Trash TV anyone? Chuck Woolery and Love Connection -- let's take a look. Chuck's got the perfect vehicle: Dating. Everyone loves it. Everyone hates it. He is from and of LA -- his name is Chuck, for God's sake -- so the redundance of his West Coast contestants -- let's face it, the level of vacuity of all the contestants is abnormally high, and I can trace such a shared trait among diverse contestants only to the environment -- phases him not . For Chuck, California is one big small town where everyone can at least get along, even on a bad date. He commisserates with the long drives some mus take to make their connections (Lou Reed should be a guest some day). He exults in the occasional trendy club or restaurant mention. He indulges self-absorbed West Coasters their hairstyles, shirts, and choice of jewlery because he knows that Hollywood has forced such trifles upon them for the same reason it summarily canned Chuck when he refused to replace his aging, letter-turning wife on The Wheel of Fortune years ago: Image is everything. Chuck's journey through the highs and lows of daytime television hasn't embittered him as it has, say, Bob Eubanks. He has honed his craft so that, with extensive editing, Love Connection sparks and crackles. If a chick jabs and the dude is too flacid to parry, Chuck jumps in with an easy question for the guy to parlay into some semblance of rebuttal. If two contestants are IQ equals, Chuck removes himself from the fray, smiling, and gently prods the couple from one dating venue to the next, tossing out left-field asides, chiding the audience, keeping control. If the date was a success, Chuck revels in the chemistry, allowing the lovebirds the opportunity to stroke one another's ego so that maybe next time, the date won't end with a "massage" and a "peck on the cheek." Which brings us to the Language of Love. "We gave each other massages" equals heavy, heavy petting with possible intercourse. "We slept in the same bed but he didn't do anything he was a perfect gentleman" means, you guessed it. "The kiss took 45 minutes" translates into a tantalizing grope. The Language of Love, along with Chuck's double breasted demeanor (Note: Chuck has forsaken the "t-shirt and a blazer" in the move from 3:30 to prime-time -- an obvious Letterman analogy and possibly the best signal that a show has been targeted for greatness by media big wigs), is the distillation of all that is right and good with Love Connection. In the midst of the most "in your face" hour of television, an hour packed with Current Affair, Cops, Entertainment Tonight, Rescue 911, Hard Copy, and local news, Love Connection allows us to make our own judgment based on "the facts" of a date. It frees minds. It does not brow-beat. It tantalizes. It is a low-key, family-fare venue for our romantic imaginations. . . . Imagine a place where young and old alike work hard all week, submitting themselves to nine-to-five anonymity for the chance at the True Love that starts with a little kiss. Being a baggage handler is secondary to the fact that this fat guy really digs that smiling woman. Her dead-end job at an insurance company and two failed marriages is but a typed line below her glowing face and teased hair and her funny aside about men who shave their feet. People are important in Love Connection Land, and everyone has a match, and will find that match when their jobs and their insecurities are shed for just one day by the magic hand -- the hand of Love -- the hand of Chuck. Plus it's a great hybrid of game show and talk show formats. There is audience participation, a batch of new faces each day, winners, losers, personalities, and wagering possibilities. There is a reason The Price Is Right (another personal favorite) has lasted so long, and Love Connection taps into this same game-show "cross-section of America" ethos. The contestants are black and white with a few yellows and reds thrown in, young, middle-age, and old. They are excited. The show is "live" and the unexpected hangs like a day-glo shirt on the one-size-fits-all mannequin that is Love Connection. At the center of it all is Chuck, the aging hippie father (I can see him plain as day hanging with John Davidson in 1972 comparing flares), with his "two-and two (Genesis 7:9 -- remember Noah?)," his "tell me what you thought when he walked in the door," his "hope all your dates are good ones." Chuck is the new-age guru of old-fashioned romance, keeping the dream alive in the '90s. "The talk show and talk show host of the decade" or "the best way to spend a half hour before re-runs of Roseanne?" Or is the question redundant? - CK