UNDERCO' BRO'.

UNDERCO' BRO'

DON'T EVEN think about calling ``Undercover Brother'' a ``black movie,'' comedian Eddie Griffin says.

``Obviously, we need to turn the fire up on this great American melting pot, 'cause there's some chunks that haven't melted yet,'' says Griffin, who sports a '70s-issue Afro and pork-chop sideburns for his role as funkadelic secret agent Anton Jackson.

``You don't come out and say, `I'm going to see ``Sum of All Fears,'' that good white movie.' You don't see black people coming out and calling our movies black movies. We just call 'em movies.''

The cast of ``Undercover Brother,'' which grew out of a popular animated series on the Internet, includes Aunjanue Ellis, Denise Richards, Billy Dee Williams and ``Saturday Night Live's'' Chris Kattan.

Griffin got to re-live the '70s for his role. Costume designer Danielle Hollowell used images from old Ebony magazines and episodes of ``Good Times'' to shape her sensibilities. Griffin's favorite outfit was a gold- on-gold leather get-up created to match his character's Cadillac. He still has the outfit at home.

``Hey, old habits are hard to break,'' he said. `Whether they were going to let me keep it or not, I took it.'

Co-star Richards backed into the news when Universal Studios marketers decided she was ``too small in the butt department,'' according to the actress, so her derriere was digitally enhanced on posters and press kits.

Says Griffin: ``My pants was already full, so they didn't need to superimpose no buttocks on me.''

- Robert Kahn

Newsday

CAL CARROT

THE CALIFORNIA House has passed a bill that would provide incentives for producing TV shows and movies within the state.

The measure would establish a wage-based tax credit for film, television and commercial production companies that keep at least 50 percent of production in California. The total cost of the production's wages must be between $200,000 and $10 million.

California's film entertainment industry has lost nearly 18,000 jobs within the last year.