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Hitz aired from August until December 1997 on UPN.

Busby and Robert( Claude Brooks, Rick Gomez), were a young A&R ( Artists and Repertoire) team working for Hitower Records in Los Angeles in this hip comedy.Busby was an operator with great ideas and a velvet tongue who needed the more responsible Robert to smooth things over when he alienated performers they were trying to sign.They were barely surviving in the cutthroat music business. Jimmy ( Andrew Dice Clay), was the tyrannical owner of Hitower who dressed all in black, and Tommy ( Spencer Garrett), was Hitower's sleazy head of promotion , who reveled in other people's problems but was always careful to kiss Jimmy's ass. Also seen were April ( Rosa Blasi), a beautiful fellow A&R executive who was trying to steal their clients. Angela ( Kristin Dattilo-Hayward), a Stanford Law School Graduate and the firm's head of business affairs, who was constantly belittled by Jimmy; and Neil ( Reno Wilson), the bartender at Riffs, a club where the guys hung out and negotiated deals.

A Review From The New York Times

Television in Review

By CARYN JAMES
Published: August 25, 1997

Andrew Dice Clay Returns, With Wannabe Hipsters
'Hitz'
UPN, tomorrow night at 9

If you think it's clever to spell ''hits'' with a ''z,'' then you may be the target audience for this sitcom set in a Los Angeles record company. Expect to be part of a tiny group. The relentlessly unfunny ''Hitz'' combines elements of an interracial buddy comedy, a wannabe-hip style, and, no kidding, Andrew Dice Clay's old stand-up routines.

Busby and Robert (Claude Brooks and Rick Gomez) are partners who, in the first episode, must sign a new artist for Hitower Records or be fired. As their sleazy boss, Jimmy, Mr. Clay wears black, swaggers, smokes and insults everyone. He is indistinguishable from the persona that made him a hot-button comedian nearly a decade ago, and adds another layer of been-there, done-that to the series (whose premiere is tomorrow).

The rapper Coolio appears as himself in the premiere, but doesn't perform. Oddly, though ''Hitz'' is co-produced by MTV, it has little music. Instead, it has a gratingly loud laugh track, which shows no signs of becoming contagious. CARYN JAMES

Here's an article on Andrew Dice Clay.

Network gambles on `Dice' Clay
`Hitz' on UPN stars comedian who once renounced lewd, crude behavior. Pilot shows a return to old ways

Mark Dawidziak
Beacon Journal critic-at-large

LOS ANGELES: No Dice. That was the grand promise made two years ago by controversial comedian Andrew Dice Clay.
He was dumping the Diceman persona, Clay assured television critics. The shock comic was distancing himself from the sexist, misogynistic, foul-mouthed Neanderthal he played on stage.

Dice, after all, was just a character he had created to grab the nation's attention, Clay said. With the fall 1995 premiere of his CBS situation comedy, Bless This House, the performer would be reaching out to a mainstream audience.

The Diceman was no longer needed. He was gone, dead, kaput. In his place was a sensitive, dedicated artist who thenceforward would be known as Andrew Clay.

That's what he said. That's what he promised.

In Hollywood, though, show-business vows have a way of lasting about as long as marriage vows. When Bless This House crumbled in a heap of lousy ratings, therefore, Clay decided to again roll the Dice.

He put the Diceman back on the stage. He put the Dice back in his name. And he put women down with as much ferocity as ever.

It was a case of the Diceman cometh back.

Which was the act? The Dice character? Or Clay claiming the Dice character was fiction?

Well, hold on to your skepticism, because here comes Andrew Dice Clay in a situation comedy that UPN will air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. during the fall season. The Brooklyn native plays a tough record company executive named Jimmy in Hitz, a lampoon of the mercenary music industry.

Will viewers accept him in a sitcom? Will they believe anything he has to say?

UPN certainly did little to win over journalists this week at the Television Critics Association's semiannual press tour who were understandably doubtful of Clay's sincerity. Once burned by the comedian's pleas for understanding, critics became even more wary as mixed signals and contradictions blitzed the mini-network's introduction of its Hitz squad.

Take your pick. Producers of the sitcom say the series will have a raw and edgy quality, which fits in with Clay's commando comedy. But outgoing UPN President Lucille S. Salhany, who started her television career in Cleveland, says Hitz and Clay's character will be softened.

Clay says that CBS pressured him to drop the Dice from his name for Bless This House. But he also continues to claim that the Diceman is a character foreign to his true nature.

MTV says that, due to inappropriate behavior, Clay was banned from the cable channel ``for life.'' But guess what company is producing Hitz with Paramount Television? I'll give you a hint. Its initials are MTV.

UPN, whose programming airs on Cleveland independent station WUAB (Channel 43), maintains that it's family friendly. But the pilot episode of Hitz includes several lewd-and-crude examples of Dice-like humor.

``Hitz is a 9 p.m. show,'' Salhany told critics in Los Angeles. ``We have not said it's a family show. . . . But it will be toned down a little bit, OK? There will be some modifications.

``I mean, he's playing a caricature of somebody who runs a record company. And it's supposed to be edgy and funny. Now, was it a little too far? Does it need to be cut back? Yes, we think it should be cut back a little.''

An edgy show with the edges smoothed off? If that sounds like the suspiciously expedient thing to say to suspicious critics, consider Clay's view of working for the company that banned him for life.

``That was a different time,'' Clay said of the MTV ban, ``and I think they made the right move back then. But I think they're very smart for hiring me again.

``I thought (the ban) was the right thing because I didn't know how far I could go at the time, but obviously it was too far.''

Consider, too, Clay's rationale for dropping and restoring the Dice part of his name. The comic says he got rid of the Dice because CBS told him to do so, then he put it back because his fans were disappointed in the softened image.

If you buy this, you must also accept that Clay was purposely misrepresenting his feelings to critics two years ago.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone in the expediency department, the Hitz producers are willing to both downplay and exploit the Dice factor. Have it both ways and let the dice fall where they may.

Producer Richard Vaczy called him ``a dedicated family man'' who can't wait ``to go home to play with his kids,'' but ``if we get some publicity because of who he is and because of his past, good for us.''

One journalist wanted to know how Clay explains the Dice comedy to his two children.

``They don't talk yet,'' Clay said. ``Well, one of 'em smokes.''

Dressed all in black, Clay made light of his no-Dice promises of two years ago. As UPN left critics wondering about Hitz, Clay left them wondering if Dice was part of his character or a character he invented for comedy routines.

Still, the only claim that seemed completely trustworthy was made by the comedian. With Hitz taking so many credibility hits, Clay supplied what might turn out to be an unintentional caution flag: ``I really love putting people on, whether I'm on stage or off.''

That's something you have no trouble believing.

Mark Dawidziak is the Beacon Journal's critic-at-large.

For more on Hitz go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitz

To read an article about Hitz go to http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VjxUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Jo4DAAAAIBAJ&dq=andrew%20dice%20clay&pg=4095%2C2467625

For a Website dedicated to Andrew Dice Clay go to http://andrewdiceclay.com/