Games are great, toys are too much. But for those moments when you are in the mood for passive electronic diversion (PED), there's just one place to go: that vast greatland and its medium cool contents. Namely the...

THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW (1960-68, CBS). The real stars of Andy's hick circus were, of course, Deputy Barney Fife and philosopher-king Floyd the Barber (Howard McNear) whose conundrums still baffle. What drug was Floyd on? (While that question goes unanswered, dozens more are dealt with in Richard Kelly's book The Andy Griffith Show, out now from Blaire Publishing. Plus: a fifty-page section of show summaries, including the too-hot-to-syndicate "Goober and the Art of Love.")

ASTRO BOY (first syndicated in 1963). Originally created as a pro-nuke cartoon in postwar Japan, the friendly flying robot still occasionally battles Satan and the Hog Dog Men on Saturday mornings in some cities. (visit the tribute site www.astroboy.tv)

BATMAN (1966-68, ABC). In its premiere it booted Ozzie and Harriet out of their prime slot. At its high camp height, it inspired dance crazes (the Batusi), hair styles (Bat Cuts) and pop-art discotheques (Wayne Manor in Sunnyvale, California). Rerun nowadays, Adam West's wooden Bruce Wayne and those sound balloons ("Argghh!!!") are twice as fun. Coolest villains: Victor Buono's King Tut, Burgess Meredith's Penguin, Julie Newmar's Catwoman. Holy shit!

BRONK (1975-76, CBS). After two decades of maiming, raping and rustling, and inciting revolution, movie baddie Jack Palance mellowed into a pipesmoking cop who sat on his porch wailing "Red River Valley" on harmonica as his paraplegic daughter wheeled in behind him. Kojak sucked lollipops.

THE BULLWINKLE SHOW (1961-64, NBC; syndicated). The hippest animal riff of all: a squirrel in an aviator cap and a Steinbeckian moose. Plus: Boris and Natasha, Sherman and Mr. Peabody, Snively Whiplash, and "Fractured Fairy Tales." Gee willickers.

CLUTCH CARGO (syndicated 1959). The animation technique was called "syncro-vox," but this cartoon oddity looked more like reverse ventriloquism. The only things that moved were Clutch and pals' photographically superimposed (and very human) mouths, making for a line-drawing dadafest of epic proportions.

DALLAS (1978- , CBS). Larry Hagman's J.R. weekly wrecks homes, businesses, and the ecological balance of Texas and a dozen lesser nations. The significant question was never "Who shot J.R.?" but who'd dare try to top TV's heaviest heavy? The line is long, with Howard Duff's Titus Semple (Flamingo Road) up front. Coming up fast: Jane Wyman's sour wine-family matriarch, Angela Channing (Falcon Crest). Hiss.

DARK SHADOWS (1966-71, ABC). "The most revolutionary soap opera" bewitched home-bound audiences with a version of ghoul cool that mated As the World Turns with The Addams Family.

DRAGNET (1952-70, NBC). TV's equivalent of cool jazz, with dialogue like a bass solo. Even later episodes kept the groove: Jack Webb's death-ray impassivity turned crooks to stone. Best moments; Sergeant Friday lectures a Leary-type acid guru on the domino theory of hard drug addiction, straightens out a suburban mom who's out shopping for burgers when her threeyear-old goes belly up in the tub, and busts pillhead Jack Sheldon for stashing benzedrine in his radio. Dum da dum dum.

ERNIE KOVACS SHOW (1952-56, NBC, CBS). More than just the "live comedy" godparent of Saturday Night et al., Kovacs' shows reveled in the surreal, even to the point where yuks ceased and non-phenomena took over. Kooksville cast included Percy Dovetonsils, J. Walter Puppybreath, the Nairobi Trio. Audio only: The Ernie Kovacs Album (Columbia Records, 1976).

FIRING LINE (1971- , PBS). William F. Buckley still the king of serpentine cool. The tongue darts. The brain engages. The eyes cast the enemy for weak spots. Zap!

FLAMINGO ROAD (1981-82, NBC). What Batman was to camp, Morgan Fairchild and Howard Duff's dirty little South Florida saga was to sleaze: top of the pop pile. Duff's crooked sheriff bribed, connived, wore white. Fairchild's minx vamped, overread. "Knockoff Pseud," as Tom Wolfe would say.

GEORGE BURNS & GRACIE ALLEN (1950-58, CBS; now syndicated). Burns beat McLuhan to the Global Village theory, playing God with his den TV set. He used it to spy on wife and neighbors, and asked the audience's suggestions on how to deal with Harry Von Zell.

GREEN ACRES (1965-71, CBS). To be truly cool one must genuinely understand the uselessness of logic and reason in a world gone mad. And this show understood it better than any other. Eddie Albert (ostensibly sane) spent six seasons appealing to the wacked-out citizens of Hooterville to behave in a rational and orderly manner. Naturally, he got just what he deserved - the gradual erosion of his own mental stability. Aficionados of this show like to call it surreal. I call it real life. R.S.

HARRY-O (1974-76, ABC). Detective David Janssen took the bus everywhere and exuded a world weariness that put Rockford and Columbo to shame. The great man's theme lives, on TV's Greatest Detective Hits (Mercury LP). D.S.

THE HONEYMOONERS (1955-56, CBS; now syndicated). The comic sitcom of all time. Lines flew almost as fast as crockery in the Kramdens' tiny apartment. "I hope you like it on the moon, Alice," yells Ralphie, "'cause that's where you're goin'!" Best episode: Ralph and Ed Norton take Mambo lessons.

JOE FRANKLIN (1951- ;syndicated). Joe will have virtually anyone on his talk show who gives him a call (he's listed, in the New York book); also has bigtimers who obviously hit town too late to swing a real appearance. Has had such mixed bags as Vaughn Monroe and Buster Crabbe; deals with everyone the same (with by-the-numbers overstated, insipid tongue-tied grace that any second seems like it will collapse ... and often does). Unchallenged master of the nolo contendere cliche. R. M.

THE JOE PYNE SHOW (1966, syndicated). In the Sixties, L.A.'s greatest living rightist was a razor-cut, ex-marine who hosted a weekly two-hour talk show. Pyne grilled left-leaning guests and entertained "fringe" celebrities - including, once, the "king" of Aqualandia, who modestly lay claim to "all lands under all the seas of the world." Right.

LATE NIGHT (1982- , NBC). Time said David Letterman behaved "like a Perry Como on mescaline." They're right this time. Letterman's night-owl talk show proves that Steve Allen's soft-core surrealist mantle will once again be worn with dignity and silliness.

LEAVE IT TO BEAVER (1957-63, CBS, ABC). Yeah, there were other idealized, sanitized, and altogether unreal depictions of Fifties family life on the tube. But this was the one that dished it out from the kids' perspective. "Theodore"? R.S.

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (1964-68, NBC). It sold a swinging version of spy-spoof cool - plot twists and rendezvous, knee-booted "birds" from T.H.R.U.S.H., and Leo G. Carroll, fresh from Topper.

NAKED CITY (1958-63, ABC). Neurotic nirvana! Each week some wacked-out "method" thespian played a gone villain to bug Lieutenant Paul Burke. Roddy McDowall was a black-turtlenecked improv actor who also killed cabbies "at the corner of Death and Transfiguration Boulevards." Cornered on a rooftop and told to surrender "because there's no audience here," Roddy places his hand over his heart, answers "Jack, I play for myself!" and jumps fifteen stories to his death. There were many such stories in the Naked City. R.B.

THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW (SGT. BILKO) (1955-59, CBS). The coolest conman of the twentieth century wore sergeant's stripes and a card dealer's visor. Plus: Doberman, Colonel Hall, and Sergeant Ritzik (Joe E. Ross, later to shine as Car 54's Gunther Toody).

PLAYBOY AFTER DARK (syndicated 1960). A weekly visit with the Big Bunny in his Chi-town penthouse. Surrounded by adoring cupcakes, Hef, acting as wooden as a spanker's paddle, mingles with his "guests." Memorable meeting: 1967 episode where pipe-totin' Hugh greets a very punky, Kool Aid-refreshed Grateful Dead. Hef: "Gee, Jerry, that was a swell number. What do you call that?" Jerry Garcia: "That was 'The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion."' Hef: "That's great. Play us another?"

THE PRISONER (1968-69, CBS). Like members of some South Seas cargo cult, fans of television's freakiest series wait faithfully for the return of Number Six. Send a self-addressed envelope (with an international reply coupon) to: Roger Goodman, Coordinated, Six Of One Club, "The Prisoner" Appreciation Society, P.O. Box 61, Cheltenham, Glos., GIL 52 3JX, Britain.

ROCKFORD FILES (1974-1980, NBC). Gentleman Jim's beat message: Very few expenditures of energy are worth the effort. Like zen, man.

SECOND CITY TV (1980, syndicated; now NBC). Coolest cathode comedy yet: Prickley's cackle, Floyd & Tongue's flicks, Bittman's schtick, Willie B's buttins on the Sammy Maudlin Show, and (last time we looked) no dope jokes. "Ow-ooh!"

SOUPY SALES (1955-62, ABC). Cool because it poked fun at the genre it was supposed to be part of - the kid show. Cool because it was unslick and irreverent. Cooler still for transforming its incompetence and general atmosphere of cheesiness into something really desirable. If that's not enough, how about the most god-awful puppeteering of all time, delighting anyone who'd upchunked their way through countless cutesy-poo Kukla, Fran & Ollie? B.S.

THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW (1956-61, NBC; 1967, CBS). The best bits were usually his own (the Question Man, Letters to the Editor, the Allen Report to the Nation), but the support crew helped: live water pistol shoot-outs at the Hollywood Ranch Market, Louie Nye's hepster Gordon Hathaway, Don Knotts, Tom Poston, Dayton Allen ("Why not?"), Bill Dana, Joey Forman Unsung major dude, for his stand-up comic send-ups as "Lenny Jackie": John Byner. Many of Steverino's best bits are reprinted verbatim in his book Schmock-Schmock! (Doubleday), now remaindered and cheap.

THEN CAME BRONSON (1969-70, NBC). Moody, mysterious, and memorable for the fact that vagabond biker Bronson usually uttered no more than three lines per bizarre episode. Michael Parks in the ultimate James Dean tribute. Mmmnnn.

THE THREE STOOGES (independent). Noses pulled with pliers, crania clobbered by two-by-fours, sixty-year old men behaving less sensibly than their grandchildren, The essence of American Stupid, and, appropriately, better on TV than in a theater. Knuckleheads, dig: video cassettes, films, posters from Official 3 Stooges Fan Club, P.O. Box 266, Mt. Morris, Illinois 61054.

THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JOHNNY CARSON (1962- , NBC). For twenty years, America's loved what Carson cooks: cool corn from the heartland. McMahon's second banana bit is bested only by John Candy's Willie B. "You're wrong, cream-of-asparagus breath!"

VEGAS (1978-81, ABC). Bad TV at its contemporary best. Robert Urich's performances as detective Dan Tanna could be measured in board feet, Bart Braverman's Binzer was the smarmiest sideman, and chorine Phyllis Davis' gams never quit. A laff riot: Tony Curtis as casino boss "Bernie Roth."

THE WESTERNER (1960, NBC). Sam Peckinpah's short-lived minimalist Western starring Brian Keith and his dog. On one show the two leads did nothing but sit on the roof of a house. Brian spoke. The dog was silent. R.B.

YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS (1950-54, NBC) Never have so few given so much: ninety minutes of live lunacy every week. Once seen, never forgotten: Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, and Howard Morris as the zoot-suited jazz combo The Three Haircuts. Caesar as Cool Cees, world's farthest-out bop musician: "Got two new members in the band, Dracula and the Wolfman," "Any problems?" "Only when I say 'Take five.' Everybody takes five minutes. Drac and Wolfman take five people." R.B.

"There are days when any electrical appliance in the house, including the vacuum cleaner, seems to offer more entertainment possibilities than the TV set."
- Harriet Van Horne, New York World-Telegram, June 7, 1957

True enough. But not even the new Hoover Elite II Upright with attached caddy can compete with some of these

WAY GONE SHOWS

THE AVENGERS (U.K.; 1966-68, ABC). Leads Patrick Macnee ("John Steed") and Diana Rigg ("Emma Peel") were a two-mod style council (wit and bumbershoot for him, wit and karate chops for her), and the scenes were downright kicky: disappearing towns, relentless Cybernauts, and a wheelchair-bound fat man named Mother commanding the show from atop a London bus. Sixty-five episodes are available for sale from E.M.G. Video.

THE BEAT GENERATION. Way wigged episode from Brit series The Comic Strip which ran occasionally on MTV (late Eighties). Guy 'n' gal coolniks, along with an Angry Young Man, fall by a rich, aspiring hipster's country house where Kicks, wildman poet, uses the toaster for a skeet shoot. Endless monologues, sexual misfires and proclamations: "I want to marry a Negro, be really poor and eat ice cream!" D.B.

COCAINE: ONE MAN'S SEDUCTION (1983). Dennis Weaver stars as a one-man midlife crisis center in this mega-camp made-for- TV movie. One toot and mild daddy Den's a house-rockin' papa in a leather coat, cruisin' with the windows down and the volume up. Just say yes to this one. Often rerun. T.V.

THE CONTINENTAL (1952 CBS, 1953 ABC). Bogue-sophisto Eurotrash that anticipated Bryan Ferry by 20 years. For 15 minutes, an ascotted geek looked squarely into the camera, purring in an Ezio Pinza accent, inspiring every tired hausfrau to fantasize that she was on a date with him. He poured your wine, leaned forward to light your smoke. Lampooned in Mad #14: "Hallo dar-r-ling! Here I am, all alone, waiting with a glass of shamponya for-r-r you!" D.B.

CRIME STORY (1986-88, NBC). "What decade did you drop out of?" a Fed asks Lt. Mike Torello, and we might wonder. One of the best Sixties cop shows didn't debut until the late Eighties. When it did, Crime Story copped prizes for the coolest casting, art direction and music use (Al Kooper and Four Seasons arranger Charlie Callelo utilized everything from Chuck Jackson and Bobby Bland to Dean Martin and Jimmy Smith; in one episode, a psycho-punk shoots up a beauty salon to the--suddenly sinister-- tune of Kenny Dino's 1961 redundo-rock hit "Your Ma Said You Cried in Your Sleep Last Night"). Season on is now on DVD.

First set in Chicago and later Vegas, the series was a virtual meditation on Coolstyle, as the decidedly un-glam Torello (Dennis Farina) battled dapper Ray Luca (Anthony Denison, who picked his peacock-shocking wardrobe from an endless vine-yard of periwinkle shirts and cobalt ties). Putty-faced John Santucci resembled a rummy Louie Prima as Luca's wildcard go-fer Paulie. Luca's other boy was goofball rockabilly cat Frank Holman (Ted Levine, Silence of
the Lambs' Jame Crumb), while A.D. Clay did the only decent work of his career as Miami thug Max Goldman. Criminally underused: sexy Darlanne Fluegel and Patricia Charbonneau as Torello's wife and galfriend.

Unfortunately, no amount of style could compensate Crime Story for its often disorderly plots. But sometimes, sheer spectacle could. In the first-season closer, "Ground Zero," Luca busts up a motel-room B & D session to off a rival, flees downtown where he and Big Mike wage a neon-lit Wild Bunch firefight (maximum firing, minimum reloading), then escapes to an abandoned pad in the desert. The next bright, Ray wakes to learn that his safe place sits in the center of an A-bomb test site. Scared shitless, he and Paulie peel out across the sand in their Eldo just as a huge mushroom engulfs the pad and the Jive Bombers burble the tremelodious doowop "(I'm Just A) Bad Boy" ("I'm taking the trouble/ To blow my bubbles away"). The kicker: Luca survives, like some chem-resistant hood roach, to torment Torello the following season.

Crime Story has recently rerun on USA Cable. The series' two-hour pilot is rentable (New World Video). It climaxes with a marathon shootout in a Chi-town dept. store between mobsters and Torello's squad. In big hats and dark overcoats, they look like dueling rabbis.

DUKES OF HAZZARD (1979-85 CBS; syndicated). Eeeehahh! The major stoopid goof of the late Seventies/early Eighties is serial art that burns rubber all over Warhol's 16 Jackies. Every week for six years, the same plot: two city slickers hit town with an evil plan and the Duke boys foil 'em. Narrator Waylon Jennings plugs plot holes with homily grits while sheriff Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) makes like Vesuvius. Further study: Ernest Goes To Jail (1990; Touchstone). -B.M., G.S.

GET A LIFE (Fox 1991- ). If full-strength silly is your cup of tea, pour yourself a potful with this highly inane show starring Chris Elliott as a 30-year old paperboy who still lives at home (with Mom and Dad -- Bob Elliott of & Ray). Check the acclaimed "Walletboy" episode (where our anti-hero loses his billfold in the Big City) or "Tool Belt Fight" (Chris befriends a slovenly crew of construction workers, engages them in a belt fight, then learns they're ripping off his dad). While not for everyone (as Nielsens indicate; it's consistently in the Bottom Ten and could be gone by the time you read this), nice lo-cal dementia for those on a dumb-conscious diet. T.V.

HUNTER (1984-90, NBC). That's right -- perhaps the draggiest traditional cop drama of all time in its maturity. But when it first came on, when it was shamelessly trolling for an audience, it achieved, if not quality, an abandoned sleaziness almost as good. Each week Hunter turned over a rock to see what would crawl out. A rubber-suited freak who torched warehouses with his very own flamethrower-- to the tune, no less, of the Stones' "Play With Fire"? A National Guard sniper who got his jollies plinking newlyweds in the park? A filbert so obsessed with a fast-draw video game that he started playing it with real cops? Or-- oh yeah-- the late John Matuszek as an especially tall spike-haired safety-pinned punk rock hitman? And let's not forget fabulous Dennis Franz, who had created the bent cop De Benedetto for Hill St. Blues -- the guy who tweaked the loan shark's nose with pliers -- and who reprised the character in all but name for a rip-roaring Hunter two-parter... in which he cornered seven or eight people who "knew too much" at gunpoint...and had them line up and file offscreen to be killed... as if he was going to make them take numbers! Yes, here were perps worthy of the misanthropic Fred Dryer when he still wore polyester shirts, drove a primer-blotched domestic clunker and was, along with Bruce Willis, the first proto-baldy tube hero. Kudos as well to sidekick Stepfanie Kramer as the "Brass Cupcake," who could also take down a scrote faster than you could say "Miranda decision," when she wasn't complaining about her lack of dates. And she even worked as a lounge singer in one episode! (Shoulda sung "You Can't Get A Man With A Gun"!) J.T.

IT'S HAPPENING. A Boss City of the Mind, this lo-budget, high-impact R & R show was launched on SoCal cable three years ago. Real teens dance, contemp combos cook (Hoods, Untamed Youth, Unclaimed, Black Diamonds). At press time, it was playing on public-access in Austin, Tucson, L.A., N.Y., S.F. Catch it if you can.

MIAMI VICE (NBC) : "Definitely Miami" episode (1986). The Wasteland-grail quest was never so hip as when Ted Nugent baited fools with Ariel Dombasle, then buried their cars in the salt flats with a steam shovel. But the modern day Round Table (Vice boys) is just one beat faster. Combines mythic weight with a total lack of redeeming social comment. J.T.

MR. MORRISON (1982- ). He started "working his act" in the comedy clubs and folk rooms of the early Sixties. He's done time as a lieutenant navigator in the Air Force, a car salesman, a guide to stars' homes. Now, on L.A. public access, in a yarn cap and silver hair, Bill Morrison spews co(s)mic truth in tangents and rants while plucking balloons from his vest, blowing them up, and letting them fly around the studio. Unrehearsed monologues soar like Buckley, expand to mock-pomp vocalizing, collapse like souffles. Spaulding Gray couldn't carry his latex. D.W.

QUANTUM LEAP (NBC 1990- ). The worst episodes match high concept (time travel, bodyswitching) with "relevant" issues. The best leap for sheer hep entertainment value. In one, QL cat Scott Bakula falls in with a NorCal biker gang and bumps into Kerouac spouting Beat jive. Another, an hommage to Spinal Tap, time-jumps Bak into a metal band. Check the listings; if it looks good, sit down and dig. T.V.

SHINDIG (ABC 1964-66). Despite hokey set-ups and guest hosts (Zsa Zsa Gabor), American TV's first full-length rock 'n' roll series left lasting impressions: peak perfs from Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Beach Boys, and the Stones introducing a mean-looking H. Wolf. Video active: Shindig Presents, a multi-volume set from Rhino Home Video. Diggin'-est: the Jackie Wilson and Frat Party volumes (the latter featuring an electrifying clip of Roy Head doing "Treat Her Right").

SPIKE JONES SHOW (1952-61; NBC, CBS). Back in the days when there were still (musical) conventions to assault, the godfather of Zappa's Mothers (and missed link between Victor Borge and Revere's Raiders) did it all, weekly, on network TV. Creaming candelabra, fish-spurting saxophones, "Twelfth Street Rag" in drag. Dali beamed. Best of Spike Jones Vols. 1-2 (Paramount Video).

THE STREET (1988 Universal syndication). Super-minimal copshow done for $1.98 an episode. Sometimes a suspect was questioned. Sometimes linoleum was put down on a basement floor. DP Rob Draper often used a single flashlight beam as the sole light source. Hip to the vanishing point: every week it was rescheduled to a later and later time slot. D.B., J.T.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE (1959-65; various episodes available on CBS/Fox Home Video). A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, the empire decided the universe had been completely mapped and that an accurate representation of it should easily fit into a small glass box... I know I'm not fooling anybody with this two-bit allegory, all you have to do is turn on your TV to see what I mean: a seamless version of the world which swallows the alleged distinctions between comedy, drama, news and commercials, a cosmos which is middle-class from sea to shining sea, safe, intelligible and above all consumable. But deep down, everybody knows that "reality" has some hole in its act; if you don't watch out -- or even if you do-- you could fall through one. Weirdly enough, it was TV itself, back when it was younger, that gave a brand-name to such experiences with Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. "Get the Raid," we think when we see those creepy little men scaring that poor old lady -- until we read NASA on the side of their tiny metal ship. A kid's imagination runs wild and a man's head pops out of a jack-in-the-box. What's waiting outside that fallout shelter? Which side of that zoo cage are you really on? If the moralizing was often pat, you could always trust the goosebumps. Even the anthology format (now unsalable to network development) expressed a basic truth: you can't step in the same universe twice. And somewhere there's one where Mr. Serling is still typing like crazy. J.T.

WISEGUY (1987-90 CBS). For the bad guys. Ray Sharkey's mob don Sonny Steelgrave chewed scenery like a chow-starved pit bull. Joan Severance's Susan Profitt sashayed, seduced, had a curious relationship with brother Mel (Kevin Spacey), whom she'd shoot up between his toes with a special "elixir." "Ah," the becalmed Mel would coo, "the toes knows."

YANCY DERRINGER (1958-59 CBS). Urbane western (N'awlins) starred Jock Mahoney as unflappable gambler accompanied by Indian mute Pahoo (actor: X. Brands). A 19th century Pete Gunn, suave Yance was celebrated in the title song: "He had ruffles at his wrist / But iron in his fist." D.B.

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