Retro : The TV Awards People <i> Really </i> Talk About

Viewers have been bombarded in the last year with countless awards shows. And the season for giving isn’t over yet. In addition to the Daytime Emmy Awards on Friday evening, there’s another trophy fete that’s a little unusual in tone, which is planted firmly in cheek.

“TV’s All-Time Favorites” on CBS honors the campy side of TV. Categories include “Favorite TV Bombshells,” “Favorite Pets,” “Nosy Neighbors,” “Cartoon Rivals,” “All-Time Favorite Troublemaker” and “All-Time Favorite Hairdo.”

Shot on location at the Los Angeles retro diner Ed Debevic’s, the one-hour special is hosted by a trio of TV faves: Jerry Mathers (Beaver Cleaver, “Leave It to Beaver”), Dawn Wells (Mary Ann, “Gilligan’s Island”) and “Monkee” Davy Jones. Bozo the Clown, Gary Coleman, Donna Douglas, Jamie Farr, Al Molinaro and Ken Osmond also appear in cameos.

“There have been awards shows on TV that honor the best of the year,” says creator and executive producer Bruce Nash. “But there hasn’t been an awards show that honored the best of all time. The retro revolution is in now with ‘The Brady Bunch Movie.’ ‘The Fugitive’ was such a great movie. This was the right time for this type of show. I love TV and wanted to pay tribute to all of these great stars you don’t see that often on TV anymore.”

The winners were picked by 1,000 viewers surveyed by the Harris Poll. “We decided to do this officially,” Nash says. “We did a real national poll. Everybody had a lot of fun with it. We got some surprising results. The big award of the evening is ‘All-Time Favorite Sitcom.’ ”

“Gilligan’s Island,” which is nominated for favorite TV theme song, has never been off the air since it premiered on CBS in 1964, Wells notes.

“I have been meeting the public one to one,” Wells says. The series “is a favorite memory of their childhood growing up. (With) the yuppies, I think it is the gentle part of the time of their childhood. The times aren’t as gentle anymore. It’s more of a memory of pleasant escape. I found with ‘Gilligan,’ we were their family.”

Like Wells, Mathers makes personal appearances at conventions and stores. “People call me up and say, ‘What will be the demographics (of the crowd)?,” says Mathers. “I tell them every time, ‘You will have as many parents as you will have kids.’ Kids don’t really realize it is in black and white.”

Often, Mathers says, little children don’t know he is the Beaver. “They say, ‘Well, he looks like the Beaver, but he must be his father!’ ”

He believes viewers still love “Beaver” some 38 years after it premiered on CBS because “the shows are from real life. The things that really happened to kids in the ‘50s and ‘60s are happening to kids in the ‘90s.”

Mathers remains close to Tony Dow, who played Wally, his TV mom Barbara Billingsley and Ken Osmond, who played obnoxious Eddie Haskell. In fact, he says, it was easy as pie for them when they reprised their roles in the ‘80s for a CBS reunion movie and in the syndicated series “Still the Beaver.”

These days, Mathers continues to act, do voice-overs on the radio and operates a catering service called, aptly enough, Cleavers Catering. He has recently come out with a line of “Leave It to Beaver” collectible plates.

Wells also has remained buddies with her “Gilligan” co-stars Bob Denver (Gilligan) and Russell Johnson (The Professor). In fact, the trio make a guest appearance next week on “Roseanne” in an episode in which “Roseanne” cast members become the castaways.

The actress has performed mainly on stage since the demise of “Gilligan” in 1967. She also is the author of the popular “Mary Ann’s Gilligan’s Island Cookbook,” which, she says, is “full of stories about the show and pictures. I am a real good cook. I am really proud of it.”

Wells has received great response from her clothing line for people who have difficulty dressing themselves, such as stroke victims. “I get letters saying, ‘I knew Mary Ann would do something nice like this.’ There’s a trust there. You have touched somebody’s heart. Somebody loves you.”

“TV’s All-Time Favorites” airs Friday at 8 p.m. on CBS; repeats of “Gilligan’s Island” air weekdays at 5:05 a.m. on TBS, Sundays at 6:30 a.m. on TNT and Saturdays at 2 and 2:30 p.m. on KTTV.