It was Andy Warholwho said that every American would get his 30 seconds of celebrity. TheKing of Comedy is about Rupert Pupkin, a pest of a guy who was a bitgreedier and a lot crazier than your average American. Rupert wanted 10minutes, 10 minutes on the Jerry Langford Show. Robert De Niro playsPupkin for all he's worth, eking substance out of a vacuum. Draped inloutish polyester, this brash, bothersome twerp is driven by a voicelessdespair. And perhaps if this despair can be given a voice through theenormous amplification of a national broadcast, then away with thenumbing anonymity. A half-baked comedian, Pupkin delivers mediocreone-liners to fabricated audiences and fantasizes his appearance onLangford's top-rated show. If Pupkin is the bad news, then Langford,played with cool annoyance by Jerry Lewis, should be good news. But he'snot. The accomplished celebrity, whose night-time companions are a bankof televisions and a squirrelly Pekinese, leads the reclusive, solitarylife. Privacy and passion have been discarded along the path topopularity. Scorsese's meditation on celebrity is wrought with icydetachment, preventing the kind of identification that cripples Pupkin.Pupkin's yearning somehow transforms The Tube into a medium ofascension; our anti-hero wants to rise above the audience share and intothe privileged, televised haunt of the star. There's no place as chillyas the Nielsen Family's living room. Steve Seid