In ‘Ark,’ Noah Plays Friars Club

Aren’t you staying for the orgy?

--Lot to Noah in NBC’s “Noah’s Ark”

Noah and his ark have been a hot ticket for ages, from the Old Testament to John Huston in “The Bible” to a CBS special in 1993 that was exposed as hoax when a piece of wood identified on the program as a chunk of the famous boat turned out to be contemporary pine treated to look like the real thing.

CBS finally admitted being duped by the independent producers of “The Incredible Discovery of Noah’s Ark,” which used deception in purporting to document a creationist theory that the big tub actually existed as refuge for a few humans and all animal species, two by two.

Now comes more loopy fantasy in a Bible story as Henny Youngman might have written it. Take Lot’s wife.

Please.

The culprit is NBC’s “Noah’s Ark,” a laughably bad, stunningly low-burlesque, excruciatingly slow two-parter introduced with this disclaimer: “For dramatic effect, we have taken poetic license with some of the events of the mighty epic of Noah and the Flood.”

Not that you need telling, unless you subscribe to the notion that Genesis was written by Borscht Belt comics. “Noah’s Ark” opens, for example, with a savage, gauging, impaling, decapitating battle between the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, followed by this exchange between Jon Voight’s Noah and F. Murray Abraham’s banged-up Lot.

Noah: “What happened?”

Lot: “Some coward shot me in the back.”

Noah: “Where in the back?”

Lot: “I can’t sit down.”

Noah (finally getting it): “Oh.”

As a biblical epic, in other words, much of “Noah’s Ark” is a rim shot with jokes as creaky as 900-year-old Noah. It’s a regular Hayohhhhhh! As was “Wholly Moses,” a labored 1980 sendup of the Good Book with Dudley Moore, but a theatrical film that at least promised nothing beyond the weightless nonsense it delivered.

“Noah’s Ark,” however, is pulled opposite ways by Peter Barnes’ schizoid script, splitting its baggy pants when planting one pigeon-toed foot in parody, the other in Scripture while mingling cheap one-liners with serious lectures on Godliness. It succeeds on neither level, while adrift hither and yon across four hours that feel like the 40 days and 40 nights of rain that the Lord pours down on the wicked world after earlier fireballing Sodom and Gomorrah into oblivion.

Part 1, in particular, finds Barnes getting in touch with his inner shtick. That would be fine if his script had an elevated sense of humor and the story a lead actor who could deliver punch lines without looking and sounding like he was having his nose hairs yanked out, two by two.

Instead, this room’s stand-up Noah is Voight, a capable dramatic actor whose unease with comedy--at least this comedy--is palpable when he pops off with the same stoniness that he gives ponderous endorsements of the Lord.

Voight is also voice-over for a self-mocking, wisecracking, echo-chambered God, who after instructing Noah to build a flood-worthy 500-foot ark for his family and pairs of all animals, quips: “I think big. I made the world in six days.”

And is Noah himself a card or what, muttering that his wife, Naamah (Mary Steenburgen), is such a bad cook “she could burn water.”

Lot and his shrewishly whiny, kooky spouse, Sarah (Carol Kane), are Part 1’s designated Sonny and Cher, though, bickering so tenaciously that Noah titles them “two peeves in a pod.” Oh, that Noah.

Lot to Sarah: “The trouble with you is somebody once told you to be yourself.”

Sarah to Lot: “My mother always said you would start at the bottom and work your way down.”

The high jinks really hit the fan when Sarah falls into a vat of red dye during one of her snits at Noah’s place. The bad news? She doesn’t drown. Who can blame Lot for rejoicing when she’s turned into a pillar of salt after ignoring an order not to sneak a look at Sodom getting waxed by the Lord?

Other highlights:

* American-sounding Noah and Naamah having three sons who inexplicably speak as boys like Oliver Twist.

* Noah and his now-strapping sons, after appearing overwhelmed by the task of building the ark, awakening in the morning to a gift from the Lord: Row after row of neatly cut and stacked lumber--as if custom-ordered from Home Depot--numbered for easy assembly.

* Noah’s former best friend, Lot, resurfacing later as a brutal pirate captain who leads his ragged band (“I’m takin’ your ship, Noah!”) in an attempt to board the ark. Where did they get their boats?

* The animals (including actors in gorilla suits) helping repel Lot and his brigands.

* Noah’s sons shoveling animal manure below deck (“Is this what the Lord saved us for?”) like the script at times shovels bad jokes.

* A koala bear dropping actual poo-poo (a prime-time first) when held by the girlfriend of one of the sons. Director John Irwin didn’t re-shoot the scene, presumably because he was striving for authenticity.

* After the ark has drifted for months, Noah being carried below twitching, hallucinating and babbling, and everyone aboard ultimately falling into madness and despair.

As viewers may after exposure to this.

“Noah’s Ark” has the size and high-toned spectacle you’d expect from executive producer Robert Halmi Sr., a durable and prolific TV impresario who has spent much of the ‘90s making about an equal number of neo-classics (such as “In Cold Blood” and “Gulliver’s Travels”) and clunkers (the likes of “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Merlin”). But the computer effects here pale compared with those of his recent overwrought “Alice in Wonderland.” And the ark looks less biblical than like an oversized garbage barge.

In fact, Halmi’s clunkiest yet may be “Noah’s Ark,” which not only flops creatively but--parents be warned--is extremely violent and gory in spots, and includes substantial chatter about sex among Noah, Naamah, their sons and the trio of nubile young maidens the hearty young men bring aboard.

Nor as the disclaimer notes, is the script anything to build a Bible course around. Scholars estimate that at least 500 years may have elapsed between the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the great flood, for example. Yet in “Noah’s Ark,” they’re separated by about a decade.

And although some experts say it’s at least conceivable that Noah and Lot were contemporaries, there’s nothing in Genesis to indicate they knew each other, nor anything to implicate Lot as an early Capt. Kidd.

Not that anyone would watch this to learn about things biblical. Where is Charlton Heston when you really need him?

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* Part 1 of “Noah’s Ark” airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on NBC, Part 2 at 9 p.m. Monday. The network has rated it TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14).