Signs of a Slump on ‘Mohr Sports’

You needn’t know the infield fly rule to realize that ESPN’s talk-variety show “Mohr Sports� is having a rough outing.

It’s a bad sign when the studio audience politely applauds rather than laughs at Jay Mohr’s monologue. It’s a bad sign when the musical act is Foreigner, the formerly hot-blooded jukebox heroes who’ve gone as cold as ice. And it’s a bad sign when ESPN has repeatedly moved the show since its prime-time premiere in April.

“Mohr Sports� now occupies the coveted 2 p.m. Tuesday slot. In case you missed it, it repeats at 8:30 tonight on ESPN2. Or, if you were like me, you could have set your VCR only to find that the latest episode had been hacked down because coverage of the Fred Meyer Golf Challenge was running late.

In any event, you didn’t miss much. After procuring a tape of the full show, I found a few amusing moments, including an Anna Nicole Smith skit and a “Baseball Divas� spoof. But most of comedian-actor Mohr’s sports-related jokes aren’t any better than what you might hear from some drunkard at the National or Dublin’s: forced, unoriginal and at times borderline offensive. Maybe a lot of French people don’t use soap and maybe a lot of figure-skating fans are gay, but those topics don’t make for fresh, caustic comedy.

Mohr’s main guest is the Chicago Bulls’ Jalen Rose, and the host proves as adept an interviewer as monologist when he asks about Rose’s days at Michigan: “Do you guys still hang out? More importantly, were you the greatest college basketball team ever?� Never mind that Mohr could have inquired about Rose’s admission that he had taken an undisclosed but apparently small amount of money from a Michigan booster. The same booster pleaded guilty in May to a federal conspiracy charge after being accused of having lent $600,000 to four other Wolverines.

One can only wait to see what Mohr will ask next week’s guests: Wesley Snipes and Nelly.