Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 39

PAGE FIVE ninwiniii.ini. i i.i "iiiiii 1 1 hpiii iii itmmi i in. muni Is 'Mr. Mike' up to standard of 'Sat Night'? Oh, No-o-o By JACQI TULLY The Arizona Daily Star When television rejects a project, you know it has to be iffy at best. National Lampoon writer Michael O'Donoghue wrote "Mr.

Mike's Mondo Video" for NBC-TV. He says the network nixed the show because it turned out to be too controversial too racy. NBC says "Mr. Mike" was simply too bad for the tube. "Mondo Video," as satire, should make fun of our failings or of the failings of society.

Keaton creates humor by letting us in on those private feelings and less-than-ideal attitudes we can all share at times. O'Donoghue creates humor by whacking us over the head with an idea. The laughs don't come because we're not sharing anything or learning anything. Example: a takeoff on those revolting commercials The TV boys proved right for once. "Mr.

Mike's Mondo Video," shuffled out for national film distribution, is supposed to resemble a sophisticated, wittily satirical R6VI6W "Saturday Night Live." But "Mondo Video" looms upon us, on the big movie screen, as an often satirical, but generally off-the-mark, comedy show. in which a beautiful woman purrs lustily at the camera, explaining why or how she likes her man. Instead of telling us how she likes him after he's used some lotion or put on some article of clothing, the bit plays off itself, and she tells us: "I love my man when he has pimples on his back." Funny? Well, sort of, and sometimes. You can see what he's driving at, anyway, but O'Donoghue does not have the kind of vision and clarity that keeps satire sharp. "Mr.

Mike's Mondo Video" is bawdy, racy humor that flies with feet of lead; a movie with about half as many laughs as a "Saturday Night Live" on a bad night. "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video" is playing at the Park Mall theater. The ads pump it up, all with the help of friends Chevy Chase too funny for and Marvin Kitman best comedy show of the but once the show starts, it's all downhill. Even cameo appearances by Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Ratner and Lorraine Newman can't get this slapdash, schizophrenic laugher off the ground.

Why isn't it funny? I'm not sure, although seeing Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill, Jr." the night before "Mondo Video" made me realize comedy requires a lucidity and crystalline vision. Keaton had it. O'Donoghue does not have it here. "Steamboat Bill, Jr." is one of the funniest movies ever made because it so beautifully communicates basic human emotions greed, loneliness, unrequited love and selflessness. Cavett holds out refuge to exiles from network TV By FRANK SWERTLOW 0 1979 The Chicago Sun-Times CHICAGO Appreciating Dick Cavett is a journey.

At first, Cavett sparkled on ABC. Who in the commercial TV world would invite Paul Weiss a philosopher and a philosopher hardly anyone has ever heard of onto a network talk show? That's spunk, but Weiss' many appearances became fascinating, as were performances by such show-biz artists as Noel Coward, Groucho Marx and the Lunts. But then Cavett became irritating. Toward the end of his career at ABC, he seemed bored, and his shows tilted toward the trivial. In fairness, perhaps, it was not Cavett's fault.

At the time, ABC was run by executives whose brilliance kept the network locked in the basement of broadcasting. Yet, once ABC pulled the plug on Cavett, I had a feeling of loss. The Mervs, the Mikes and the Johnnies cautiously recycled the same guests. It seemed as if the Gabor sisters and their mother never lacked for work. Cavett, however, didn't disappear.

He dabbled at CBS for a while, did some work for PBS, such as "Feelin' Good," and, then in the fall of 1977, returned to the couch with a half-hour show on PBS (broadcast in Tucson at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. weekdays on Channel 6). What has become important about Cavett's show is his guests. For instance, one evening, Cavett chatted with cartoonist Edward Gorey.

Another night, playwright Edward Albee flashed his arrogance. And on another evening, Quentin Crisp, an avowed homosexual, discussed his autobiography, "The Naked Civil Servant." To be sure, the Sophia Lorens would not elude Cavett nor would a Henry Kissinger or a George Burns, but the beauty of Cavett's show is that the exiles from commercial television have a place where they can go. And as they do, the public has the opportunity to see them, to watch them cross their legs, and to gaze upon their clothes and their hair styles. More than anything else, this is a visual history unfolding in your living room. Cavett recently conducted a series of interviews from Chicago.

Among his guests were columnists Mike Royko and Irv Kupcinet of the Chicago Sun-Times, commentator Len O'Connor and playwright David Mamet. In the midst of taping these interviews, Cavett and I and members of the Chicago Academy of TV Arts and Sciences met to discuss his career. The following are excerpts from the interviewer being interviewed: Who are Cavett's favorite interviews? Who doesn't he want back? "The favorites, I guess, Katharine Hepburn, Noel Coward and Groucho. The worst, I suppose, are some people from TV series." Who has eluded him? 'Why don't you get Garbo people always say. That's an idea! Naturally, it's never going to happen.

Cary Grant? Everyone who knows him says he is so charming. He'd be wonderful." What's the difference between ABC and PBS? "I now can do three shows in a row on the state of the English language, or I can have Eudora Welty on and not have to explain who she is to someone at the network who might not know." Dick Cavett Tuesday, December 1 1 Tucson Today SHOWCASE CINEMA La Cage aux Folles (R) 7:35,9:35. "Watership Down" (PG) 7:15. "Lord of the Rings" (PG) 9:15. APACHE "Arabian Adventures" (G) 7, 10:29: "The Shape of Things to Come" (PG) 8:54 "Holiday Hookers" (R) 7, "Teenage Tramp" (R) 8:52.

"Night ot the Demon" (R) "The Dark (R) "When the Screaming Starts" (R) 10:13 DE ANZA Heavy Traffic" (R) 7, 10: 1 1 "Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat" (R) 8:36. Killer Fish" (PG) 7, "Dogs" (R) 9:01 "When a Stranger Calls' (R) 7, 1 1 :01 "The Amity-ville Horror (R) 8:59. RODEO "LasNochesdePaloma "(NR) 7, "2Gallosy 2 Gallinas" (NR) 8:40. TUCSON 9 Teenage Innocence" (R) "Teenage Seductress" (R) "Teenage Teasers Go to Pans" (R) 10:15. "Paradise Alley" (R) "The Deer Hunter" (R) 8:50.

"The Legacy" (R) 7. "Halloween" (R) 8:50. "Young Frankenstein' (PG) "Starting Over' (PG) "Jesus" (G) 7:15. 9:30. "Breaking Away' (PG) 7:15.

9:15. "The Legacy" (R) 7:30. 9:30. CORONADO "The Life of Brian" (R) 7:15. 9:15.

EL CON "Starting Over" (R) 1. 3. 5, 7:20, 9:25. "Apocalypse Now" (R) 12:45. 3:45, 7, 10.

"The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh" (PG) 12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:45, 10:15. "Star Trek" (G) 1 3:50, 7, 9:50. "Young Frankenstein" (PG) 12:30, 2:45. 5, 7:30. 10:10.

"Sleeping Beauty" (G) 12:30. 2:25. 4:10, 5:50. 7:40. EL DORADO "And Justice for All" (R) 7:35, 10.

"Luna" (R) 7, 9:40. NEW LOFT "Allegro Non Troppo" (PG) 7, "Orchestra Rehearsal" (PG) 8:25. ORACLE VIEW The Legacy" (R) 8:30, 10:20. "Star Trek" (G) 7. 9:50.

"Starting Over" (R) 7:20. 9:25. "Sleeping Beauty" (G) 7. PARK MALL Fiddler on the Root" (G) 1.4:30,8. "Animal House" (R) 12:45, 4:30.

"Up In Smoke" (R) 2:55, 6:35. 10:20. "Killer Fish" (PG) 4. Moonraker" (PG) 1:45, 6:05. 10:20.

Santa Claus will visit with children from 1 1 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. at the Arizona Bank Plaza, Stone Avenue and North Pennington Street. "Star of Bethlehem" will be presented at the Grace H.

Flandrau Planetarium at the University of Arizona at 4 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the 4 m. show are $1 .25, and they're $2.50 for adults and $1 .25 for UA students and youth 16 and under at the evening show. Bloodmobile van will be stationed from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

at Southern Pacific, 2102 E. Aviation Highway. "Tucson: An Urban History," final program in a three-part slide-lecture series presented by the Arizona Historical Society, 7 p.m. at the Himmel Park branch library, 1035 N. Treat Ave.

American Association of University Women will meet at 9:30 a.m. at 4110 E. Roberts Place. Tucson Coin Club will meet at 7:30 p.m. in the city Parks and Recreation Building, 200 S.

Alvernon Way. "Photorama: A Celebration of Photography," a program featuring films, slide shows and student exhibitions, will be held from 1 1 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the UA Art Building basement. A Christmas print swap will be held.

Work to be swapped must be presented by 3 p.m. Music and refreshments provided. Music Collegium Musicum, the early-music ensemble of the UA school of music, will perform in a concert of Christmas music, 8 p.m., Crowder Hall, North Olive Road and East Speedway. Free. Ceremony of Carols, with Benjamin Britten's Christmas music performed by singers from the UA school of music and harpist Patricia Harris, noon in La Placita Village, 120 W.

Broadway. Free. "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" will be performed by the UA drama department's The Entertainers at the second annual Christmas Tree Festival in the UA Main Library. Theater "Twelfth Night," a Shakespearean comedy by the Arizona Theatre Company, will be performed at 8 p.m. in the Tucson Community Center Little Theatre, 260 S.

Church Ave. Tickets from $4.50 to $8. The Movies BUENA VISTA "Time After Time" (PG) "Capricorn One" (PG) 5:40, 10.05. "10" (R) 6:05, 8:15, 10:25. CATALINA "Yanks" (R) 7, 9:35.

CINE PLAZA "Llovizna" (NR) 6:30, "Me Hade Comer Esa Tuna" (NR) 8:11 CINEWORLO 4 CINEMAS "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixen" (X) 7:45, 9:45. 12:30, 2:15, 4, 5:45. 7:30. 7, 10; "Naughty Stew- "Mondo Video" (R) 10:55. "Blazing Stewardesses" (R) 8:40.

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