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Thursday, October 31, 2002

"Listen Up," the new television vehicle in which Charles Barkley gets to careen both his speeding jaws and unswerving wit, makes its smashing debut tonight on TNT. Bernie Mac is his first guest. You just know that Barkley will have the comedian rolling, the audience howling and the senior producer in the booth shaking his head in further disbelief.

Tim Kiely -- Pittsburgh native, former WTAE-TV hand, son of longtime Steelers public-relations guru Ed Kiely -- is that dude in the booth. He has the distinction of being the personal producer, chaperone and off-air foil for what he calls "the rolling party that is the Chuckster." Three, three, three jobs in one.

"It's fun coming into work," Kiely said the other day over the telephone from Turner Broadcasting's Atlanta base. " 'Cause you never know what he's going to do."

Like the time he talked smack about the cable competition: TNT's NBA crew won the Emmy for best studio show, prompting Barkley to call a certain Fox Sports Net rival "the Second-Best Damn Sports Show."

Or the time he and the fellas worked a TNT "Thursday Night Theater" after hoops: Barkley yelled to the booth to rewind and stop a clip of that night's showing of "Rio Bravo," live, so he could point out the African-American member of John Wayne's posse. "Chuck loves the Duke," Kiely said.

Or the time he ordered and then consumed a cheeseburger on live TV: It was Barkley's way of responding to animal activists who wanted to change the way basketballs are made.

The heck with hoops. The world is fresh meat for Barkley grist.

"Hell," Kiely said, "we did three or four shows last year where we didn't show a highlight. 'Cause Charles went off on a riff."

The Turner folks spent billions to keep their portion of the NBA rights, sharing the new six-year deal with ESPN/ABC, and once again they put Charles in charge. They gave him this "Listen Up" half hour. Ernie Johnson, the Emmy-winning anchor of the NBA studio show, gets to serve as Barkley's on-air human shield for the show that starts at 7 tonight. Kiely gets to produce, chaperone, foil.

"We're going to have fun," Kiely said. "We're going to talk hoops, but we're not always going to talk hoops. We're hoping to have Jesse Ventura on and Bill Clinton on. Charles has a lot of friends in the entertainment business. And people want to go on with Charles."

The show will act as something of a pregame warm-up to TNT's exclusive Thursday doubleheaders, which tonight features the Celtics-Wizards, starring the Chuckster's old bud Michael Jordan, and the Trailblazers-Kings. Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and new addition Magic Johnson will return for a 15-minute show between the game broadcasts and again in a post-game wrap-up following the second tilt. The night that used to belong to Jerry Seinfeld and "Friends" may sort of morph into Barkley and da boyz.

Sometimes, the TNT fellas give it to him pretty good, too. Like the time on that Sir Charles-themed set of "Thursday Night Theater" when Kiely put a guy into a suit of armor, ordered him to leap at Barkley's throne and nearly gave the onetime Round Mound of Rebound a myocardial infarction. Or the time they came up with the idea of "The Champions Club." They erected a glitzy entrance outside the studio door, velvet ropes and brawny doorman and all. Smith (from the Rockets) and Magic the special guest (from the Lakers) all gained entrance because of their NBA championship rings, but . . . sorry, no Chuckster.

And there was Ernie Johnson on the air, needling him: "Fennis Dembo's in here. . . . Zan Tabak. . . ."

"He's a great fish to hook," Kiely said. "And he loves that."

This is a wacked position for a guy like Kiely, who grew up in a football environment. He goes back to the days of Terry Bradshaw, Myron Cope and the mina bird on the ailing elbow. He remembers being around Beano Cook and Bob Drum and Paul Long. He recalls watching Connie Hawkins play hoops along Fifth Avenue and Magic drop 42 points in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's place in an NBA Finals game on late-night tape-delay in Pittsburgh. "That was the extent of my NBA knowledge," he said.

Now, here he is, the man behind TNT's Hoops King.

Remote notes

ESPN, the other cable half of the NBA's new deal, will be giving you a lot of Bill Walton on its various media outlets. Such as his season-opening essay on ESPN.com covering 4,000-plus words, an eternal length. So if you couldn't take Walton is small doses before. . . .

Seems the empty seats in Mellon Arena on Monday were indicative of the market's collective indifference over Lemieux-Jagr I: The broadcast attracted only a 3.27 rating on Fox Sports Net locally. By comparison, Jaromir's initial return to Pittsburgh last December -- sans Mario -- drew a 3.29. Your reaction: Yags? Yawn.