Showtime loads up on quirks for trip to 'California'

You live in a small town. You're young, but you feel strangely set in your ways: You've got your girl, your job, your watering hole. Life has become a John Cougar Mellencamp song: "Jack and Diane" five years later. You feel vaguely like a loser. What do you do? Get out of town, of course. That's the premise of "Going to California," a promising new buddy series that will have its premiere at 9 p.m. Thursday on Showtime. Space (Sam Trammell) and Hank (Brad Henke) are the buddies. Their car is a 1966 Buick. Their excuse is that another buddy suddenly left town after his girl dumped him. Something about Memphis. So they point their car toward Tennessee. They have a strict rule against hitchhikers. But what fun would that be? Thus in no time they are hooking up with larger than life characters such as Bob (John Asher) - a guy who really, really likes eggs - and a tranvestite who looks an awful lot like NFL great Lawrence Taylor. In next week's episode, Hank meets the girl of his dreams on the streets of Memphis, while Space is haunted by Elvis impersonators. At times, "Going to California" acts like it's going to be profound or something. But it's a sweet enough show; I don't mind going along for the ride. (Warning: Adult language.) Fans of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" already know that the shining star of that improv-comedy show isn't host Drew Carey or commercial pitchmen Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie. It's Wayne Brady, the incredibly versatile singer/comic with a million-dollar smile. Brady's talent reminds you of those all-purpose entertainers who used to headline in Vegas and have their own summer variety shows on TV. Fittingly, then, ABC has endowed Brady with his own summer series, and judging from the electrifying 12-minute preview I saw last month, "The Wayne Brady Show" will take us right back to those thrilling days of yesteryear. This half-hour tour de force debuts with a one-hour show at 7 p.m. Wednesday on ABC (Channel 9). I watched Brady take a hokey sketch premise - James Brown saves a heart-attack victim - and single-handedly rescue it with a dead-on impersonation of the Godfather of Soul. I also saw heartfelt tributes to Sammy Davis Jr. and Brady's own grandmother (it involves drag). Variety shows are always a mixed bag; that's why they rarely appear on TV anymore. But if anyone can deliver more than a highlight reel's worth of entertainment, it's this guy. Read more on Brady on Showtime, Page D-4. It's ba-a-a-ack: "Shark Week," a cable-TV event that will surface for its 14th summer on Discovery. The weeklong event (every night at 8 p.m. beginning Sunday) features three new hours of programming along with some encores. Shark maven Nigel Marven is your host. On Sunday, meet a group of remarkable South African sharks that think they're dolphins. They elevate 15 feet out of the water in the quest for food. A Discovery press release describes one scene as "the most spectacular feeding frenzy ever seen, when over 27 great white sharks lined up next to each other to gorge on a 35-foot Bryde's whale carcass." You might want to wait an hour after eating before you watch that. ON THE WEB To read more about the shows mentioned in this column, go to kansascity.com and click on FYI. @ART CAPTION:Be sure to catch the footage of great whites going on a whale feeding frenzy, part of the "Shark Week" action on Discovery. @ART:Photo (colo)