Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 20

A tiny part of 001: A Space I isuaoc I jam Is now reality voice recognition EDITOR: Bob Remington, 429-5346 H5E Entertainment RIFFBN6 WITH Cabinet spurns bid to keep Craig off air "In I enough I I money. I I just want i. i tn malro people laugh." Rodney Dangerfield Meet Wally Sparks Starring: Rodney Dangerfield, Cindy Williams, Burt Reynolds, Debi Mazar Opens: Friday BARRY KOLTNOW The Orange County Register Los Angeles In the time it takes to make the 30-second elevator ride to his penthouse apartment in Westwood, Rodney Dangerfield could rattle off nine good jokes. That is not just an arbitrary figure; Dangerfield is proud of that number. He boasts that he tells nine jokes in one particular 30-second portion of his Las Vegas show.

In the one- hour show, he riffs off more than 400 jokes. But that's work and Rodney is not working now, even though he has one more interview scheduled. He has been fielding questions all day about his new movie, Meet Wally Sparks, which opens Friday, and now he's ready to relax. A visitor is led by an assistant to the dining room of his spacious apartment, where he is greeted by Dangerfield, who already has changed and is wearing a lumpy bathrobe, white socks and slippers that are falling off his feet. His voice is hoarse, but he's enough of a trouper to answer a few more questions.

Although his answers are peppered with a few one-liners, Dangerfield, 75, is not a nonstop laugh riot. He is a serious man, a thoughtful man, an unhappy man. "I have never been happy," he says matter-of-factly. "My whole life has been a downer." One waits for the punch line, but it never comes. Apparently, despite all the adulation and money, Rodney Dangerfield is indeed an unhappy man.

"There was nothing about my childhood that made me happy," he explains, "and the scars of youth stay with you forever. "All the attention I get now is very nice and I really do appreciate it, but the people don't love me. They love my work. And even if they do love me, it's not enough to make me happy." Born Jacob Cohen on Long Island, the youngster began writing jokes at 15, not because he was a happy kid but because he wanted to escape his real life. Picking the name Jack Roy, he -j a'i t.A File photo a fast-talking host of a tactless TV tabloid show he did as Jack Roy.

He needed an image, a character, a theme for his new act. So he came up with the idea that he would be the guy who talked about nothing going right in his life. For several years, he talked about "nothing goes right for me" but then, on the night of his fourth appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, he remembered some of the gangsters who hung out at the clubs where he performed. He said they were always talking about either getting respect or getting no respect. "I realized that night that that was going to be my new image, that I get no respect," he said.

"I knew it would work because everybody feels sometimes like they get no respect." The "no respect" bit worked, and Dangerfield has become a cultural icon who transcends generations. He appeals to older audiences who love his classic setup and punch-line humor, and the MTV generation worships him. Films such as Back to School and Caddyshack are required video rentals among college students. In Meet Wally Sparks, Dangerfield plays the most obnoxious TV tabloid talk-show host in America. Let's put it this way: Jerry Springer thinks he goes too far.

When the head of his station (Burt Reynolds) warns him to clean up his act, he sets out to interview a conservative governor (David Ogden Stiers) at his Southern mansion, but things don't work out exactly as planned. Dangerfield and a partner worked on the script four years, and that, in Dangerfield's words, is what separates this film from the rest of the comedy pack. "I'm difficult; I like Laurel and Hardy and the old-timers," Dangerfield said. "I don't want to knock anybody, but I don't get belly laughs from the comedies that are coming out now. OK, they're cute, but I don't laugh.

"And the reason is the script. They throw these scripts together in three months, and that's not enough time to hone a comedy script. You just can't do it. I don't care how funny you are." Dangerfield has been married three years (to a Mormon), and he says he is no longer drinking, although the reason may have as much to do with the anti-depressants he's taking as it is with his wife's religion. "Things are going well, and I enjoy it when people are entertained by my act," he said.

"That's all I want; I have enough money. I just want to make people laugh. That's my goal in life. It won't make me a happy man, but it will be enough." Bretta Gerecke misfit in Abundance One puppetry or objects." Meanwhile Gerecke had gone back to the drawing board. "We tried a million ways to get 150 people in to watch the show.

I had visions of a massive art gallery where the audience would sit and watch from a single perspective. Completely unworkable: these stories suck you in." That's why the audience Is grouped in tens, and meets the characters at close, whites-of-eyeballs range. "Your investment as an audience goes way up, under those circumstances," says dramaturge Valerie Shantz. "It's been very hard for the actors," says Christenson, by way of tribute to his game company, "It's unnatural for them not to connect ith each other," But, says Tremblay. "isolation Is part of the piece." "We asked them to brainstorm, to work physically, then to become riters, On Jan.

2 (w hen formal rehearsals began), we said. 'Now you're an That's a lot of vertigo." He grins. "Sometimes they must have felt that the ship wasn't being steered by people who knew hat they were doing. It's a scar)' way to live," mm to take another stab at telling jokes. "I went to an old friend who ran a comedy club and told him I wanted to perform again," Dangerfield said.

"But I told him I was too embarrassed for him to advertise my name in case I failed. So he made up a name. It was Rodney Dangerfield." At 40 and $20,000 in debt, the newly named comic knew he needed to do something different from what Journal Entertainment Staff and The Canadian Press Edmonton The federal cabinet has rejected a last-ditch appeal to keep Craig Broadcast Systems from opening new televisions stations in Edmonton and Calgary this fall. Heritage Minister Sheila Copps announced the cabinet decision Tuesday while noting that the government has also asked the broadcast regulator to study the feasibility of a third national TV network. The decisions were a give-and-take for CanWest Global System of Toronto, which has its eye on a third network and had Copps appealed the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication sion's licencing of Channel service.

Commis-Craig's A- "This decision allows us to proceed immediately with our plans in Alberta," Drew Craig, vice-president of the Brandon-based broadcaster, said in a statement. "The CRTC decision was based on a full and fair hearing the commission recognized that we had the superior application. The cabinet decision to uphold the CRTC licence fully respects this process." Copps said the commission decision in favor of Craig was "good and valid" but the larger question of additional networks English, French or bilingual warranted further examination. CanWest Global had desperately wanted the Alberta stations to be centrepieces in its proposed network. Company executives filed a formal appeal to Ottawa soon after the Nov.

1 decision by the federal broadcast regulator to award Craig the new broadcast rights in Alberta. In its appeal, angrily rebutted by Craig in a counter-petition to cabinet, CanWest attacked the CRTC ruling as shockingly shortsighted and said the commission had "short-changed Albertans and the Canadian independent production industry." Izzy Asper, chief executive officer of CanWest Global, said he would have preferred cabinet to award the stations to his company but was "extremely heartened" by the government's direction on the network issue. "That is precisely what we have been seeking and we are therefore satisfied that our main objective in this appeal has been achieved," Asper said. Craig said A-Channel will start issuing broadcast commitments for new Alberta-based drama productions shortly. Pat Boone, 62, flexes his muscles BOONE REBORN AS METALHEAD Journal News Services It began as a backstage joke.

There was Tat lioone, the white-bread wonder, discussing his recording future with musicians in his band. "I said, 'Guys, hat do you think I can do that I haven't already done 10 times that would get more than a yawn? I've been country, I've been gospel, I've been And they said 'You've never done any heavy Well, of course, we laughed, because it was absurd." Nobody's laughing any more. Tuesday, Hip-0 Records In the U.S. unveiled lf limme in a Mftat Afood: No Mure Mistrr Nice Guy, The collection includes such classic metal and hard rock nnlhems as Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, Judas Priest's Yoh'i Gut Another VunQ CVmim' and ACDC's It's a Umg Way to the Top, Canadians, alas, will have to wait until March before the album Is released In the Great White North, Stay posted. Craig "s- if! A A Alberta's losers in Abundance Catalyst pokes provincial underbelly iZd jtr il Rodney Dangerfield as Wally Sparks, began working as a standup comic at 19 but never made much of a go of it.

At 28, about to marry, he quit show business and went into the aluminum-siding business. For 12 years, he ran a sales office in Englewood, N.J., but the frustration of not being on the stage in front of an audience was eating away at him. His marriage was failing at that point and he decided Abundance One Theatre: Catalyst, 8529 103rd St. Directors: Jonathan Christenson and Joey Tremblay When: Thursday through Saturday, 7 and 9 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 8 p.m. eight-minute shows simultaneously, and the audience, in groups oflO, visits each one in turn.

Sometimes you open the door and go inside. Sometimes you sit formally, as in a tiny, formal theatre, watching a framed stage. Sometimes, you look through the window. Sometimes, you peek through the cracks, like a voyeur at a peep show. When it's Willy Weed's turn, you're watching a sort of diorama behind glass "a laboratory." says Tremblay and you hear him through headsets.

Each crate is different; each story is told differently. Designer Brelta Gerecke says she took hold of "the notion of hidden people, the lost ones, the ones living solitary I'm not giving them their voice; I'm giving them their environment. The character has guided, strongly, how the boxes are presented." who has collaborated with Tremblay on such productions as EU'phtvit Withe and My Verfni llvtnvH, says the development of Abundance is unique in his experience, He and his cohorts didn't start with a political thesis, or a particular character, or even actors Improvising scenes. "The parameters were broad. I'eople shouldn't come thinking they'll find an analysis otitic political or social climale," he says.

"We stalled hy stories; we all live In Alberta, but Hie range of experience is huge." For some actors. Alberta was the spacious, empty prairie. Tremblay, Denise Kenney as Maddy, an Alberta-bred LIZ NICHOLLS Journal Theatre Writer Edmonton You remember Willy Weed? The guy in your math class who was quiet, strange, a bit creepy? Even the teacher ignored him. He lived a mile out of town. And you never knew what he did when he wasn't in school.

This week you'll meet Willy Weed again behind glass. He's one of the eight "exhibits" in Catalyst Theatre's Abundance One, premiering Thursday, the first incarnation of a new triptych designed to flip over the stone and prod the dark, wiggly underside of that sunny, prosperous province we call home. What happens to the folks who fall through the cracks in Alberta? "They end up in Abundance," says Joey Ti emblny, who shares Catalyst's artistic directorship with Jonathan hristcnson. "It's a mythical place, a lirigadoon populated by people who didn't quite make it, who failed at the Alberta Dream." You'll meet such misfits as Knobby the cow preacher, Girl the living lump, Goldie the flying transsexual, Rose and her pig face "I worked the Saskatchewan pavilion at Expo 8tf," says Treniblay, hunting for a non-theatrical model for the new piece, which the compuny actors, directors, designer, dramaturge has been hatc hing since October. "Everyone had beautiful while teeth.

1 was thin then. There were no dorks or losers. No ugly This is like an Expo for losers." When you walk Into Catalyst's warehouse home this week, you'll smell fresh cut masonile, and you'll see eight eight by eight foot crates, like a village of huts, Each is home to one of Abutulance'a fight characters, ho don't know each other, having been created In isolation, as thristcnson explains. They perform who grew up in small tow francophone Saskatchewan, Alberta alw ays represented the Big Time, the big city, "the Texas For me, a small town has 40 people; here, a small tow is Wetaskawin." For ex-Winnipegger Gerecke or Ontario-born Christenson, ho grew up everywlwre in Canada, Alberta has radically different associations and images. After brainstorming came garbage.

"The actors worked with discarded objects, detritus." One, for example, played with a cigarette butt, a prop which, as Tremblay laughs, "does not lead to a strong feeling of self worth." Then, says Christenson, "we threw a hole ton of fairy tales at the actors." Which one affected their character the most acutely? The actors, now armed with a fledgling character apiece and props, presented their stories as installations. Some were five minutes long, others two hours. "We rehearsed them individually, one actor at a time," says (lirisleiisoii. "Some people expressed themselves in song, Some mostly used movement. Some used.