Drowning in Self-Serving Toasts

The buzz is building, and I’m so excited.

“Entertainment Tonight,” “Extra” and “Access Hollywood” have called. Oprah has called. Larry King has called. Bill O’Reilly has called. Rush Limbaugh has called. Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat have called.

I’m trying not to get emotional, but knowing they care means a lot. You see, this day is very significant to me.

It’s the anniversary of my April 29 column.

Has it really been four days since I wrote so magnificently about the PBS series “Frontier House,” working myself into a good cry over my tender, graceful prose?

It seems like only ... this week.

I thank me for being so splendid. I thank me for thanking me. Hey, will I please stop it? Can’t I see I’m blushing, that I’m embarrassing myself with my praise of me? Go on, me, get outta here with all that public affection.

You’re thinking, what’s the big deal? Well excuse me, but don’t fault someone for getting swept up in the self-adoring anniversary fever now raging on TV. Never in memory have as many prime-time reunions and retrospectives been packed so tightly into a concentrated period.

Arriving Sunday may be the biggest head case of all, “NBC’s 75th Anniversary,” in which the network will spend three hours bear-hugging itself for being NBC.

I must compose myself. I’m tearing up again. It’s just so moving.

Oh, brother. Although this industry has spent much of the last half-century kissing up to itself, we surely have “Carol Burnett Show Stoppers”--along with our own hunger for nostalgia as a retreat from troubles of the present--to thank for this latest orgy of TV narcissism.

The Burnett special’s popularity a few months ago delivered this commandment to programmers: Thou shalt make similar U-turns throughout this month’s ratings sweeps.

So CBS reran its Burnett program last week and tapped her to also host its “CBS: 50 Years From TV City” special, which drew sizable ratings on Saturday. While the network was at it, CBS on Sunday toasted the first six years of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” In 2003, there will be seven years to toast.

Tonight features more euphoria, by the way, with Dick Clark hosting “American Bandstand’s 50th ... A Celebration” on ABC.

Meanwhile, Tuesday brought NBC’s “Bob Hope’s Funniest Outtakes,” which should have been billed as an hour of “Fear Factor,” and later that night it presented another prime-time bouquet, this one to Jay Leno for his decade of hosting “The Tonight Show.”

Lasting nearly all month, in fact, NBC’s celebration is not only the giddiest but probably the longest TV birthday bash in history. If the ratings hold, NBC History Month may become an annual event on the network rivaling Black History Month.

It also includes a May 12 movie reuniting the cast of “L.A. Law.” And arriving later in May are “‘The Cosby Show’ Retrospective,” plus 90 minutes touting NBC’s Thursday night lineups as “Must-See TV” and an hour of “NBC’s Funniest Outtakes.” No way could they be as depressing as Hope’s outtakes.

To show you how determined NBC is about this, it asked the nation’s TV critics to take part in its jubilee by picking their favorite NBC shows and having their choices printed in the network’s 75th anniversary publicity packet. Coming through were such sure bets as “Hill Street Blues,” “The West Wing,” “Seinfeld,” “Cheers” and “Saturday Night Live.” As evidence that rationality is not necessary for writing about TV, however, one critic tried to make a case for “Car 54, Where Are You?”

What is the big deal?

Looking backward can be comforting. When watching a newscast or reading a newspaper these days, who doesn’t yearn for a past that our selective memories misinform us was simpler and less acrimonious. So there’s lots to be said for noting anniversaries that do not stir memories of hatred, destruction and death. Take media histories recalling the Los Angeles riots of 1992. No laughs there. And more painful memories are coming next 9/11.

Yet most of these entertainment shows are being staged by an industry on the cutting edge of chalky decadence, one less interested in pursuing new ideas than in brushing away cobwebs and congratulating itself for old ones.

Look what else is in the wings, for example.

Coming Monday on CBS is a retrospective of “The Honeymooners,” and Tuesday on ABC, the schlemiel, schlimazel of “Entertainment Tonight Presents: Laverne & Shirley Again.” Then on May 13, CBS returns with a clip extravaganza that reunites the cast of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” On the same night, ABC will air “TV Guide’s 50 Best Shows of All Time.”

No. 25 on the list is “MASH,” being feted May 17 in a “30th anniversary reunion special” on Fox, whose parent company’s TV wing produced the series.

Showcasing its sense of the absurd, moreover, ABC has scheduled for May 21 a “That’s Incredible” reunion honoring one of the least honest, least defensible series ever, a blight that someone once dismissed as a “freak show annex” to NBC’s “Real People.” That is incredible.

You can make a case, at least, for testimonials to Burnett, “The Honeymooners,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “MASH,” which remind us how good television can be, and that some comedy transcends age. Yet most of these shows are being unzipped from their body bags only because of their potential for profit, reunions and clip shows being easy to promote--just march in the big names--and relatively cheap to produce.

If this really takes off, get ready for the next wave, and the wave after that. How about an Olsen twins retrospective? Or a CBS tribute to “Mister Ed”? I’m pulling for a boffo night on ABC celebrating “The Flying Nun.” Has it really been 32 years?

As Ralph Kramden would say: “Pow! Right in the kisser.”

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg @latimes.com.