A ‘Jurassic Women’ Trade Strategy : Global appetites for babes ‘n’ guns TV shows had better stay whetted. Good taste could kill Hollywood’s exports.

‘This,” advises The Fonz, aka Henry Winkler, “is where the Vegas of Nevada meets the Vegas of L.A. Los Angeles simply moves to Las Vegas this week.”

That’s what I was afraid of. Winkler, standing with me on the convention floor and pitching a syndicated show, just confirmed my fears about the overwhelming, mesmerizing, taste-defying show of the best and the worst America has to offer in commercial TV fare--last week’s annual convention of the National Assn. of Television Programming Executives. Ordinarily I wouldn’t care about this one way or the other, but we Californians export prepackaged entertainment products to the world the way America’s Midwest ships wheat abroad. NATPE represents two of California’s most powerful growth sectors: entertainment and international trade. Hollywood now employs more Californians than the entirety of the defense sector; international trade accounts for fully a quarter of the state’s economy.

“The fastest expanding part of our business,” confirms Tom Mazza, executive vice president for Paramount, “is foreign sales.” But sometimes I worry that it’s the Midwest that’s shipping the much healthier product. For as I took in the many hundreds of exhibits and showings, I began to wonder whether I am a true American--or more of a PBS nerd than I realized. But I wasn’t alone. “This is not one of the better conventions,” says Alex Chionetti, an executive with L.A.-based Star International Films who buys syndication rights for TV stations in Mexico and Brazil. “It’s the same old stuff.”

I agree with him: Who wants to watch most of this stuff? But obviously, a whole lot of people do, so I need help, I need guidance, I need to talk to the King of Vegas himself. He should know who’s watching this stuff, because it’s the same audience that’s in Vegas forking over good money for something like “The Buddy Hackett Show.” When in Rome, if you can’t do as the Romans, ring up Julius Caesar for help. So I telephone Steve Wynn.

You know him from those old Golden Nugget casino ads on TV. Now he’s chairman of Mirage Resorts Inc., the entertainment giant that also owns Treasure Island as well as the Mirage and has two more casinos in the works. So, before I come clean and explain that I’m in town for the convention, I ask him what he watches on TV after a long day at the office. Says Wynn: “Usually I go home, do my daily workout, maybe view a movie on video, then fall right asleep. Sometimes a Hollywood friend will loan me an Academy Award demo video. I really liked ‘The American President’.”

Right, he doesn’t have time in his life to bother with bad TV. Not only that, he doesn’t even bother to have a look-see at this cornball-yet-glitzy convention that is to Hollywood what an auto show is to Detroit. NATPE draws TV show buyers from all over the world because past, current and future television shows are on sale to TV syndicates and stations here, there and everywhere. You with me so far? This is why I’m walking the floor of the Sands Convention Center, looking at as many of the exhibits as I can stand. This is our future, this is California, this is America’s contribution to McWorld: This, yes, is the Super Bowl of Schlock.

So walk the convention floor along with me. Tell me which of these shows we should be proud of.

How about a film made for syndication titled “Jurassic Women,” with this subtitle: “On a Planet Where Women Rule, the Feminine Touch Can Be Deadly”? (Sexist pigs of the world, break open a six-pack.)

Or the “Jim J. & Tammy Faye Show”? (Pray for it.)

How about “Rollin’,” a weekly show about dance skating; or “The Crocodile Hunter,” described as “television’s wildest wildlife action adventure series.”

Or “Hot Bench,” a half-hour strip that’s touted as a “fiery, cut-through-the-[expletive] approach to settling legal disputes quickly.” (We sure could have used it in the Simpson case.)

Or “The Guerrilla Gardener,” about “gardening with an attitude” (as opposed, I guess, to gardening with a hoe).

Or the “Venus International Model Search,” out of Stallion (I kid you not) Productions of Orlando, Fla.

Or, from Troma Inc., “Killer Babe for the CIA: An Unforgettable Tale of Murder, Suspense and Fishnet Stockings.” Or “Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD--He Traded In His Nightstick for a Chopstick and Became .J.J. . “ Or “Blondes Have More Guns.” Or “The Class of Nuke ‘Em High 2”--right, the sequel. Actually, this Troma product line deserves extra credit for such great, goofy titles. Let’s not lose our sense of humor. But, as Star International’s Chionetti puts it: “It’s too bad you don’t find more humanistic and creative programming. Too much violence and not enough human feeling. Even in Latin America, people are getting tired of violence shows.”

So for the sake of our economy, though not our collective morality, let’s just hope that not too many foreign audiences wind up developing Steve Wynn’s tastes, not to mention Alex Chionetti’s. Or they may go home and watch not “Jurassic Women” or “Jim J. & Tammy Faye” .J.J. but “Leaving Las Vegas.”

Tom Plate’s column runs every Tuesday. His e-mail address is <tplate@ucla.edu>.