UPN Goes to the Mat With Mayhem

Gorgeous George wasn’t gorgeous. Strutting on TV to the rhythms of the late ‘40s and ‘50s, he was an ugly mug with a rugged, cement face crowned by marcelled, peroxided beauty-shop hair befitting a vain wrestler, who wore his villainy like ermine and flimflam like he invented it.

He didn’t. Man Mountain Dean, Weeping George Zaharias, Rudy La Ditzi and Little Ali Baba were early wrestling curios themselves. But it was Gorgeous George--always preceded into the ring by a valet assigned to lift the rope for him, humbly bow and spritz perfume in the corner he would grace--who came to symbolize professional wrestling’s huge popularity on TV in the medium’s infancy.

Antonio “Argentina” Rocca, The Mighty Atlas and some others had large followings, too, but nothing approaching the aromatic farce of the self-anointed Human Orchid, who took great pains to keep his distance from the proletariat. If inadvertently touched when meeting his foe at the center of the ring for instructions, Gorgeous George would snap his finger, bringing forth his valet to wipe the part of his body that had been defiled by the vulgar ruffian.

Then the match would start, and he would jab a thumb in the guy’s eye.

What an act, what a TV star. No wonder when Los Angeles resident Gorgeous George died in 1963, the City Council adjourned out of respect.

Although there may never be another quite like him, prime-time TV is ever cyclical, with wrestling again one of its hottest tickets, and those giants the World Wrestling Federation and the World Champion Wrestling grappling for the biggest dollars.

This ‘90s contagion on cable and pay-for-view has now spread like the plague to the new fall schedule of UPN, where for two hours every Thursday night future governors of America pound each other to smithereens in a human tractor pull titled “WWF Smackdown!” This traveling mayhem began last week with deafening action from Kansas City’s Kemper Arena.

Hysterical commentator: “It’s a smackdown! It’s a smackdown!”

Is it ever, the biggest smackee of all mainstream television, which UPN is helping become a coliseum for head-crunching violence--to say nothing of egregious overacting--that makes the kinder, gentler sphere of Gorgeous George look like “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” And those nasty video games that so many are harping about resemble Monopoly.

UPN is increasingly as much of a video game as a network. Is there some ominous foreshadowing here of what 1999-2000 has in store for much of prime time, with UPN last week getting a jump on competitors by making itself the unofficial impresario of the fall season’s arrival?

“WWF Smackdown!” was preceded last Monday by a season-starting pair of new UPN comedies, a “Moesha” spinoff titled “The Parkers,” and “Grown Ups,” whose episode tonight is relentlessly flip about sex, and chatty about things orgasmic: “Do you have a nickname for your genitalia?”

At least “The Parkers” and “Grown Ups” have minority leads in contrast to the new series arriving on more established networks.

As mother and daughter Nikki and Kim Parker, moreover, African Americans Mo’Nique and Countess Vaughn are often endearing while soaring over the top, playing their cheap, tasteless big-mama and mini-mama roles to the broad-beamed, hip-wiggling hilt as they enter college together in search of males and, if time permits, education.

Just the sight of them haggling is worth some laughs, with Mo’Nique especially a hoot as this 37-year-old freshman whose recent high school diploma is her badge of honor. Physical comedy can take them only so far, however. And in the first two episodes--most notably tonight’s strikingly juvenile one which finds them pledging the same sorority and competing for the same hunky professor--that’s not far.

Ironically, the writing is crisper and funnier on “Grown Ups,” but the results at times even less rewarding, as black actor Jaleel White--who hitched up both his trousers and his voice as cartoonish Steve Urkel of ABC’s “Family Matters”--sheds the weird act as J, a bachelor whose best friends are Gordon Hammell (J. Dave Ruby) and his wife, Shari (Marissa Ribisi).

White is adequate, and some inventive bits and flashbacks here hint at promise. But these slender moments, instead of allowed to breath independently, are obliterated by an offensively blaring laugh track.

Still worse is the woo-woo, hubba-hubba track--are there 11-year-old executives dictating this at UPN?--attached to the gratuitous sexual material in tonight’s boggling second episode. It makes a big thing of the virginity of J’s girlfriend (but not her capitulation) and has them and the Hammells playing sex-minded board games. After performance problems in bed, meanwhile, J has a talk with his penis: “What is wrong with you?”

It’s a question you may be asking UPN.

If not about the comedies, about “WWF Smackdown!”--which began with WWF champion Triple H and “people’s champion” The Rock taunting each other in obligatory gravelly voices as a teaser for their match later that evening. The Rock gave viewers his trademark look, raising his right brow. The Undertaker and The Big Show were there, too, as was Triple H’s muscle-bound squeeze, Chyna.

Then came the footage of past events, including the Summerslam (refereed by Minnesota Gov. Jesse “The Body” Ventura) and the Attack of the Steel Chair (guys getting repeatedly pounded on their heads with folding chairs). It was hard telling what was and wasn’t live.

Then high drama, as Ivory arrived for her match, swinging her powerful arms and tush in a long white dress that Tori would try to tear off. “The only way to win (he meant lose) is to get stripped of your evening gown,” a commentator said. Then Tori went for Ivory’s gown in a titanic duel that ended as dramatically as it began.

“Ivory has been stripped to her panties, and it’s over,” a commentator said as Ivory ran off clutching her gown in front of her.

On and on it went, until I dozed off.

When I awoke, Triple H and The Rock were going at it with the WWF title on the line, and Commissioner Shawn Michaels as acting special referee. He ejected Chyna for helping Triple H by viciously blindsiding The Rock. With Chyna gone, The Rock was on his way, pounding Triple H helpless, and was about to put him away when he was blindsided again and knocked senseless, this time by referee Shawn Michaels. When Triple H pounced on The Rock, curtains.

The commentators were aghast.

“We got a crooked commissioner!”

“And look, here comes Chyna back!”

“I can’t believe what we have just seen!”

“You saw them in action. Now coming up on UPN 13, meet your favorite WWF champs.”

Wait a minute. That voice. Not a “WWF Smackdown!” commentator, but KCOP-TV anchor Tawny Little on the news set.

Fighting to keep on her evening gown? No, she was reporting that “Triple H successfully defended his WWF championship.” And coming up was the newscast’s interview with Triple H and Chyna, and related stories on fitness and the “WWF Mania Money Machine,” of which this newscast and its reporters were now a part.

KCOP, at last finding its niche in news as the city’s only station with tag team coverage.

* “The Parkers” airs at 8:30 p.m. Mondays on UPN, with a network rating of TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children). “Grown Ups” airs at 9 p.m. Mondays, with a network rating of TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children). “WWF Smackdown!” airs at 8 p.m. Thursdays on UPN, with a network rating of TV-14-DLV (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14 with special advisories for suggestive dialogue, coarse language and violence).

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be reached via e-mail at calendar.letters@latimes.com.