TELEVISION : He’s Finally Ready for the ‘Joey Buttafuoco Show’

Now that he has been charged in Hollywood with soliciting a prostitute, it’s obvious what should be done with that stud about town--any town he’s in, apparently--Joey Buttafuoco.

Give him a talk show.

Well, why not? It has been shown, again and again, that there’s a corner of the entertainment industry for everyone.

Until overheard on the air verbally painting targets on federal agents, convicted Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy was doing quite well for himself with his own radio talk show, and before that, spun his fascinating tales on the lecture circuit, at times alongside another of America’s great raconteurs, Timothy Leary.

Nor did admitting that he fibbed to a congressional body regarding Irangate appear to impede Oliver North’s celebrity. After only narrowly losing last year’s Virginia senatorial race to damaged incumbent Charles Robb, North got a radio talk show too. As have other politicians after losing at the ballot box.

At least these guys have something to say, even though many Americans may not want to hear it. Yet look at John Wayne Bobbitt, the human tree trunk who has parlayed his severed-penis fame into a career of sorts in the smutty film business, despite being unable to put together two sentences. Not that eloquence is required in his new line of work.

And, of course, there’s America’s reigning famous-because-he’s-famous champ, Kid Kato. Thanks to the grisly murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman, renowned housesitter Brian (Kato) Kaelin already has under his belt several TV gigs and the tell-all book for which he told O.J. Simpson lead prosecutor, Marsha Clark, in court he wasn’t circulating a proposal. If the apparent misleading answer under oath turns out to be an actual fib, Kaelin’s stock may rise even further. After all, lying on TV hardly hurt Ollie.

All of this affirms the Rupert Pupkin syndrome advanced by Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy.” Played by Robert De Niro in this 1981 dark comedy written by Paul Zimmerman, Rupert is a delusional, no-talent comic wanna-be who forces his way onto a hit TV talk show by abducting its Johnny Carson-like host (Jerry Lewis), whom he idolizes. Rupert’s criminal audacity earns him a jail term, followed by TV stardom and a best-selling book.

Rupert Pupkins now abound. So why not Joey Buttafuoco too?

His 1992 affair in New York with then 16-year-old Amy Fisher--dubbed “the Long Island Lolita”--led to the shooting of his wife, for which Fisher is now serving a prison term of five to 15 years. After three quickie network movies on the case (one of which sought to exonerate him), Joey did 120 days in jail after pleading guilty to statutory rape in having sex with the underage Amy.

With these dynamite credentials, it was inevitable that the 39-year-old auto body shop owner would come to Los Angeles seeking work in entertainment, and just as inevitable that he’d be shadowed by a movable ring of reporters after his little snafu in Hollywood, where police claimed he tried to buy sex from an undercover police officer on Sunset Boulevard.

Buttafuoco denied it, and so did his publicist (yes, he has one of those now), who announced that “Joey Buttafuoco does not need to buy sex.”

Whatever the case, that block of granite above his shoulders is another reason that he merits his own talk show. And if he needs a co-host, a candidate immediately comes to mind.

Heidi Fleiss.

Obviously, they’d have lots to talk about. And even if Fleiss does time (she’s appealing her recent pandering conviction) and the solicitation charge against Joey sticks, returning him to jail for violating his parole, not to worry. One thing we can all count on. When they get out, the entertainment industry will still be waiting.

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DUMB & DUMBER. If created along the lines of the syndicated “Regis & Kathie Lee,” would “Joey & Heidi” draw many viewers? Oh, please! With scummy “Montel Williams” heading Los Angeles talk-show ratings for the just-concluded May sweeps and with numbing, almost self-mocking “Jerry Springer” zooming upward in national ratings, anything is possible.

Based on these audience figures, the public’s appetite for bombast and banality endures. More evidence is the thriving “Ricki Lake,” “Jenny Jones,” “Sally Jessy Raphael,” “Geraldo” and “Richard Bey,” the latter being history’s Mortimer Snerd of daytime talk shows. You envision its target audience being yaks.

Talk shows and the cynics who make them. Not a pretty topic.

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RATHER & BLATHER. Winding up Thursday’s edition of the CBS News program “CBS This Morning” following a promotional story about the CBS News program “48 Hours,” morning show co-host Harry Smith asked Dan Rather about the controversial erasure of his co-anchor, Connie Chung, from the “CBS Evening News.”

Smith: “You are once again the sole anchor of the ‘CBS Evening News,’ and we have 90 seconds or so here, and I want to ask you a couple of things. Do you think the co-anchor idea for that broadcast was a good idea in the first place?”

Rather: “I do, Harry. I enthusiastically embraced it, including Connie as being the dual anchor. I thought then, and still believe, that it can work. Now we tried it for two years, and for a lot of reasons it didn’t work for us, but I know that there is a contrary view, but I don’t think in and of itself dual anchoring is necessarily a bad idea for the viewer. For example, you and Paula [Zahn] do a terrific job on this program of dual anchoring.”

Smith: “There have been charges, not directly, but charges of sexism involved, saying that Connie was a victim of sexism. How would you respond to that?”

Rather: “Well, first of all, I refuse to believe that Connie herself has said that. I’m pretty sure that she hasn’t said it. People operating for her may have, because Connie said when she came to the dual anchor seat, she said: ‘I didn’t get this job because I am a woman. I got it because I am a professional journalist,’ and she was right going in. Same thing applies going out. I don’t think that kite will fly.”

Smith: “Fifteen seconds left. How do you believe that the ‘Evening News’ has not been damaged in some way through all of this? Why should I watch the ‘Evening News?’ ”

Rather: “Because it is as it has been. It’s the best of the evening news broadcasts. Yes, do we have problems? Of course. But are we the best on the air? That’s true, and for anybody who doesn’t believe it? Tune in tonight and we will show you again.”

Smith: “Thanks, Dan.”

Rather: “Thank you.”

Thanks to both of them for this news , although it’s doubtful this kite will fly.