ZANY JOE DANTE CALMED DOWN A BIT FOR `THE 'BURBS'

At one point, during its earlier incarnations, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was going to be directed by Joe Dante. Eventually, that task fell to Robert Zemeckis, who did an excellent job - but Dante would seem the ideal first choice for such a project.

His affinity with Warner Bros. cartoons - Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, etc. - is well-known. Indeed, Dante's biggest hit - "Gremlins" - has often been described by critics as being something of a live-action cartoon in the anarchic Warner Bros. mold (he even got WB cartoon vet Chuck Jones to do a "Gremlins" cameo). Indeed, that description is even more apt when applied to Dante's wild-eyed segment of "Twilight Zone - The Movie," titled "It's a Good Life," which in retrospect seems like a direct precursor to "Roger Rabbit."But with "The 'burbs," zany Joe Dante seems to have almost calmed down. ("The 'burbs," by the way, was the No. 1 movie in America last week, setting a new record of $11.1 million for an opening weekend this time of year, despite being panned by most critics nationally.)

"There's not very much in the way of special effects," Dante said in a telephone interview last week. "And I didn't do as many in-jokes as my other films." Dante often includes loads of visual and one-liner "throwaways," such as this moment in "The 'burbs": The main characters enter the home of another character played by Gale Gordon, and in the foreground, on a piano, is a photo of Lucille Ball, in whose TV shows Gordon co-starred for many years. No attention is drawn to it; it's just there.

"Those are in the realm of `wouldn't it be funny if . . .' " Dante explained. "That one just came out of the fact that he (Gordon) was cast in the role, and when we went through the things we needed to put into his house, we imagined that maybe he was an old hoofer and a picture of Lucy on the piano wouldn't seem out of place. But they have to be used so as not to disrupt the flow of the movie. They're funny if you see them, but if not, that's OK."

Though it was probably the presence of Tom Hanks' name above the title that made the film such a remarkable hit during its first weekend, Dante notes strongly that "The 'burbs" is not a "Tom Hanks vehicle."

"It (Dana Olsen's script) was at Imagine Pictures, which is Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's company. They came to me last February, and at the time it was titled `Bay Window.' And I was kind of attracted to it. I liked that it took place in a small area, and I thought it was a challenge to pull that off.