‘Universe’ just isn’t big enough for his talent

It used to be that every time John Goodman took a job like “Center of the Universe,” another little piece of my adulation died. Then I had to realize: John Goodman doesn’t care about me.

What I wanted -- all the time, every time -- was Walter Sobchak, the Shabbat-observing, Vietnam-addled, bowler-provocateur of the Coen brothers’ 1998 stoner classic “The Big Lebowski.”

This is the fan’s curse, to feel betrayed by credits, to forget that often enough actors act not because the work is so worthwhile but because, for some reason known only to them or their shrink, they can’t not work. In Goodman’s case, it’s the only explanation that makes sense, besides naked greed; he continually shows up in things in which his presence is not only unnecessary but also disappointing.

In “Lebowski,” Goodman’s girth and explosive rage were continuous sources of amusement and pathos. Like other great fat comedians -- Jackie Gleason, John Candy and, to a much lesser extent, Chris Farley -- Goodman has for years been able to make his weight seem not a liability or a repository of self-parody but a tool in his acting trade. The Coens, in fact, have written to this aspect of Goodman’s physical presence repeatedly, not only in “Lebowski” but also in “Barton Fink,” “Raising Arizona” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

On television he’s strictly hit or miss. He was the right note opposite Roseanne. But on a show like “Center of the Universe,” Goodman shows up all passive and creatively girdled. It’s a job, and he’s apparently gonna do it. In this show, debuting tonight at 9:30, he plays a father with “Everybody Loves Raymond”-like parents (Ed Asner and Olympia Dukakis) and a wife named Kate (Jean Smart) and a kid and wacky siblings. I guess he owns a security firm; I forgot as soon as I learned this information.

To watch this show is to see Goodman lumber across a living room and collapse onto a sofa, all while delivering a straight line to Asner, who plays his oversexed father. Here is Goodman, in the first scene, fishing a tape out of the VCR; he comes up with a ring and asks his wife to renew their wedding vows after 20 years of marriage.

Goodman adds nothing to these scenes, because there is nothing to add.

Here is Goodman, I thought, having to work, and out of that need, or compulsion, or freedom, or whatever it is, here is this sitcom on CBS.

It’s only disappointing because you know what else Goodman is capable of. You know he is capable of becoming a guy who is so insane that he points a gun at a fellow bowler and says: “Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.”