The Parent Trend

You probably consider our existence--if you bother to consider our existence--to be a relentless stream of Tara-like balls, nurtured by an endless conveyor belt of sparkling conversation and hors d’oeuvres. The truth is much darker than that.

Sometimes we watch TV.

Such a breach of Out & Aboutness usually happens when we are behaving like your typical Angeleno--that is, we are on hiatus. Yes, we too have had moments of being In & Watching TV. And we’ve noticed something fairly noisy riding the airwaves into the zeitgeist--faux parents.

Judge Judy? Code for Tele-Mom. Which father knows best? “The People’s Court” judge, Ed Koch.

Apparently, we’ve all been so naughty lately that it takes a village to raise a country. In fall, three more TV judges hit the bench--Joe Brown, Mills Lane and the granddaddy of them all, “The People’s Court” sire Joseph Wapner, who returns to the tube with a berth on Animal Planet.

How naughty are we?

“We’ve had an episode of ‘Me, My and I,’ which has been going on for 25 years,” says Brown. “We’ve had two decades of ‘It’s OK to Be Your Base Self’ rather than aspiring to be your higher self. What we need is a father or mother figure to reimpose that upon us.

“When you get that base thing without striving to be better, then you get this national disgrace, this dialogue over the past couple of years about things you just didn’t ask or get into before.”

Hmmmm. You couldn’t possibly be referring to something presidential, could you?

“Sometimes.”

Lest we forget, there’s also the ubermom of broadcast, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, whose syndicated show is the fastest growing in radio history. We asked Dr. Laura to deconstruct her parental popularity for us, but her People told us she was too swamped to chat.

(Another radio person had warned us that journalists are not her favorite species these days because of a particularly tart profile in the September Vanity Fair, which essentially accuses her of being the Mommie Dearest of radio. So much for the perks of popularity.)

Anyway, we thought we’d had all the fun we could handle being yelled at by our bio parents when we were growing up. But sport screaming has become a national rage--not just trashy sport screaming (i.e. Jerry Springer) but also instructional sport screaming.

We asked Dr. Rod Gorney, UCLA professor of psychiatry, why grown-ups still get a charge out of being hollered at to clean up their room.

“It goes back to the evolution of our species,” he said. “Most of us in today’s world are the products of a very severely disordered mother-baby relationship, and from then on with other caretakers. It’s an epidemic that’s out of sight, so that you find all kinds of things happening to adults.

“For example, falling in love with terrorist captors. Why do they do that? Dependence and the prayerful hope that they won’t be killed. It makes them invest in those terrorists the same way they did in parents who abused them.”

In other words, chances are, you’re never too grown up to re-create the nutty grown-ups you grew up with. Which brings us to falling in love with televised captors. Dialing for dysfunction.

“If something comes along, like Laura or the judge, who will be stern, parental or fair--supposedly, I have my doubts whether they always are--and care enough to dispense what passes for justice in a parental style, I think there’s great gratification in that.”

Not to mention something even tastier--ratings. Because when someone else is being sent to the corner, we like to watch.

Gorney says we feel that “that good doctor or father who knows best on the screen has also been there in your living room taking care of you and showing you what to do as well as the characters. In clinical situations, you see that dreams of patients are clearly associated with television experienced the night before.”

But hey, now that we’re adults, we always have free choice. When we were kids, we broke curfew. Now we break the law.

Why, just the other day, someone stole the horse after closing the barn door to the set of Papa Wapner, who has traded in people for pets on the upcoming “Animal Court.”

The plaintiff had bought a horse for $2,500, and had paid only $900. But before she could pay off her tab, the defendant had repossessed the beast, saying the new owner wasn’t caring for it properly.

Wapner awarded the horse to the plaintiff because she had a signed agreement. Then he told her to pay up.

“After I left the bench,” Wapner says, “I found out [the defendant] had taken off with the horse in a horse trailer. The plaintiff was quite angry and, unbeknownst to me or anyone else on the show, called the police.

“An hour later the police showed up, and the staff convinced them to go on camera. They said they had to investigate for grand theft. Fascinating.”

Next week, why Zorro is hot, hot, hot.

*

It’s a Dirty Job: Shop until you drop? It’s not hard when you shop in stilettos.

“Aren’t these thrilling?” Christine Baranski is trilling, displaying her instruments of torture: blood-colored Manolo Blahnik patent pumps with heels the length of freeway offramps.

We are in the belly of Santa Monica’s Barker hangar, where Barneys New York is launching its annual rite of late summer--the two-week sale--with weenies and vodka.

Before the fund-raising evening is over, 600 altruists will have bought enough duds and doodads to net $40,000 for AIDS Project Los Angeles. Baranski, the “Cybill” co-star and theater diva, is the event’s spokesactress.

Back to the shoes.

“The reason I’m wearing them is, I have to wear these acrylic nails for the film I’m in. [“Bowfinger’s Big Thing”] is a brilliant comedy written by Steve Martin. And I looked at the nails and then I saw these shoes, and I thought, how great. I mean, seriously. Does that not match?”

Her blood-colored nails do look like the manual equivalent of stilettos. We note the resemblance and resolve to stay on Baranski’s good side. Tra, la, la. Don’t stars just love sales?

“Every woman loves a sale,” Baranski declaims. “I figure, there’s toys when you’re young. And when you get older, there’s clothes and makeup. Those are our toys.”

We interrupt this interview for a special message from Barneys.

“There’s a half-naked man changing in the aisle,” notes store spokesman Jason Weisenfeld.

Indeed there is. Carry on.

“This is really fun because you can shop without guilt,” Baranski says. “You can have your little iced vodka and your hors d’oeuvres and you can shop.”

Isn’t the iced vodka thing a little like being plied with liquor in a Las Vegas casino? “I think it must loosen up the pocketbook,” Baranski muses.

Weisenfeld agrees. “Certain things have a tendency to look a little bit more attractive after a couple of cocktails.”

Like a huge credit-card balance.

*

Mama Jodie: Just in case you were wondering, she looks fabulous. It’s been a month since Jodie Foster popped out the much-speculated-about Charles, and the privacy-minded actress is making her official debut as a new mom at the Beverly Hills premiere of Showtime’s “The Baby Dance,” a tense adoption drama written and directed by Jane Anderson.

Foster, who says her obsession with family prompted her to executive produce the film, has just walked the plank of paparazzi who want to know, does she or doesn’t she? Fit into her sleek egg-colored slacks, that is. You can forgive her for looking a little glazed. It’s only the third time she has been out of the house since Charles showed up. “I went to get my hair cut, and I went down the street for 10 minutes. That’s pretty much it.”

Not that things have been uneventful. The enthusiastic novice mother reportedly installed a $1-million baby monitor hooked up to a satellite that will enable her to sing her boy to sleep from Tokyo.

But don’t get your hopes up if you’re an FOJ (Friend of Jodie). That mega-monitor isn’t likely to be a hand-me-down soon.

“He’s just the nicest little guy. He’s easy and he’s really mellow. He’s just a little sweetheart. I could have 10 of them.”