Neil Innes, founder of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and songwriter for The Rutles, is a clown. That's not our assessment; it's his own. But we joyfully agree with it. Onstage at The Bottom Line for his first Fun City show in nine years, Innes sported black spangled stretch pants, red suspenders and a plastic duck-head hat. He waggled his pencilled eyebrows and shoved an elbow into the audience's ribs. His rinkytink singalongs unrolled lyrics such as "I may be accused/Of being confused/But I'm my average weight for my height."

Offstage, chatting over tea at the Algonquin Hotel, things seemed different. Innes was the quiet, balding British gentleman, in light blue dress shirt and charcoal sweatervest. He chainsmoked Pall Malls and asked his guests if they were in need of any more cream or lemon. Even Innes eyebrows looked normal. But the clown was still there. Innes displayed the gentleness and compassion of the clown. He spoke sincerely and his smile could be seen in his eyes even before it reached his mouth. And he did wear slightly oversized red shoes.

CB: Our reader is dying to know... can we play "where are they now?" The Bonzos, I mean...

NI: Of course. Rodney Slater is in Bedfordshire, working as a drug rehabilitation counselor. Sam Spoons designs furniture and plays with Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band, as does Vernon Dudley Bohay Nowell. Roger Ruskin-Spear teaches art and drags out the Giant Kinetic Wardrobe every once in a while for therapy. Legs Larry Smith dances with Jeffery Julian in Toronto. And Viv (Vivian Stanshall) has not been well, you probably know. He has such terrible luck. He had been living in an old torpedo boat on the Thames. It was filled with all his instruments and artwork. On his birthday, a big tree fell over and sank it. Musically, he has been working with Stevie Winwood. Oh, and he made another movie. Did you see the first one "Sir Henry of Rawlinson's End?"

CB: Yes. It played only a short while at a tiny Village movie house. All the reels were tinted a different color, as if they had to scape to find the money to make the prints. It was the craziest, surreal-est, chaotically wonderful thing...

NI: Wasn't it brilliant? And this is a sequel - "Sir Henry Kdadis Krall" - that's South African for something.

CB: And the Duck Hat? That's been a prop for you since the sixties.

NI: Great story. Yes, I had it for years, and then we think it was lost along with quite a lot of other Monty Python wardrobe that disappeared in Canada. A fan, Wayne Honath, found some in a shop in Pittsburgh and sent them to me. No one makes them anymore.

RS: Are you happy with the limited if intense success your band enjoyed?

NI: I had a healthy attitude toward success. It was always a laugh. You don't get any lifestyle at the top. You become piece of public property. Besides, there's no way my work can make me a great success - I'm "unable to label."

RS: But critics generally label you as a parodist. How does that sit with you?

NI: Parody has an "instant" sort of meaning, like impersonation, or Duchamp's "ready-mades,' or something. I don't like feeding off something without giving something back. You have to take on the human condition.

RS: Why do you think the label has been stuck on you?

NI: I was labeled a parodist because of Rutland Weekend Television (with co-host Eric Idle, on BBC television). I did "I Must Be In Love" for that show. Then Eric hosted Saturday Night Live at the time that (producer) Lorne Michaels was offering $300 to anyone who would reunite the Beatles. The bit was that Eric said he had gotten the Beatles and showed the clip from Rutland Weekend Television. Then he said he had made a mistaken and that the band was actually the Rutles. It went over so well that Lorne said, "right, why don't we do the whole Rutles sorry in a separate show?" So I wrote 16 or 18 Rutles songs for that.

RS: Those songs were great. How did you go about writing them?

NI: I didn't listen to any Beatles records at all. I thought back to the changes in style I had heard.... I thought about "Love Me Do." That whole batch of early stuff was good dance music. I realized I had to recreate the metamorphosis of the group. The early Hamburg dance stuff was the hardest to write.

RS: Difficult musically?

NI: No, to remember the tingle of holding someone's hand. "Hold My Hand" I was quite pleased with, actually.

RS: One of the best moments in the TV special was when you sang "Cheese and Onions" as the John Lennon character.

NI: You know, the real hook in that song was the Man and Machine part: "Man and machine/Keep yourself clean/Or be a has- been/Like a dinosaur..." I believe in ecology problems quite sincerely. It's a fair enough sentiment. I subscribe to it - even if I am an ex-Rutle.

RS: What did you do before you wrote funny songs?

NI: I went to art school. My brain was embalmed by Artspeak. I needed to prick the pomposity somewhere.

RS: Whom do you consider funny?

NI: I'm not so sure.... there's a new wave in comedy going on. It seems to revolve around outrageousness for it's own sake. I was at a charity event recently and I heard a song about fucking sheep. At a charity event! Sometimes outrageousness is self- defeating.

RS: Well, maybe your humor isn't modern enough. Your songs tend to be parodies of older styles, like Elton John's.

NI: Why should I sing "modern" songs? That's not where I come from. I do the Edinburgh arts festival. For a laugh I played with a great pub band called Fatso. I've been doing my live show all along, and the critics have not been unkind. I would like to videotape it, before I put it to rest.

CB: PBS runs British humor, but it's lots of repeats. I'm surprised we don't see more of you.

NI: Are you familiar with the "Innes Book of Records" series? We're trying to get them shown over here. They were songs that I'd written that had skits built around them, like rock videos. I also hosted and did the links for a children's book series called "Book Tower" that might be shown here as well.

CB: I know you wrote the lyrics for "Brave Sir Robin" in "The Holy Grail," but did you write anything for "The Meaning of Life?"

NI: No, Eric wanted to do all the songs by himself. I have had a long association with the Pythons. I would joke that each time I worked with them I set my solo career back a few years. So, aside from my working with Terry Jones, we've decided to take a creative vacation.

RS: What's doing now?

NI: I'm working on Terry Jones' "Fairy Tales" book. They're modern tales, fun but with a moral. We've done one as a pilot for TV, too, which is really why I've come to the States - to arrange a deal.

RS: Morals like?

NI: Like one about this herring who swims around the world, you know, learns an awful lot, becomes quite big-headed. Then he won't listen to the other herrings. Then a fishing boat catches him, and the man who catches him eats him, not realizing how worldly he is. Each episode will have three songs by me and two stories told by me in different disguises. I've been told the stories appeal to kids as well as adults. Sort of "kidult."

RS: "Kidult"?

NI: Yes. Which is fine, as long as there's no such thing as kidultery.

CB: I've heard musicians say that the Bonzos and Captain Beefheart were their first taste of twisted music. But what about now? What do you do for that kind of stimulus?

NI: Captain Beefheart? Is he still living in a trailer in the desert? In the UK we still have John Peel on the PBC. His contract is always only for one year at a time, and they would love to let him go, but he's too popular. He was, and thankfully still is, the conduit for the musically weird and wonderful.

RS: So it's going well.

NI: Yes, It's going well. I'm not becoming too famous or too unknown either.

RS: Well, thanks very much. Let's get the check...

NI: No, honestly, I'll sign for it. They're really quiet good about that here.

CB & RS: Thanks.