Overlooking Ullman

I take no issue with Howard Rosenberg’s comments on the debut of Roseanne’s “Saturday Night Special” (“So Far, Call It Anything but ‘Special,’ ” April 15). If Saturday’s edition was the first shot fired in the late-night TV revolution Roseanne promised, perhaps her BB’s jammed. Rosenberg’s review was a model of judicious critical restraint.

Less laudable was Rosenberg’s use of the review to launch into his thumbnail history of comedy-sketch television. Ignore the oddness that “Saturday Night Special” could even inspire Rosenberg’s examination. If Rosenberg nevertheless was so inspired, his failure to mention “The Tracey Ullman Show” is a startling omission from that history. Ullman’s four-year run on the young Fox network was a highlight of sketch-comedy TV. Ullman’s work was uniformly incisive--and funny.

Rosenberg apparently agrees that Roseanne needs more fire in her crackers if she wants to make sketch-comedy TV history. Rosenberg would do Roseanne and his readers good service to remind them that Ullman’s show is part of that history.

HARVEY RICHELSON

Thousand Oaks