Television Reviews : ‘Take Charge!’

We won’t learn how to get filthy rich watching “Take Charge!” but the new PBS series looks like it will help us take better care of what wealth we’ve got (starting today at 2:30 p.m. on KCET Channel 28).

Hosted by nationally syndicated Washington Post and Newsweek financial reporter Jane Bryant Quinn, future half-hour shows will be devoted to such personal financial topics as drawing up a will, learning how to save, preparing for the death of a spouse and smarter ways to buy and finance a home.

It sounds like it could be 13 sleepy weekends in Dullsville. But “Get Rich Quick,” this afternoon’s debut installment about how investment scams work, is actually fairly peppy. It even gets a little bizarre.

In addition to an assistant D.A. who specializes in catching scam artists, one of Quinn’s in-studio guests is Harold the happy con man, who shows up in handcuffs.

An odd little nebbish of a guy now serving his fourth term in prison, he explains how easily he and his smooth-talking phone men and women managed to bilk people out of about $200 million--which is a nice chunk of the estimated $10 billion Quinn says unsuspecting investors lost last year.

Harold, whose complete lack of remorse is cute in a strange kind of way, doesn’t feel guilty about what he did.

“If they didn’t lose it to me,” he chirps, “they’d lose it anyway.”

Whether delivering simple, sound advice about how to avoid being duped by Harold and his ilk, or taking questions from the studio audience, Quinn proves herself an intelligent, unaffected host. She has a pleasant sense of humor and doesn’t seem interested in preaching or moralizing.

“Take Charge!,” a production of KQED in San Francisco, looks like it will be a sensible source of practical financial advice aimed at the Average Joe. Future shows will include celebrity guests like Rona Barrett and Edie Adams.

Of special interest to movie industry types will be week No. 3’s “Stand Up for Yourself,” which features Cliff Robertson recounting how he was blackballed after he blew the whistle on then-Columbia Pictures chief David Begelman for forging the actor’s name on a $10,000 check.