Surprise! The Laughs Aren’t All on O.J. : Comedy: The Simpson jokes are mercifully occasional as an entertaining Comic Relief VII raises millions for the homeless.

When the first O.J. joke was only the second joke told (admittedly, a pretty funny one) Saturday evening at the five-hours-plus marathon that was Comic Relief VII, a chill probably ran down the spines of many in the audience.

After all, 18 months ago, at Comic Relief VI, virtually every comedian who got within spitting distance of the stage did John Wayne Bobbitt jokes, which got more than a little wearying. Was this year’s incarnation of the HBO benefit for the homeless going to be nothing more than all-O.J.-all-the-time?

Not to worry. “The biggest show on TV without a jury,” as Billy Crystal described the cable telethon, was mercifully sparing on Simpsonia. Even more mercifully, when the Obsession of the Century was dealt with, it tended to be on fresh, funny terms, if you can imagine such a thing at this late date.

But then, just about everyone did OK during Comic Relief VII: Crystal and his co-hosts, Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams, exuded terrific chemistry, there were hardly any utterly lame stand-up routines and donations this year again ran into the millions.

The only bumpy parts in the evening remain the celebrity-introduced documentary shorts about either the dire plight of the homeless or else their triumph over adversity. There’s probably no way to resolve the incongruity between the raucous laughs and the sobering reality checks in the show’s format without trivializing what the evening is all about.

Still, the intros fobbed off on the celebs could be a little less clunky in their transition from “bright” to bleak--not even Dean Cain, Superman himself, could overcome the stumbling blocks inherent in segueing from a lighthearted anecdote about college kids’ pranks to a line like, “How easy is it to cram six people in a car and tell them it’ll be their home for six months?”

(For those watching at home, don’t worry--no one at the live broadcast at the Universal Amphitheatre watched those segments either, as the concession lines routinely filled up whenever it was time for another feel-guilty moment. But what is one to make of the fact that more people headed for the exits when Bob Saget did his set than when Mayor Richard Riordan hit the stage crooning “Feelings?”)

The hosts established an entertaining rapport, not always present in past Comic Reliefs, that prevailed through the evening--though their routines were threaded together by the flimsiest of through lines, namely, penis jokes (Williams was obsessed with them, while Crystal vaguely tolerated them and Goldberg just didn’t see the appeal). The three came across as members of a sort of quirky, sitcom-like family: Crystal as the long-suffering, deadpan dad, Goldberg the cool mom with attitude and Williams the anarchic son beyond his parents’ control--it’d fit perfectly on Tuesdays on ABC.

Other comics who connected in a big way included Dennis Miller (with a bizarre but funny riff on aliens visiting earth just to check out certain orifices belonging to hayseeds), Robert Wuhl (with a backhanded compliment for the District Attorney’s office--at least, he noted, “They got Zsa Zsa!”), Chris Rock (who offered the “black” take on O.J.) and Drew Carey, Wendy Liebman and Richard Jeni doing some of the best bits of their stand-up routines.

Perhaps due to some obscure rule that people who pay big money for tickets can behave like boors, hecklers and chatterers were a persistent problem. Paula Poundstone dealt with the first of many hecklers in a clever way that Crystal and Williams played off of, perhaps hoping (unsuccessfully) that the audience would get the hint and limit their participation to simply laughing; nonetheless, the word “elbow” became the evening’s running joke. Don’t look for it to turn up on the best-of video and album, though; it was strictly you-hadda-be-there.

Perhaps the biggest compliment that can be paid the show was, it didn’t feel like 5 hours and 15 minutes. Maybe 4 hours and 50 minutes.