John Tesh Must Be Spinning in His Piano Chair

Just what television needs: two more syndicated kiss-up shows cozily snuggled up deep inside the hip pocket of the show-biz industry.

The dueling hams rendition here is “Scoop With Sam & Dorothy,” a daytime hour exposing the nation to revved-up entertainment reporters Sam Rubin of KTLA-TV Channel 5’s top-rated “Morning News” and Dorothy Lucey of KTTV-TV Channel 11’s competing “Good Day L.A.”

Rubin and Lucey pant frantically, trying so hard that you can almost hear their hearts pounding, as “Scoop” slobbers all over the hands that feed it. As does “Access Hollywood,” a new half-hour airing on KNBC-TV Channel 4 at 7:30 p.m. opposite “Entertainment Tonight,” the long-running series on KCBS Channel 2 whose style and tone it copies, following the shallow footprints of an earlier version of the syndicated “Extra.”

This sets up an epic battle of marshmallows in early evening, with “Access Hollywood” having thrown down the gauntlet in its Monday premiere with an awesome display of fawning that made “Entertainment Tonight”--usually the press agent-friendliest place on the air--look like a ruthless inquisition. What a heartbreaking downer for that aging pioneer, “Entertainment Tonight,” to have labored so long at polishing the art of the gush only to have a young upstart show up and possibly do it better.

Of course, this was the week for flattery, a thick fog of giddiness still shrouding TV after Sunday’s Emmys and the pre-Emmy celebrity assembly lines, whose sincerity was epitomized by Joan Rivers’ gab on cable’s E! Entertainment network. Love ya! Who are ya?

But love? “Access Hollywood” and its anchors, Giselle Fernandez and Larry Mendte, know something about that, based on an opening show Monday that appeared to have set a modern mark (records weren’t kept before 1950) for hosts and their guests saying “great.” On hand were the expected Emmy-winning guests, starting with Dennis Franz of “NYPD Blue,” and the usual post-Emmy sweet talk, with lots of chat and footage given to a fancy Emmy “soiree” thrown by “Access Hollywood” that was rated, well, great, by the show’s anchors and celebrity guests.

Equally great, in the eyes of “Access Hollywood,” were Fernandez and Mendte, who earned about as many close-ups as the people they were constantly praising. Not to be outdone, the praised shot back with praise of their own, for their own shows and for “Access Hollywood,” which had, after all, thrown a swell party for them.

It wasn’t a praiseworthy launch of the “more sophisticated look at entertainment news” vowed in press releases for “Access Hollywood.”

Meanwhile, Rubin and Lucey were not exactly shy themselves, staying in character Monday on their respective separate morning shows, where Lucey told host Steve Edwards, “I’ll give you a buck every time you mention the word ‘scoop,’ ” while Rubin challenged viewers to “count the number of times ‘Scoop’ is mentioned” during the “Morning News.” Actually, you lost count.

Channel 11 is in the curious position of having Lucey co-star in a series carried on rival Channel 5. With no conflict of its own to tether it, though, Channel 5’s “Morning News” assumed its usual chauvinistic position by joyously breaking “news” about itself, in this case dispatching reporter Gayle Anderson to the set of “Scoop” for an onslaught of bouquets that featured Rubin himself. Anderson to viewers: “The number you can call in for ticket information and for sales. . . .”

*

Assuming “Scoop” devotees still have the capacity to dial, that is, for even brief exposure indicates that this is a show that not only is dim itself but also sucks out your intelligence.

You could feel the brain cells eroding even as you watched Rubin and Lucey pretend on Monday’s premiere that all of their patched-together Emmys ode--leading off with Jason Alexander of NBC’s “Seinfeld”--had been shot that morning, after the awards telecast. (How did NBC describe its Olympics coverage--plausibly live?) They kept up the clumsy pretense with Cybill Shepherd on Tuesday’s program, which actually was taped Monday. Lucey mentioned that Shepherd had appeared “last night” with Larry King on CNN. “Tonight,” Shepherd corrected Lucey, before wising up and reversing herself. “Oh, last night.”

It was a small thing but symbolic of mess. The so-called “scoops” that Rubin and Lucey promise are industry fine print, moreover, and their early effort has that usual-suspects aura, even though this was surely the only spot on TV Monday where you could see Rubin and superstar country singer Randy Travis jointly combat a female arm wrestler.

Meanwhile, the free-spirited Shepherd had come to “Scoop” promoting the new season of her CBS comedy, “Cybill.” Then Rodney Dangerfield arrived to promote his new movie, but he was such a baffled guest that if there had been a trapdoor on the set, he’d have been through it in seconds. Then came the arrival of Leeza Gibbons (Rubin: “She is talented, she is very beautiful, our friend. . . .”) in advance of her new season of “Leeza” episodes on NBC. And finally there was Traci Bingham, the newest “Baywatch” babe. “It means so much being the first black on ‘Baywatch,’ ” she said. “It makes it more realistic.”

The hosts ignored that straight line, given the awkwardness of examining the gritty realism of “Baywatch” while sitting with your bare feet dangling into a water-filled kiddie pool, as they and Bingham were doing at the time.

Not that examining anything except tosies appears to be in this show’s future. On Monday, when Travis sang “I’m gonna love you forever and ever” to a woman in the audience, it could have been “Scoop’s” own serenade to the entertainment industry.

Yes, yes, “Scoop” and “Access Hollywood” are early works in progress. Must have patience. Give them a chance, and so on and so on. Very good advice. But next time, if they haven’t gotten it together, no more Mr. Nice Guy.