By Popular Demand, the Rough Stuff

The new video, “Cops Too Hot for TV,” makes “NYPD Blue” look like “Romper Room.”

Taking a page from motion pictures that sport previously unreleased footage when they hit the home video market, the 45-minute tape features R-rated material cut from the popular, long-running Fox cinema verite TV series, “Cops.”

Included in the video, which hits stores today for $20, are scenes of law enforcement officers losing their temper, being berated by suspects in language that would make David Mamet blush, getting the naked truth when they answer a domestic dispute, dealing with intoxicated suspects who refuse to believe they’re drunk and chasing down a runaway white cow in the middle of the night.

“Cops Too Hot for TV” has certainly captured the attention of the series’ fans. Since November, more than 500,000 tapes have been purchased through a direct-mail campaign.

Philip Knowles, president of Music Video Products Home Entertainment, the Canoga Park-based company distributing the tape to retailers, says orders have been coming in “thick and fast. It’s our goal to have half a million pieces at retail stores by [today]. We think it will go beyond that as the product moves off the shelves. It’s going to be tremendously supported, perhaps even more supported than it ever was in direct response, in terms of television advertising.”

Knowles says Blockbuster and “most of the chain video outlets” are carrying the video.

Scott Barbour, producer of “Too Hot for TV,” says the video was born out of requests from the show’s fans.

“[They] were saying, ‘We know there is stuff that we are not able to see because of censorship or whatever reason and we want to see it.’ Over the years, everybody and their brother would call us asking for a T-shirt and ask us for stuff they didn’t see on television. The videotape was an outgrowth of that.”

Police officers, Barbour says, have been extremely supportive of the video. “They want everybody to understand they are human,” he says. “They almost crave for people to really see how much they have to go through. That’s really what you see on the tapes. This is life on the street for a cop.”

The appeal of the series and the tape, Barbour says, is “almost the voyeurism when you are watching other people and you are seeing other people’s problems. All of your warts are out there for the world to see. Everybody at home is saying, ‘Our life isn’t that bad. His life is worse.’ ”

Though the video contains snippets that aired in edited pieces on “Cops,” which enters its ninth season this fall, the majority of the footage has never been seen before.

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Amazingly, the suspects in the tape gave their permission to have their faces--and, in some cases, other body parts--shown.

“We are an entertainment organization,” Barbour says. “If we are to show anybody recognizable, we have to have their release.” And if they were intoxicated at the time of the arrest, the producers waited until they were sober.

“But I will tell you something: By and large, most everybody will sign the release,” Barbour says. “We have never been sued and never lost a case based on showing anybody. Not only do they sign releases, most often they will call us and ask us for a copy of the tape and a T-shirt.”

MVP will be releasing additional videos with material culled from the series: “Cops in Hot Pursuit” (Aug. 23), featuring high-speed chases, and “Cops Caught in the Act” (Sept. 23), focusing on dangerous arrests. Both videos have also been available through direct response. MVP plans a gift set of all three for Christmas.

And later this year, “Cops Too Hot for TV, Vol. 2.” will be available through direct mail, with retail sales to follow in 1997.

“I will tell you, this is a niche we have hit--the direct marketing of compelling programs,” Barbour says. “The amount of sales we have accomplished and the customer awareness over TV the past six months are almost unparalleled. We are releasing this to retail with just a gigantic advantage over most other videos that go out to retail because we already know it is a success.”