MTV Awards: Even Bob Dole Would Approve : Onstage: Pulled punches and constant bleeping make the theme ‘Things You Can’t Say on MTV.’

Sitting through Michael Jackson’s 15-minute extravaganza that opened the MTV Video Music Awards telecast Thursday from New York’s Radio City Music Hall, it was hard not to chomp at the bit waiting for host Dennis Miller to take the microphone.

Jackson’s flashy, though oddly flat, lip-synced medley of hits (aided by a guest walk-on from Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash) must have provided plenty of raw material for the comic’s razor wit.

Nope.

Miller’s opening line wasn’t about Jackson at all, but a totally irrelevant remark about his cab driver that night.

Two jokes later Miller finally brought up you-know-who . . . but not so much for a gag, but a gag order. Usually not one to pull punches, Miller said he had been asked by the producers not to make jokes about the falling King of Pop.

That, more or less, set the theme of the show: “Things You Can’t Say on MTV.”

Tom Petty, accepting the first award of the night, given for best male video, noted that in the very video for which he was honored (“You Don’t Know How It Feels”) MTV scrambled the word joint so as not to seem to condone pot use.

Mostly, what couldn’t be said--or more accurately heard--was the f-word. Performer after performer (and a few presenters) felt the need to use it in song or speech, which had the censors working overtime.

Miller? Bleeped in a couple of his jokes. Madonna? Bleeped while excoriating anti-rap forces. Alanis Morissette? Bleeped during her performance of “You Oughta Know.” Courtney Love? You gotta ask?

And so on.

Note to Bob Dole: The hip-hoppers on the show were actually well-mannered and clean-mouthed.

And genuinely thankful. That was especially so for TLC, the night’s biggest winner. The trio’s ambitious “Waterfalls” video’s four awards included best video of the year and--arguably most important--viewer’s choice honor. Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” tied TLC with four, including best alternative and best direction, the latter going to Spike Jonze. Michael and Janet Jackson’s “Scream,” which led in nominations with 11, won for choreography, art direction and dance.

But even Mike Tyson introducing the Red Hot Chili Peppers failed to give the three-hour show a knock-out punch. The live performances were uniformly solid--R.E.M. rocked with a new song, the Peppers smoked, Morissette continued to justify her status as the new rock sensation and Love led Hole through a dynamic “Violet.”

But where was something to talk about, something like Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley’s kiss that opened last year’s show?

R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe--who showed off his recent hernia scar on the pre-show--had his finger on the faint pulse of the evening. In accepting the Video Vanguard Award (pardon . . . the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award), he invoked Beavis and Butt-head, noting the honor means “we make videos that don’t suck.”

That word didn’t get bleeped.