Daily News from New York, New York • 263

This week in '83 marked the end of the short- live'd sitcorrt "At Ease," which starred Jimmie Walker and David Naughton as peacetime soldiers. It was billed as the '80s version of Phil Silvers' Sgt. Bilko. DAILY MJUH 1 tods WM 2' is SGfcdiwod to nwwww 7- NOT in a position to assess or even to know the motives behind "Shock Video 2: The Show Business of Crime and Punishment" (tomorrow night at 10:15 on HBO). The pay-cable channel and producersdirectors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato very well may have intended to raise important public-policy issues and stimulate seri ities, journalists and academics (some of them misidentified) supplement the narration.

Although supporters of cameras in courtrooms are represented among them Phil Donahue, Court TV's Steven Brill and the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin the deck is overwhelmingly stacked with critics. As with the narration, some of these interviewees are allowed ERIC MINK i SMC to get away with double-talk, including University of Pennsylvania's George Gerbner, who has long been obsessed with his notions of media violence: "Transporting the courtroom into a global arena," Gerbner says, "where millions of people will watch it. is a violation of the purposes for which courts have been established." Say what? ous discussion about the use of video in the criminal-justice process. But if their motives were pure, their hour-long documentary is anything but. It is, instead, a shameless, sleazy, exploitive, hypocritical piece of claptrap, the sins of which equal or exceed any of those it claims to expose.

The show consists of three principal elements, all of which are gravely AN EYEFUL: HBO takes a serious legal issue and winds up looking shameless. Stylistically, its worth noting, the majority of these interviews employ the distracting (and, by now, cliched) visual gimmick of showing multiple images of the interviewee from different angles. Consider it style for style's sake. Most offensive, though, is the program's exploitation of precisely those sensational andor violent video images whose use injudicial proceedings it questions. And because they're appearing on an extra-pay channel like HBO, these words and pictures can be shown in far more explicit detail than permitted on broadcast and basic-cable channels.

Thus, we see barely blurred shots of hard-core sexual activity from evi- flawed: The narration is tinged with omi-nousness and sensationalism, falling just short of the levels achieved daily by the genres foremost practitioner, "Hard Copy's" Doug Bruckner. The hyperbolic tone often serves to mask nonsensical statements: "Suspects can not only surrender to TV but can defend themselves on TV as well." Excuse me? What does TV have to do witndefendants" longstanding right to conduct their own defense? Other statements, while not just plain goofy, wind up being contradicted by basic facts or, in some cases, by statements in the narration itself. Interviews with media personal- and titillation. There are, of course, important is dence tapes in the Bob Crane murder trial. From another case, we see footage of a man urinating into his coworker's coffeepot.

And we see several brutal videos of people being killed and a woman being raped. At least when they're used in trials, such images have some demonstrable legal value. In this context, they add nothing but a kind of sick voyeurism sues involving the intersection ol video and justice the potential for digitally doctoring scenes to create false images, for example and this show spends a little time on them. But on the problemsolution scale. "Shock Video 2" tips about as far to the "problem" side as it can get.

adldlDinig FergSe's cactoomi to Its Biolt kids' lineup By RICHARD HUFF used to rule, Fox is now top dog. It's also tops weekdays, where it offers a morning and afternoon block. Bert Gould, executive vice president of marketing, promotion and program strategy for FCN, attributes the strong performance to the network's ability to promote its pro-grains six days each week. "Being able to do that Ipro-motion is a huge factor," Gould said. "Nobody else can do that." "The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers." The amoned "Batman" is also a big success.

It doesn't hurt, either, that the network has aligned with comics such as Howie Mandel World and Ix)uie Anderson With who are willing to promote their shows during their standup and personal appearances. "It certainly hasn't been easy," Gould said. "And we have been lucky." Not only does FCN heavily promote its programing on air, it also does so through ancillary venues such as the Fox Kids Club, an organization that now sports a membership of 5.4 million youngsters, and the "Fox Kids Countdown," a weekly Sunday-morning radio show. (No Gotham outlet yet, but Fox appears near a deal with WPAT, 93.1 FM.) No surprise, FCN certainly has also benefited from the success of one big smasheroo: grams geared to pre-schoolers, which airs here on Ch. 5 at 2 p.m.

Another 13 episodes are in production. The series, now airing on the BBC, will air in the States with the British-speaking voices in place. Ferguson is joiningj'ox at a time when it's riding high. In just five years, the FCN has turned into the dominant force in children's programing. On Saturday mornings, where ABC, NBC and CBS Daily News Staff Wrrter PASADENA There's royalty coming to the Fox Children's Network.

FCN this fall will add "Budgie, the Little Helicopter," an animated series based on the books of the same name by Sarah Ferguson, aka the Duchess of York, aka Fergie. Fox will integrate the existing 13 half-hour episodes of the series into segments of its "Fox Cubhouse" block of pro TODAY'S TV is, in a word, unusual: death in the daytime, poetry in prime time, and "Sunny Skies" late Chappaquiddick." For Kennedy watch ers only; it's net really very good. 9:45 (HBO) "The Making of Nine Months." You'd think the makers of this film would have a sense of humor by now, after all the Hugh Grant stories. But the dull title of this promotional special suggests otherwise. It wouldn't have been that hard, after all, to have called it "Nine Months In the Making." 10:00 (AMC) "The Pride of the Yankees." Gary Cooper's portrayal of Lou Gehrig in this 1942 drama still works Koaijt if ully ArlH yyfnH fryr fh Ruth, who co-stars.

11:30 (SHO) "Howie Mandel's Sunny Skies." See re We if pagm 104. long way. Had the Disney Channel thought more of this new adaptation, it wouldn't premiere on a Friday afternoon. 9:00 (CBS) "The Very Best of the Ed Sullivan Show II." This repeat is loaded with guest stars, but to me, nothing personifies "The Ed Sullivan Show" so much as the spinning plates guy whose frantic efforts, in a way, have served as a metaphor for my entire life. 9:00 (13) "The Language of Life With Bill Moyers." Tonight Bill Moyers features a poet who can't be beat.

No, wait. tures Beat poet Gary Snyder. Also on the bill: Nicawguan native Daisy Zamora. 9:00 (A E) "Investigative Reports: at night. 12:30 p.m.

(ABC) "Loving." There's a serial murderer about to run rampant in Corinth, and his or her first victim is scheduled to be killed on today's show the first casualty of a rather brutal method of cast-list house-cleaning. No word, though, on whether a successful 8 Ih cp lli sr cause the show to be renamed "Dying." 5:00 (DIS) "Little Lord Fauntleroy." In this particular story, a "Little" goes a STILL REALLY BIG: Ed Sullivan.