Bleed” to the tune of “Make ‘Em Laugh”--and slipping in the idea that today’s gunfire scenes are just a substitute for old-time song-and-dance routines.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” Alessandrini says. He has just finished out-of-town tryouts at San Diego’s Theatre in Old Town and is facing the beginning of tech rehearsals in L.A. “I love movies as much as I do theater. I don’t really separate them in my mind.”

And since we always hurt the ones we love, “Forbidden Hollywood” lets loose on a multitude of movie targets: Juliette Lewis, Melanie Griffith, Keanu Reeves singing “I Shouldn’t Be in Pictures” (to the tune of “I Ought to Be in Pictures”); an aging Macaulay Culkin in “Who Will Cast” (to the tune of “Who Will Buy” from “Oliver”) and Jim Carrey doing “Rubber Face” (to the tune of “Baby Face”).

With Alessandrini’s help, Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant in “An Affair to Remember” wreak revenge on Warren Beatty in “Love Affair”; Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins deflate Merchant Ivory elegance, and Holly Hunter gets it for “The Piano.” “Who’s Gay in Hollywood” is sung to the tune of “Hooray for Hollywood,” and the Steven Spielberg-David Geffen-Jeffrey Katzenberg dream team, dressed up as babies, do “Triplets” from the 1953 Astaire musical “The Band Wagon.”

The debut of “Forbidden Hollywood” also means there’s no “Forbidden Broadway 1995.” Alessandrini, 41, a onetime waiter whose 1994 edition of “Broadway” played the Tiffany Theater last April, had updated that show annually for its 12-year run from 1982 through 1994.

“We could have done ‘Forbidden Broadway’ again, but we put it aside for this year to devote ourselves to doing the best show we could do (in Hollywood),” he says.

While he has wanted to go after Hollywood “for years,” the timing had to be right. Alessandrini, who has lived in Southern California for the last year and a half, wanted to see if Los Angeles would be receptive to his kind of parody. Last year’s reception for “Forbidden Broadway” encouraged him.

Then he had to wait for the movies to drop the right kind of material in his lap. This year’s film output gave him all the material he needed.

“This wasn’t a high quality film year like last year with ‘Schindler’s List,’ ” Alessandrini explains. “This was very spoofable. ‘Forrest Gump’ was questionable and ‘Pulp Fiction’ was so over the top it was irresistible.”

In New York, over the years, Alessandrini’s creations made him some friends and some enemies. Stephen Sondheim is a fan who sent him the score of “Into the Woods” early so he could get a head start on the parody. Carol Channing did an AIDS benefit preview for the show in Los Angeles last April. Hal Prince went to the shows, but Andrew Lloyd Webber, Liza Minnelli and Barbra Streisand stayed away. Cy Coleman and Peter Stone, the writers of “The Will Rogers Follies,” sued, forcing Alessandrini to change the music he used to parody that show.

Will Hollywood targets be thick- or thin-skinned? Alessandrini doesn’t know, and these days, he’s too busy going to the movies to worry about it.

“At this point it’s been a lot more fun (than ‘Forbidden Broadway’) because on Broadway there were less shows to spoof. This industry is so big, it’s impossible to do a complete overview--but we try,” he says.

At first, Alessandrini leaned heavily toward classic movies, figuring that familiarity would play to a larger audience. After trying out four hours worth of sketches in San Diego, he has shifted the balance to 75% contemporary material and 25% classics.

‘Forbidden Broadway” began in New York as a showcase for Alessandrini and his friends, but the revue quickly became an end in itself. That’s what the writer-director hopes will happen with “Forbidden Hollywood” as well.

“I don’t think of this as an audition to be in the movies. It’s people on the outside looking in, thumbing their nose at people on the inside.”

If all goes well, producers Harriet Yellin, John Freedson and Barry Brown may kick off a national tour. An Off Broadway run could follow.

Like “Forbidden Broadway,” “Forbidden Hollywood” has a simple set: a glittery backdrop with an onstage piano. The biggest creative expense goes to the costumes and wigs that transform the show’s four singers--Jason Graae, Gerry McIntyre, Christine Pedi and Susanne Blakeslee--into a cast of, well, dozens.

One costume that will debut in Los Angeles is the David Letterman one. Alessandrini says Graae is ready to do Letterman hosting the Academy Awards in the show’s Oscar number.

Now all he needs is someone to do something memorably humiliating tomorrow night. Volunteers?*

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Vital Stats

“Forbidden Hollywood” Address: Coronet Theatre, 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles Price: $20-$25, previews; $29.50-$34.50 Schedule: Opens April 16. Tuesday-Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 p.m., 9 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m., 7 p.m. Information: (310) 657-7377