NO HEAT AND NO MEAT ON ‘INDAY’ MENU

What? You didn’t watch Monday’s premiere of the syndicated daytime series “Inday” on KTLA? Fool! Here is some of what you missed:

--A man who coaches people to walk through fire.

--Dr. Joyce Brothers.

--Ace reporter Michael Reagan.

--Hot tips, such as what to do when your brush gets tangled in your hair: First of all, don’t panic. Whew!

--Robert and Rosemarie Stack examining jewelry.

--John Travolta revealing what he had for dinner.

--People clumsily reading from TelePrompTers and looking into the wrong camera.

--Numerous technical glitches.

--Hot tips, such as what to do when Dr. Joyce Brothers gets tangled in your hair (just kidding).

Watching “Inday” is like flipping through a magazine so fast that the words and images are blurred and you see only the tips of the pages. No meat, no heat.

Bad? It’s a toss-up between “Inday” and the season’s other daytime stillborn, Paramount’s “America,” which has already dumped Stuart Damon as one of its three co-hosts.

The “Inday” two-hour block of four programs is designed for midday on independent stations and has a first-year budget of $25 million that its backers--LBS Communications, Columbia Pictures Television and Tribune Broadcasting Co.--say is a record for a syndicated series.

The four half-hour elements are “Inday News,” “All About Us” hosted by Ron Hendren, “It’s a Great Life” hosted by the Stacks and “What’s Hot! What’s Not?” hosted by Fred Willard and Melanie Chartoff.

The co-anchors of the leadoff “Inday News,” Donna Hanover and Brad Holbrook, look like they were squeezed from a tube of gloss. Although the hard news is up to the minute, this segment of “Inday” has as much of a packaged-under-cellophane look (a Holbrook interview on parental influence on children reached the startling conclusion that “You have to kind of lead by example”) as the other three elements.

“All About Us” had two fleeting pieces, on an elderly orchestra and an emergency-room nurse, that at least projected some genuine feeling and emotion. But the segment’s tone (as a sort of a compressed “That’s Incredible!”) was set by “the hot-footed guru of fire walking” and a parade of dazzling reporters that somehow included the President’s son, Michael Reagan, and that media mouse Dr. Joyce.

She reconstructed an ancient, flawed study asking young children to choose between watching television and such other privileges as talking to their fathers. Most chose TV, leading Dr. Joyce to conclude that TV is a “portable mommy.” Just as Brothers is a portable psychologist, probably with a handle on her back that you can use to carry her from show to show.

To say that the second hour of “Inday” is more promising than the first is like giving Quasimodo an edge in looks over the Elephant Man. Nevertheless it’s true.

“It’s a Great Life” at least carries a certain honesty. The Stacks, who have been married 29 years, seem to have a good time introducing life-style segments on the wealthy that peel back the surface to reveal--more surface. This is pure whimsy, daytime Robin Leach.

So there was John Travolta, in his 20-room house set on 17 acres in Santa Barbara, boasting to the semi-lucid Maxine Mesinger about his own “great life.” That included his great eats and his two great jets.

“But one I’m selling, because it’s excessive,” Travolta said. “One plane in a family is enough.” Well, at least he’s not ostentatious.

“What’s Hot! What’s Not?” has to be a put-on. Has to be!

Chartoff is formerly of ABC’s “Fridays” and Willard, who replaced Jim Palmer as co-host after the “Inday” pilot, is a first-rate satirist with a true sense of the absurd. They seem on the verge of cracking up as they sit at a table and introduce various “hot” segments that are so dopey they’re almost good.

“Hot” fashions from Mr. Blackwell? C’mon! A “hotmobile” that travels the highways seeking “hot” stories? “Hot” trends in men’s underwear? “Hot” ideas? A “hot in history” segment? “Hot” inventions from KABC radio’s Ken Minyard? Chartoff supposedly reading viewer mail for a show that’s never aired before?

This is exquisite banality.

“It’s our first day,” said Chartoff, almost apologetically. “I’m sure we’re gonna work it out swell.”

So that’s what’s hot: miracles.