'SMOKING GUN' IS NO MAJOR FIND.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

IT MIGHT BE instructive if the infamous Web site thesmokinggun.com, notorious for airing celebrity dirty laundry and exposing the sordid pasts of reality-show contestants, posted the contract it forged with Court TV for its special premiering tonight. That way, perhaps we'd get an idea of what its aim was.

``Smoking Gun TV'' is, by necessity, nothing like the Web site, which trucks in obtuse if illuminating legalese and actually occasionally even breaks news, albeit of a cheesy nature. Mo Rocca, an amusing utility player on Comedy Central's ``The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,'' hosts the program, which spins off some of the documents posted on the site with snarky commentary and lame sketches of which the comic intent is a decided stretch from the original material.

Rocca smirks his way through the particulars of a few celebrity divorces and frivolous lawsuits, relates a few oddball crimes and shares a smattering of celebrity arrest mug shots, most of which have been widely seen.

He performs in middling comedy bits in which he assesses whether race-car driving or fly-fishing is the more dangerous pastime and gets a makeover so that he resembles Nick Nolte's mug shot after the latter's arrest for drunk driving. This stuff plays as gratuitously mean-spirited, such as when Rocca asks his stylist to vomit on his hair - let's just hope Rocca never runs afoul of the law and is forced to swallow some of his own medicine.

Essentially, ``Smoking Gun TV'' is an extended advertisement for the Web site, and not a particularly good one, either. The site's postings largely allow misguided celebrity hubris to speak for itself; the joke here is fairly run into the ground. ``Smoking Gun TV'' is scarcely smoking; it rather approximates the wan pops of a cap gun.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

SMOKING GUN - Two stars

What: Jokey look at celebrity bad behavior and human pettiness in general, based on the notorious Web site.

Where: Court TV.

When: 5 and 9 p.m. today.

In a nutshell: Neither as timely nor illuminating as the online site, just more mean-spirited - and not very funny, either.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Mo Rocca, host of Court TV's ``Smoking Gun,'' pays homage to Nick Nolte's mug shot.