Review/Television; The Oscars as Home Entertainment

The 61st Academy Awards ceremony began by creating the impression that there would never be a 62d. The evening's opening number, which deserves a permanent place in the annals of Oscar embarrassments, was indeed as bad as that. Barely five minutes into the show, Merv Griffin was on hand to sing ''I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts,'' and that was only the beginning. Snow White, played as a simpering ninny, performed a duet of ''Proud Mary'' with Rob Lowe, who would be well advised to confine all future musical activities to the shower.

A group of dancers appeared, wearing fruit-laden headgear and suggesting how the late Divine might have looked impersonating Carmen Miranda. Another group of dancers played the roles of frolicking nightclub tables. Snow White finally disappeared, buried in what looked like a mound of king-sized popcorn with a large piece of Grauman's Chinese Theater on her head. This was the first year that the Oscar show was broadcast in the Soviet Union, but it was best not to think about that.

The contributions of Allan Carr, who produced the show for the first time, involved camping up the musical numbers and cleansing the format of most of its fun. Gone were the always-enjoyable audience reaction shots (although some of the acting nominees could be seen rolling their eyes in disbelief as Snow White worked her way past the front row). Gone was the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Gone was an entire generation of Oscar regulars, from Jack Lemmon and Charlton Heston to Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley MacLaine.

Even the renditions of best-song nominees were missing, replaced by a montage of Hollywood musical numbers (with titles identifying performers like ''Judy'' and ''Marilyn'' by their first names, others like ''Pat Boone'' and ''Shirley Jones'' less familiarly). Another addition was the number featuring 19 supposedly up-and-coming newcomers - Matt Lattanzi, Corey Feldman, Chad Lowe, who is Rob's even less musical younger brother - that was confusingly shot and inspired no confidence in Hollyood's future.