HOLLYWOOD -James L. Brooks has come a long way since his show-business baptism of fire in the summer of 1970.

Along with Allan Burns, another budding producer-writer, Brooks met the press at a Beverly Hills restaurant to discuss a new CBS comedy series starring Mary Tyler Moore.

Moore was there, but husband Grant Tinker, the main spokesman for the show, had been hospitalized with back problems.

A pilot (first episode) had not been filmed, so Moore and the two young producers were winging it while trying to explain, to a hostile group, the comedy concept surrounding a young woman "who would attempt to make it on her own."

While that press conference was a near-disaster, it was a launching pad for MTM (the meowing-kitty trademark), an enormously successful, top-quality production company. And as the world knows, The Mary Tyler Moore Show became one of the most revered series in TV history.

And Brooks was on his way to a luminous career as a major writer, director and producer. While being involved earlier with Room 222, an ABC comedy, Moore's show was the project that eventually allowed Brooks to expand his career past television.

He followed Mary Tyler Moore with a variety of quality series: Lou Grant, Taxi, The Tracey Ullman Show and The Simpsons. The result: 15 prime-time Emmy awards.

His mantle became more crowded with the addition of Oscars for writing, directing and producing Terms of Endearment.

His film-production credits also include Broadcast News, War of the Roses, Big, Jerry Maguire and, most recently, As Good As It Gets, which received seven Academy Award nominations and Oscars for Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt.

With such glowing big-screen success, there seems to be little reason for Brooks to be involved as executive producer of a new comedy series ABC has been calling The Untitled Joan Cusack Project. (A quick title update from Brooks: The Still Untitled Joan Cusack Project.)

"I never really left television," Brooks says. "There's just been a period of years when I think I've been lucky enough to have two different experiences (movies and TV).

"You really can't compare the two. Television is warm, more collegial, more community, just more team. When it works, it's the best job there is. I've always thought that. And a half-hour comedy that works is the best job you can get from the writing point of view."

Brooks says the Cusack project, scheduled to premiere in March, provides deja vu, since, like Moore's show, it deals with a single woman and features an ensemble cast. In 1970, Mary Richards was a transplanted New Yorker who moved to Minneapolis to start a new life while working at a local TV station. But Mary didn't have a boyfriend.

A funny, acrobatic actress, Cusack (Working Girl, In & Out) plays Joan Gallagher, a single Chicago schoolteacher who's full of anxiety and has a boyfriend (Kyle Chandler). And since this is the 21st century, Joan Gallagher sleeps with him. Mary Richards could never have done that 30 years ago.

"I think Mary is brilliant; Joan is brilliant. They have very specific talents," Brooks says. "But the shows are different. We consciously patterned a lot of the character on Joan, based on her broad comedy background in films, TV and stage.

"Perhaps this series is a bit more alive with issues because there are a lot of women on the staff, much more so than in Mary's days."

Brooks notes that Cusack's series will have a different TV look because it's being filmed entirely in Chicago, at Cusack's request.

"The fact it's shot in Chicago makes it fun. It makes everything fresh," Brooks says. He laughs and adds, "I think when the networks have to go on a plane instead of a car to see the show, well, it sort of changes everything." His point: less network interference.

Cusack's show was the concept of Gwen Mascai, best-known as an author and award-winning National Public Radio essayist. She came to Brooks and they developed the series before they got the star -- "unlike some recent shows," Brooks says, alluding to struggling TV comedies starring Bette Midler and Geena Davis.

"I'm a firm believer that if you get the concept first, things hold together better," he says. "Then you get a star like Joan and then tailor scripts around the star.

"Joan is very physical. ... She ad-libs physically. I've never worked with anyone as physically gifted as Joan when it comes to comedy. She's funny when walking into a room."

Unlike many critics and industry leaders, Brooks doesn't condemn today's situation-comedy atmosphere.

"I think there are some great shows," he says. "Malcolm in the Middle. ... And I'm a huge fan of Ally McBeal. Frasier is as good as Frasier is supposed to be. And I'm leaving some out."

Movie critics won't have to ask Brooks why he left the big screen to return to television. As he prepares to launch Cusack's show, he's busy working on a feature dealing with Janet Cook, the Washington Post reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize after creating a bogus story.

"There's always room for both TV and movies in my life," he says.

Dusty Saunders co-hosts the KHOW Radio "Media Show" from 10 a.m. to noon Sundays. Contact him at (303) 892-5137 or saunders@RockyMountainNews.com.

January 21, 2001