Rhea Perlman’s Turning ‘Pearl’ Into a Gem

Rhea Perlman called from Hollywood the other day--this sort of thing happens all the time--hoping to drum up interest in “Pearl,” the CBS sitcom in which she stars. The show isn’t performing terribly well in the ratings and, Perlman admitted, hasn’t been all it should be in the quality department, either.

“We found we kept doing the pilot over and over,” Perlman said. In the pilot, which aired last fall, down-to-earth, blue-collarly Pearl Carraldo (Perlman, of course) got the best of snooty college professor Stephen Pynchon (Malcolm McDowell) after enrolling in his course as part of her back-to-school, self-improvement program.

Mr. Hoity-Toity treated Pearl with snide disdain, but she shot back with an array of zesty, common-sense zingers. The trouble was, this ritual became tedious week after week after week.

“We want to expand the show and take it in new directions,” Perlman says. And not a moment too soon.

The first example aired on CBS last week and proved fresh and funny, with physical humor replacing some of the repetitious banter. Pearl and classmates decided they had to break into the professor’s house to retrieve a flawed report and then replace it with the correct one.

Pearl was lowered through the skylight on a rope a la Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible.” When she found herself dangling within millimeters of the sleeping professor’s nose, things got satisfyingly uproarious.

The next of the revamped “Pearls” airs Wednesday. It’s a special occasion any way you look at it.

Danny DeVito, Perlman’s real-life husband, guest-stars as the head of Swindon College. He’s the dean--Dean Martin, ha ha--and he takes an instant and blinding shine to Pearl, who reminds him of his dead wife. As they make out passionately in the kitchen after a dinner party, he tells her to stop calling him “Dean Martin” and use his first name, Aston.

Aston Martin, like the car. Get it? OK, it’s kinda corny, but at least the show is cheerful and good-natured.

Alas, the writers decided that at this point in the episode they needed a food fight, so they force the character of professor Pynchon to behave in a way he never would, especially since he’s trying to get Dean Martin to name him chairman of the humanities department. When Pynchon lets Martin have it in the puss with a scoopful of mashed potatoes, it’s funny, but unbelievable.

Oh for the days of, let’s say “Cheers,” when situation comedy depended less on the situations than on the characters. Writers took care to protect the integrity of those characters by having them behave consistently, even if that meant forgoing an easy laugh now and then.

America knows (and loves) Rhea Perlman, of course, from her 11 years on “Cheers” as Carla, the world’s crankiest waitress. Her put-downs were priceless and delivered with bull’s-eye accuracy. It could be that Carla haunts “Pearl” and that this is why the show has not attracted more viewers; people prefer to remember Perlman in her previous role.

But Perlman’s still pert and peppery and endearingly pugnacious. “Pearl” deserves a chance because it’s a lot less dumb than most of the season’s other new sitcoms and because Perlman makes it gleam.

The show is no candidate for the TV Hall of Fame. And its season-to-date Nielsen rating average of 9.5 is not very good. But it has plenty of charms, starting with its star and continuing with a supporting cast that includes definitively daffy Carol Kane as Pearl’s friend.

These two new episodes show considerable improvement. It appears the producers of “Pearl” (one of whom is Perlman) know just what’s wrong with the show and have the talent to fix it. It’s clearly worth the effort.

* “Pearl” airs Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. on CBS (Channel 2).