WHEN TIPPER MET ZAPPA, THE SPARKS FLEW.

Byline: - David Kronke

THE SENATE hearings of the 1980s in which our nation's leaders were shocked - shocked, I tell you - to discover that some pop music sported dirty lyrics wasn't exactly our government's proudest moment. (Nor was last decade's similar witch hunt revealing that movies frequently contain - sit down, now - violent content, but that's another story.)

So a movie like ``Warning: Parental Advisory'' is certainly not unwarranted in its puerile mocking of the ``Washington Wives'' who momentarily puffed up with importance when they had their own little Senate hearing that resulted in the pointless, unforthcoming sticker encouraging kids to buy obscene albums. It would've been nice, however, if the film's withering wit had been a little more clever.

Jay Martel, who wrote the film that became the funniest victim of corporate synergy in TV history - Comedy Central's inspired parody of ``It's a Wonderful Life,'' which never aired thanks to a lawsuit from a sister under the Viacom umbrella - never gets more biting than having the Washington Wives, led by Al Gore's wife, Tipper (Mariel Hemingway), gush over sundry finger foods while plotting their political strategies.

Jason Priestley stars as Charlie Burner, a skuzzy music-industry lobbyist given to saying things like, ``Screw the artists!'' and putting klutzy moves on obviously disinterested co-workers. He's trying to ram through consumer-unfriendly legislation that would add a tax to blank tapes when he first hears of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) and its ``filthy 15.'' The only pop stars he can recruit to testify at the hearings are the prickly intellectual Frank Zappa (a wry turn by Griffin Dunne), the wigged-out Dee Snider (very funny playing himself) and head-in-the-clouds John Denver (Tim Guinee), who turns out to be more useful than he looks.

Director Mark Waters seems to be under the impression he's putting together a ``Mad TV'' sketch: Except for Dunne and Snider, the rest of the cast is broad or bland, as if they're appearing in a children's film. Nonetheless, the end-credit sequence, as the cast all joins in on Snider's ``We're Not Gonna Take It'' (much as the Farrelly brothers rounded up their cast to end ``There's Something About Mary'' with ``Build Me Up, Buttercup'') is an undeniable charmer.

WARNING: PARENTAL ADVISORY - Two and one half stars

What: Docucomedy about the pop-music/censorship wars of the 1980s, starring Jason Priestley, Mariel Hemingway, Griffin Dunne and Dee Snider.

Where: VH1.

When: 9 tonight.