Curiosity Is King On This Talk Show

All too many interviewers come on like an exclamation point, full of ATTITUDE!!! and PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS!!!

By contrast, Larry King is a living, breathing question mark: WHY??? WHY??? is his constant refrain.

“All I am is curious,” says King, stating in plain English the je ne sais quoi that sets him apart.

“All my life,” he explains from his Washington, D.C., home base, “I wanted to know why the cop wanted to be a cop, why the bus driver drove the bus.” And what King wants to know, he asks.

Of course, his more typical guests are presidents and movie stars and other big shots. But they usually settle into a comfortably human scale under King’s guileless, ordinary-Joe style of inquiry.

For proof, viewers can catch the coming King-size week of talk as this suspendered “whys guy” observes the 10th anniversary of “Larry King Live.” CNN calls it the only worldwide live viewer call-in program - seen globally in more than 200 countries and territories.

Here’s next week’s scheduled rundown (starting each night at 6 p.m. and replayed at 11 p.m.):

Sunday: A special retrospective of the best from more than 2,000 “LKL” editions since its premiere June 3, 1985.

Monday: Live from the White House, King interviews President Clinton.

Tuesday: Barbra Streisand.

Wednesday: Ted Turner, Barbara Walters, Mike Wallace and Tom Brokaw.

Thursday: Jordan’s King Hussein, PLO chief Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin join Larry (“We’re gonna do some diplomacy,” he chuckles).

Friday: King interviews David Letterman from Manhattan’s Ed Sullivan Theater.

June 10: A prerecorded hour with Clint Eastwood.

Such a lineup speaks for itself: When King asks a question, the movers and shakers are pleased to reply.’