A Talk Show Without Egos THE CLASS OF THE 20TH CENTURY; A&E, Thursdays, 9 p.m. EST

By Richard Zoglin

It may be TV's ultimate talking-head festival. The producers of The Class of the 20th Century, a 13-week documentary series debuting this week on the Arts & Entertainment Network, have assembled what seems like every prominent American they could round up (Milton Berle, Isaac Stern, Dr. Jonas Salk, Phil Donahue) and invited them to talk about, well, everything. The idea is to recap the major events of the 20th century through the eyes of people who experienced them. The ostensible purpose: to create a "time capsule" of our era for people of the year 3000. "This is not a history," says host Richard Dreyfuss. "This is how we felt about our century."

No telling what folks of the future will make of all this (aside from wondering what Susan Lucci did for a living), but contemporary viewers should have a fine time. The commentators are well chosen, and their reminiscences are fresh, thoughtful, genuine. It's not hard to see why. Here, for once, are celebrities being interviewed on TV with no self-aggrandizing agenda: they are not promoting themselves, their ideas or their latest movie. It's like a talk show with the egos removed.

Most fun are the odd couplings of people and events. Julia Child talks about riding in her family's first automobile, circa 1920. Frank Zappa recalls hiding under the bed during blackouts in World War II. Senator Bill Bradley reveals that he once plucked a leaf from Elvis' Graceland estate while on a Boy Scout trip to Memphis. Dick Clark reminisces about his brother's death at the Battle of the Bulge.

Not surprisingly, the earliest, least familiar years of the century yield up the most piquant material. Billy Wilder recalls learning of the outbreak of World War I when his father ordered the afternoon entertainment in an East European coffee house to stop: "There will be no more music today. The Archduke Ferdinand has been just assassinated in Sarajevo." Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop describes getting a glimpse of Charles Lindbergh as he paraded up New York City's Fifth Avenue. The closer the series gets to present day, however, the more it overlaps with a hoard of other TV nostalgia fests. Do we really need another round of tributes to the idealism of the J.F.K. years?

The looniest but in some ways most revealing part of The Class of the 20th Century is the series of messages that concludes each episode, in which participants are invited to speak directly to people of the year 3000. Their comments provide a sketchbook of the concerns, great and petty, of our age. Art Buchwald says he hopes there will be good air and good water, though "we didn't leave you any." The late Joseph Papp wishes for no more theater critics. Strom Thurmond advises a regimen of daily exercise. Howard Cosell, with his trademark bombast (we miss it), offers up a homily: "What is popular is not always right. What is right is not always popular." Oprah Winfrey explains that the things hanging from her ears are called earrings.

Not that earthlings living in plastic bubbles on Mars a thousand years hence will care one whit. But it's nice to see people in 1992 with a little perspective.