FUNNY THING DESPITE A TRACK RECORD FOR TOPICAL, BRILLIANT COMEDY, BOB ODENKIRK CAN'T GET HIS PROJECTS OUT THERE.

Byline: David Kronke TV Writer

DURING THE MID-'90s, a modest sketch-comedy series called ``Mr. Show With Bob and David'' bopped around the late-night hours of HBO. Those who liked the show loved it; those who didn't like the show - well, it scarcely mattered, because it was unlikely anyone would be able to find the show unless they were searching for it specifically.

``Mr. Show'' - created and largely written by and starring Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, who had worked on ``Saturday Night Live'' and ``The Ben Stiller Show'' before teaming up - lasted four seasons, barely creating 40 episodes, and disappeared. And there it would have ended, except that its fans considered it one of the funniest shows in the history of television and wouldn't let its memory die.

With sketches boasting the whiplash-inducing range of a corporation transforming the entire city of San Francisco into a theme park, the founding fathers creating a flag with the express intent of preventing performance artists from desecrating it and the bloody East Coast-West Coast ventriloquist wars, ``Mr. Show'' was not just wildly funny but also managed to slip provocative social commentary into its humor.

``It's some of the most exciting comedy I ever saw,'' enthuses Rolling Stone TV critic David Wild, author of the book on network television ``The Showrunners'' and host of the Bravo series ``Musicians.'' ``It was a brilliant stream of consciousness. They're perennially ahead of their time. They tapped into the huge talent base of Los Angeles comedians that's not appreciated when making sitcoms. It's kind of crazy - HBO should still be doing it instead of 'The Mind of the Married Man.' ''

The recent DVD release of the show's first two seasons - even the commentary tracks were funny - was a modest best seller; a book, ``Mr. Show: What Happened?'' by Odenkirk's wife, Naomi, is about to hit bookstores. And now, Odenkirk and Cross are touring the country playing to sold-out crowds in a ``Mr. Show'' stage production entitled, ``Hooray for America!''

Despite the title, this is not a feel-good wallow in patriotism, but a darkly comic fable in which GloboChem - the villainous megaconglomerate of choice in the ``Mr. Show'' series - finances an actor's run for president, then pulls the political strings from afar. Lest this seem too far-fetched, consider for a moment Enron and Halliburton's once-titanium-strong ties to the current White House.

Mr. Train Wreck 

Initially, the duo had sold ``Hooray for America!'' as a film script, but, Odenkirk explains, ``We chose not to make it as a movie. We'd written it and reread it, and it was a little too challenging. It was about politics, which people tend not to care about - in fact, they hate it. So we decided to do a movie that would potentially open up our audience more - and that went straight down the crapper.''

He's speaking of ``Run Ronnie Run,'' a film that screened at Sundance this year featuring Ronnie Dobbs, a recurring character from ``Mr. Show.'' Disputes with the film's director over the editing of the film resulted in what Odenkirk openly admits was a debacle. In fact, despite its receiving a few positive reviews, Odenkirk says he hopes the film is never released in any form.

``It's not very good and it'd be hard to explain to people why it sucks, and what we thought we were doing,'' Odenkirk says. ``It's nothing like we intended it to be.''

A more bewildering disappointment for Odenkirk is ``Next,'' a sketch comedy series he created as a pilot for the Fox network. Despite containing more solid laughs than every pilot for every sitcom that made it on the fall schedule, combined - as those who have seen it at screenings of failed pilots at club Moomba can attest - ``Next'' didn't make it to Fox. Curiously, the network then poached some of Odenkirk's writers and cast members for Cedric the Entertainer's variety series.

A net loss

``(Fox Television Entertainment Chairman) Sandy Grushow didn't think it was funny,'' Odenkirk explains, though given that Grushow did green-light bomb-in-the-waiting ``The Grubbs,'' perhaps that should be considered a plus. ``And they said it was hard to market. I have very little sympathy for either of those reasons. You can find enough people to laugh at anything, whether it is Gallagher or Jean-Luc Godard. And if a show's funny, you turn to your marketing department and say, 'Figure out how to market it or you're fired.'

``Building fall seasons based on marketing choices yields two weeks of ratings - why can't people see through that?'' Odenkirk continues. ``But they program that flashy, meaningless, shallow crap that draws your attention and piques your curiosity for a week or two and then you look elsewhere. The schedules are filled with such shows.''

Beth Lapides, creator of both the pilot viewings at Moomba (``The Other Network,'' Friday nights) and the Un-Cabaret, a showcase for alternative comics where Odenkirk has performed, was sold on ``Next.'' ``What I love about 'Next' is it has a very broad and very subtle level of comedy happening simultaneously,'' she says. ``It's never in the middle. Highbrow and lowbrow are the most interesting levels of pop culture.''

That the networks passed on ``Next'' in favor of more conventional and less interesting fare, Lapides suggests, simply ``says that network executives, like all other human beings, are afraid to take risks.''

Rolling Stone's Wild, on the other hand, is more hopeful: ``I cling desperately to the notion that 'Mr. Show's' sensibility could cross over. Don't the recent sitcoms prove to us that the safe route isn't working? More of the same inane sitcoms aren't the way to go.''

Odenkirk, too, thinks he can find success at the network level. ``I would go back to HBO, but I want to go to a network. I enjoyed the cult audience, but I don't see the need to chase it anymore.''

MR. SHOW

What: Sketch comedy starring Bob Odenkirk and David Cross.

Where: UCLA's Royce Hall.

When: 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. Friday. (7:30 show sold out).

Tickets: $31.50. Call Ticketmaster at [phone] or go online at ticketmaster.com

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Bob Odenkirk, left, and David Cross bring a stage version of their ``Mr. Show'' to UCLA Friday. ``We chose not to make it as a movie,'' says Odenkirk. ``It was about politics, which people tend not to care about - in fact, they hate it.''