Trashomon

By RICHARD CORLISS

READ THIS PAGE QUICKLY; IT'S about to disintegrate. In fact, it's already pulp. Everything Amy Fisher touches turns to trash. Including this story. Including viewers of the three schlockudramas that NBC, CBS and ABC began filming in late November and, in some Olympic sprint of sleaze, got on the air last week. Americans by the megamillions watched, on one network or another, the saga of teenage Amy (the "Long Island Lolita"), Joey Buttafuoco (her alleged lover) and his wife Mary Jo (whom Amy shot in the head). Now that the TV-movie epidemic is over, everyone has a bad case of remorse. Is there a morning-after pill for pop cultural guilt?

Ed Marinaro, who played Joey on NBC, seemed mortified: "Let's just say I wouldn't do Joey Buttafuoco: The Series." But Marinaro, who nicely captured the obtuse swagger of a suburban stud, was only one of those to profit from saturation coverage of Amy's shame. Amy was another. For the NBC movie, producers paid $80,000 toward her bail and smaller sums to her boyfriend Paul Makely, to would-be gunman Stephen Sleeman and to PEOPLE reporter Maria Eftimiades. The Buttafuocos earned $300,000 for the CBS movie, and New York Post columnist Amy Pagnozzi was a paid consultant on ABC's film.

Three vagrant takes on the same tale: this isn't Rashomon, it's Trashomon. NBC, first with the most, painted Fisher's version in bold strokes, with no whitewash, and Noelle Parker was a fine Amy. ABC had the hottest sex, courtesy of a sulky, smoldering Drew Barrymore. Poor CBS had to hatch a Fatal Attraction plot without the sex, since Joey has never admitted to doing anything interesting. But the real subject of the Amy-thon was the Long Island accent and attitude -- Brooklyn with flashier threads. Try this at school, kids: "Din I awrea'y tell you? You have sex wit chooah body. You make love wit chooah moind."

For the unplugged-in, this chart shows what you missed: six hours of vidiocy.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE