Time’s Right for Larry, Jerry Show

“All I’m guilty of is bad taste,” Woody Harrelson protests as the title character in “The People vs. Larry Flynt.”

The U.S. Supreme Court apparently agreed, validating in 1988 porn publisher Flynt’s legal right to print crude lies about the Rev. Jerry Falwell (including that he lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse) in a cretinous ad parody in Hustler magazine.

Therein lies the most frequently cited message of this new film: The 1st Amendment extends even to the shabby publishing of Flynt, whose mischief in print is a bit of the price Americans pay for freedom of expression in a democratic society.

Another message is that having a legal right--as the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that Flynt did--did not also give him a moral right to dirty Falwell and his late mother, however farcically. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean necessarily that you should. Today’s media should carve that into stone.

Enough of high-minded postulates, though. The film’s third message is that these old foes, by virtue of their celebrity and record of mutual loathing, are splendidly qualified to co-host their own TV talk show.

They gave America a taste of what they’d be like as a team in a stunning joint appearance last Friday night with CNN’s Larry King, who called it their first meeting in a dozen years.

Facing King were the two presumably bitter adversaries seated elbow to elbow, almost like identical twins in their dark suits and red ties. “I think his business is garbage and sleaze, and it’s demeaning toward women and children,” Falwell said, affably. “I always thought Jerry is a hypocrite, and still feel that way,” Flynt said, coolly. Later, he told Falwell: “When you call me garbage, call me Mr. Garbage.”

It was gorgeous.

Someone should persuade these guys where their real interests lie. The time is right, the Bethlehem Star of advantage is beckoning and viewers are now primed for the likes of “Falwell & Flynt.”

It sings, doesn’t it? Even the F & F alliteration is tailor-made for television, as is the union of enemies in the common interest of making a fortune through a medium that promotes, above all, the big clash and is ever spoiling for a fight instead of light. The operating tenet here is that those who argue are automatically compelling and attention-worthy.

The latest to throw open this window of opportunity are former O.J. Simpson defense attorney Johnnie Cochran and undefeated Atlanta prosecutor Nancy Grace, now point/counterpointing through their opening week of “Cochran & Grace” on cable’s Court TV. Cochran is by far the better known of the two. But they were cast as a team largely because of their other differences: black/white, male/female, defender/prosecutor and pro-Simpson/anti-Simpson, even though they vow not to invade Simpson turf until the end of his civil trial.

“Cochran & Grace” was not created in a vacuum. There’s history here, going back at least a couple of decades to the point/counterpoint skirmishes on “60 Minutes” between conservative James J. Kilpatrick and liberals Nicholas von Hoffman and Shana Alexander that were haplessly reincarnated on the series with a new set of foes this season in a brief, sorry stab at nostalgia.

Two movie critics who worked for opposing Chicago newspapers, tall, slim Gene Siskel and short, round Roger Ebert, built their amazing TV franchise on the same principle of arguing opposites. As has CNN’s screaming “Crossfire” and its Fox News Channel imitator, the anorexic new “Hannity & Colmes.”

You’d think that, in this environment, former Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark would insist that her own coming TV show cast her ex-husband as co-host.

That sounds exotic, but one shouldn’t underestimate the seduction of symbiosis when money is involved. And in that regard, if ever there were role models for Falwell and Flynt making their act a regular gig, they are infamous Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, an arch conservative, and the late, equally notorious Timothy Leary, a former Harvard professor who became America’s foremost champion of LSD in the 1960s. It was Liddy, as a young assistant district attorney, who led a raid on Leary’s New York estate and busted him in 1966. By the early ‘80s, however, they had submerged their differences in a pursuit of bucks, hitting the road as a tandem and wowing college audiences with their civilized, caustic banter from opposite philosophical poles.

If Liddy and Leary could wed professionally, so can Falwell and Flynt. And if they do, King should get a finder’s fee.

Falwell on Friday found Hustler more damaging than even tobacco. “Hustler can give you heart cancer,” he charged about the magazine he professes not to have read. “Shouldn’t you read it if you’re going to criticize it?” King wondered. “You don’t have to take a cap off a sewer to know it stinks,” Falwell replied.

The sewer beside him smiled faintly. In fact, both Flynt and Falwell were relaxed and laughed easily during the hour and joshed each other even while recalling the Hustler parody that Falwell sued over, ending in a High Court victory for Flynt in spite of himself.

“I knew the Supreme Court wouldn’t like me,” Flynt said. “Why wouldn’t they like you?” Falwell mocked. He accused the Flynt film of deifying a “sleaze merchant” and chuckled when Flynt titled pornography “the purest form of art.”

King asked Flynt if he ever did anything he found embarrassing. Falwell answered for him. “Sitting next to me is embarrassing for him,” he joked, giving Flynt, an avowed atheist, a playful nudge before continuing.

“I believe that he is not an atheist, and I believe the day will come that he will sit here and tell you all of this is a hoax . . . and I pray that I will be alive to sit here and put my arms around you,” he said, this time patting the grinning Flynt on the shoulder.

“You appear at times to really like him,” King told Falwell.

“I do like him,” Falwell replied. “More than that, I love him, but I hate what he does. . . . I want him to come to Christ.”

Not immediately. “I think he’s full of it,” Flynt said. “Oh, I’m sure Jerry and I could wind up liking each other, because I’m sure we might have some things in common.” One was left to contemplate what those things might be.

Meanwhile, Falwell genially lectured the oft-wed Flynt on family values, noting his own marriage to the same woman for 40 years and “that she’s the only woman I’ve known sexually in my life, and I’m the only man she’s ever known.” He mentioned their throng of children and grandchildren.

“Jerry, that’s fine if it worked for you,” Flynt said.

“It would work for you, too, doc,” Falwell said, wrapping an arm around Flynt.

They bantered some more. A beaming King called the show “historic.” Flynt said: “Jerry forgot to call me a spiritual dwarf.” Falwell said that would overstate Flynt’s spirituality. They shook hands, not once but twice.

On second thought, Mr. Garbage and Mr. Godly may be just too friendly to head a TV talk show. In fact, there’s another more suitable pair who should be signed now while still hot and hateful. Here’s a freebie for the industry.

Get going immediately on “Fuhrman and F. Lee.”