Funding glitch shuts down Pax's millennium special

The Pax TV network had hoped to ring in 2000 with a global telecast every bit the equal of the galas being thrown by ABC, NBC and CBS. Instead, Pax - seen locally on KPXE, Channel 50 - will be airing old movies today as network executives try to get their money back from the producers of "Millennium Live," a worldwide 24-hour event that was supposed to have started at 5 a.m. today. Pax had exclusive U.S. rights to the telecast, which was to be carried in more than 130 countries by the Millennium Television Network. MTN was to telecast from a 90-foot geodesic dome built specially for the event in Los Angeles, and from a dozen other sites around the world. Among the scheduled performers were Aerosmith, Blondie, 'N Sync, Sting and the Spice Girls. Six celebrities were to handle the hosting chores, though the only one recognizable to U.S. viewers was former "Baywatch" star Carmen Electra. When Electra went afoul of the law earlier this month, her name was quietly dropped from the marquee. Then this week, with less than 72 hours until the telecast, MTN told its broadcast partners the show was off. According to Variety, the show business journal, the event's organizers couldn't assemble funding needed for the telecast. Variety also reported that MTN had been missing payments on the show's satellite and production facilities for some time. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com

Y2K: The TV takeover; New Year's is coming into your home with multitudes of marathons and hype

Some people have safety concerns. Others can't go out because they're on Y2K alert. And still others have better uses for 100 bucks than spending it on some millennium-themed New Year's Eve bash (especially those party poopers who insist this isn't even the "real" millennium). Whatever the reason, the networks are betting that a lot of you are planning to spend Friday night, and well into Saturday, parked in front of your TV sets, watching the arrival of the year 2000 from a safe distance. And since for every action there's a reaction, several cable networks are countering with marathons intended to get the attention of channel surfers bored with millennial hype. At or just before 4 a.m. on Friday, several networks plan to be live with coverage of the first New Year's celebrations taking place along the International Date Line and moving from one time zone to the next for the rest of the day. ABC, PBS, Pax, CNN and Fox News Channel all plan to sign on then and not switch away until well after midnight. Most of the planned TVcoverage will have a patina of seriousness atop a good deal of celebrity-hawking and infotainment: "PBS Millennium 2000" kicks off its 25-hour run at around 3:45 a.m. The entertainment here, not surprisingly, runs a diverse gamut, from a ballet performance atop (yes, atop) the Sydney Opera House to the Gipsy Kings serenading Miami to - and I'm quoting the PBS guide - "love songs from the symbol of love, the Taj Mahal in India." Hey, if PBS doesn't play Taj Mahal love songs, who will? The serious-minded Gwen Ifill anchors the PBS day side while fun-loving Will Durst handles the night side. ABC's coverage of Y2K is falling squarely on the shoulders of Peter Jennings, who anchors the network's 24-hour telecast from New York's Times Square starting at 4 a.m. on Channel 9. Signed up to perform are Billy Joel (live from Madison Square Garden), Aretha Franklin, Enrique Iglesias, Sting, Andrea Boccelli and many others. Of course Dick Clark will materialize on ABC sometime around midnight to do his annual homage in Times Square. For sheer tonnage, CNN has everyone whipped in the Y2K department: 100 hours of wall-to-wall coverage, starting at 4 a.m. Friday and petering out sometime Tuesday morning. CNN has produced dozens of thematic segments, some looking back, some looking forward. Topics include human rights, the environment, genealogy, population trends, travel, gay culture, medicine, stress, racism and, of course, the Internet. Among the 60 CNN correspondents stationed around the world will be Christiane Amanpour (Greenwich, England), Wolf Blitzer (the Washington Mall), Charlayne Hunter-Gault (Johannesburg) and Jim Moret (the pyramids of Egypt). ABC and NBC also plan news coverage from many of the same global spots as CNN, and likewise MSNBC and Fox News Channel both plan continuous, round-the-world coverage of the various New Year's celebrations. "Millennium Live," a star-studded global event from the folks who brought you Live Aid, airs on the Pax network (seen locally on KPXE, Channel 50) starting at 5 a.m. Friday. The telecast, which is being seen in 156 countries and heard in 12 languages, features musical performances from the Bee Gees, Blondie, Chicago, the Pretenders, Roger Daltrey, 10,000 Maniacs and even a few artists who have had a hit in the '90s. Other all-day marathons on Friday include a pile-on of disaster movies on Encore (starting with "Airport 1975" at 11:10 a.m.); a countdown of BET's top 100 videos starting at 10 a.m. (we're told that No. 1 is not "Thriller"); a repeat of the uninspiring 15-hour retrospective "The Century" on The History Channel at 6:30 a.m.; nonstop episodes of "Millennium" (natch) on FX starting at 11 a.m.; and perhaps more dazzling than anything else on, a night of Cirque du Soleil, starting with the amazing "Quidam," at 7 p.m. on Bravo. Witching hour As midnight in the United States approaches, the clear choice for viewers watching TV from beneath their beds will be Fox News Channel. Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes will debate "Year 2000: Calm or Chaos?" at 8 p.m., followed by special reports from "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh from a crisis center in New York. Presumably if Y2K chaos can be detected anywhere, it's from a crisis center in New York. For good paranoid measure, Fox News will also toss to the UFO mecca of Roswell, N.M., when midnight strikes there (2 a.m. Kansas City time). Other New Year's Eve highlights: CBS, the only network taking a purely entertainment approach to New Year's Eve (CBS News and Time magazine did collaborate on some earlier specials), raises a Tiffany glass to "America's Millennium" beginning 9 p.m. on Channel 5 (with a break from 10 to 10:30 for local news). President Clinton, Will Smith, Jack Nicholson, Muhammad Ali and Celine Dion are among those appearing on the program, which also will air the premiere of an 18-minute short film from Steven Spielberg, "The Unfinished Journey." Just to keep things in perspective, though, David Letterman will stick his head in a bowl of eggnog during an early-evening "Late Show" at 7 p.m., also on Channel 5. NBC's Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric anchor a two-hour special from Times Square from 8 to 10 p.m. on Channel 41. Following local news and a 15-minute "Tonight Show With Jay Leno," they return at 10:50 p.m. to count down to the Times Square ball drop. Fox's Brit Hume and Paula Zahn also will be in Times Square starting at 11 p.m. on Channel 4. (Perhaps they can wave at Peter, Tom and Katie.) Though Fox is saying its coverage will be different from Fox News Channel's, the two networks both plan to visit Roswell and that New York crisis center. Should you tire of listening to adults pontificate on the meaning of Y2K, Nickelodeon has an alternative: 24 hours of kids pontificating on the future. "Nickellennium," which begins at 11:01 p.m. Friday, will air commercial-free with the opinions of children from more than 100 countries. Finally, beginning Sunday morning CNBC will air the opening bells from more than 175 stock exchanges and financial markets around the world. And as Planet Y2K returns to business as usual, consider it your cue to resume normal viewing. Or at least come out from under the bed. - To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART CAPTION:Dick Clark will be at Times Square for New Year's Eve as usual, but this time his show is just a small part of ABC's massive coverage of the turn of the century. @ART:Photo (color) @ART CREDIT:ABC

Remote patrol

If nothing else, 1999 will be remembered as the year that New Year's Eve started a day early. CBS goes first with a two-hour "48 Hours" (8 p.m., Channel 5) from atop Times Square, with live cutaways to a countdown from Fiji, where locals will usher in 2000 some 20 hours before we do. Then all arise at 3:40 a.m. - or 20 till midnight in Fiji - as the 25-hour "PBS Millennium Day" launches on Channel 19, followed 10 minutes later by "ABC 2000", another daylong countdown extravaganza. And shortly after that, the three all-news cable channels join in. Pokey Pax TV (Channel 50) waits until 5 a.m. to begin its millennial marathon (although it plans a "preshow" at 4 a.m.). @ART CAPTION:Peter Jennings will be on hand for the entire run of "ABC 2000." @ART:Photo (color)

Remote patrol

Highbrow or lowbrow, TV has you covered tonight. I haven't actually seen "Roswell: The Aliens Attack" (7 p.m., Channel 29), but the plot summary looks so hideous, you almost want to check it out anyway. (Briefly, two aliens escape the New Mexican UFO mecca in 1947, armed with a nuclear weapon; she begins sleeping with as many soldiers as needed to carry out their evil plan, but he falls in love with an earthling and decides, gee, maybe this planet should be saved.) At the other end of the scale, "The Metropolitan Opera Presents" Mozart's comic opera "Le Nozze di Figaro" in a new production at 7 p.m. on Channel 19. Cecilia Bartoli is the bride Susanna on tonight's full-length (3 1/2-hour) presentation, shown with English subtitles.

Remote patrol

Tom Brokaw's "greatest generation" did not always do great things, as we learn in a one-hour "Dateline NBC" special at 9 tonight on Channel 41. While on duty in the Korean War, Ed Daily was witness to a massacre of South Korean refugees that had been ordered by the United States, which thought, perhaps wrongly, that North Koreans were hidden in their midst. Racked by his conscience, Daily wanted to return to the scene and face the survivors of that massacre. NBC arranged for the trip and was there for the confrontation. Brokaw narrates. Also tonight, buckle up as "Hollywood Hot Wheels" (7, American Movie Classics) takes a look at some of the most memorable cars on film, from James Dean's convertible to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." @ART CAPTION:Chitty Chitty Bang Bang @ART:Photo (color)

Remote patrol

Jerome Groopman is best-known for his AIDS research, but more remarkable may be the spiritual journeys he has taken with his dying patients. He has written a book, The Meaning of Our Days, recounting eight such patients, and tonight on "Dateline NBC" (9, Channel 41) we meet two more: Gene, who has AIDS, and Elizabeth, with breast cancer. Over the course of two years "Dateline" checked in with Gene, Elizabeth and their doctor, and asked how they felt about their life and the possibility of death. The subject matter is tough, but these three people make it somehow inspiring. They are candid and thoughtful, and although each expresses their faith differently, they believe. When asked her greatest fear, Elizabeth says, "I'd be afraid to die cut off from God." But then she says, "Even if my faith failed at the end, I'd trust in his mercy."

A 'Muppet' odyssey: Classic comes to cable channel

"The Muppet Show" is now playing across the Kansas City area. And in the words of the inimitable Kermit the Frog: Yaaaaaayyy! Nearly two decades after it left the airwaves, "The Muppet Show" - perhaps the most widely watched show in television history - was added to nearly 200,000 area homes last week, along with "Hallmark Hall of Fame," "Lonesome Dove," "Doogie Howser, M.D." and a warehouse of other family-friendly titles offered by the Odyssey Network, the latest addition to Time Warner Cable's basic cable lineup. It actually was possible to see Odyssey before last week, but only if you knew about Time Warner's "mini-pay" service for its customers with AXS set-top boxes and were willing to pay an extra 50 cents a month for Odyssey. (Fewer than 2,000 customers did.) Comcast and former TCI-TeleCable homes in Johnson County also carry Odyssey, but until recently it wasn't easy to find on those systems. (See listings on page 47 of today's Star TV.) But Odyssey is a network on the up escalator, and we have Kermit & Co. in part to thank for that. Last year two of the best-known names in family entertainment - Hallmark Entertainment and the Jim Henson Co. - formed a partnership and purchased an interest in Odyssey. Before that it had languished for a decade as a religious network under various names (including VISN and the Faith & Values Channel). Odyssey aimed at an interfaith audience with a mix of Christian- and Jewish-themed programs and other well-intentioned fare. A coalition of nearly 70 Christian and Jewish groups still owns part of Odyssey. But the network had no national advertisers and was losing subscribers. Enter Hallmark and Henson, with their reputations for producing high quality TV and Nielsen ratings. A highly respected children's TV executive, Margaret Loesch, took over as CEO of Odyssey, and a new lineup rolled out April 1. The new Odyssey slate is thoroughly if wholesomely secular, and its schedule is dominated by the two H's, which between them have 4,000 hours of TV programs sitting on their respective shelves. Hallmark draws upon nearly half a century of "Hall of Fame" productions and its movies and miniseries division led by Robert Halmi Sr., which has of late produced "Moby Dick," "Noah's Ark" and (aptly enough) "The Odyssey" for TV. Henson has plenty of Muppet programming including 1980s hits "Fraggle Rock" and "Alf," and non-Muppet features like "Dark Crystal." Tonight's programming lineup, for instance, includes "The Great Muppet Caper" at 4 p.m.; "What the Deaf Man Heard," a "Hall of Fame" from 1998, at 8 p.m.; the Concordia College Christmas concert at 10; and at midnight, a documentary on African and African-American religion. Felt-lined stars In announcing the new Odyssey, Loesch emphasized that the network would continue to feature "shows that celebrated the human condition and the human spirit." But in a bow to Hallmark and Henson, Loesch added, "We're all on the same page for doing quality TV for today's family." Other networks are also claiming to be family-friendly, but not all of them have the prestige of Odyssey's new backers. And none of them has "The Muppet Show" (airing 5 p.m. weeknights on Odyssey), which is arguably as enjoyable and broadly accessible now as it was 20 years ago, and whose felt-lined "stars" are still recognized around the world: Fozzie Bear, who bridged the gap between Grover and Elmo as the most beloved Muppet among kid viewers. Gonzo, the show's resident mongrel bird and aviator-slash-trumpeter, forever frustrated in his attempts to give the "Muppet Show" theme a proper coda. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, the eerily even-keeled director of Muppet Labs, and his justifiably nervous assistant Beaker, whose experiments - shrinking pills, a luggage compressor and an "electric banana sharpener," to name three - often ended in disaster. Bobby Benson and His All-Baby Band - they couldn't talk, but they still belted out a mean "Pennsylvania 6-5000." The Swedish chef, whose jolly "bork bork bork!" will go down as one of TV's oddest catch phrases. "Pigs in Space," one of the show's best-known running sketches, with the dashing Link Hogthrob, captain of the spaceship Swinetrek; his assistant, Dr. Julius Strangepork; and first mate Piggy. (That would be Miss Piggy to you, the porcine prima donna who walloped anyone standing between herself and the limelight she felt she richly deserved.) All of this, by the way, was too good for the networks - they passed on "The Muppet Show" when it was first offered to them. But Henson (who voiced Kermit, the Swedish Chef and many other characters) got financial backing from English media mogul Sir Lew Grade and offered the program in syndication beginning in 1976. "The Muppet Show" was watched in more than 100 countries, reaching some 230 million people, a total rivaled only by "Baywatch." American TV stations typically put on syndicated shows at odd hours of the night or on weekends, but "The Muppet Show" got choice schedule spots and occasionally outrated network programs. The show went out of production in 1981, and Jim Henson died in 1990. His son Brian, who now heads the company, makes a few introductory remarks at the beginning of many of the "Muppet Show" repeats on Odyssey. Even though it played in an era of TV variety shows, "The Muppet Show" was still something of a throwback. Each half-hour episode was modeled on a vaudeville program, often with three or four songs performed by the Muppets and that week's guest (e.g., Elton John singing "Crocodile Rock" to a pond full of crocodiles). The written comedy was pretty dated, too. (This groaner was typical: A passer-by asks two bench-sitters, "Crosstown buses run all night?" The bench-sitters reply, in unison: "Doo dah! Doo dah!") Yet for all its kid-pleasing silliness, "The Muppet Show" had an absurdist sensibility that adults appreciated and few American TV shows have ever matched. It constantly poked fun at the conventions of television and at itself. There was Sam, the furrow-browed eagle who kept his eye on the program's "decency" levels; and two resident hecklers, Statler and Waldorf, who nonetheless were in their balcony seats for every performance. "The Muppet Show" was one of the last products of a more good-natured time in the mass culture, before the arrival of the Age of Irony, a period that commenced with David Letterman's morning show and fizzled out sometime during the dot-com TV advertising blitz this fall. Seeing Kermit, Piggy and the gang once again, I'm reminded of the time Letterman chided a guest for telling a story with an all-too-familiar punchline. "The old ones are the best ones, aren't they?" said Letterman, which he meant ironically - but I don't. To reach Aaron Barnhart, television writer for The Star, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART CAPTION:Classics from the late Jim Henson are part of a mix of family entertainment, including material from the Hallmark vaults, available on the Odyssey Network. @ART CAPTION:Kermit the Frog and his furry pals can be see once again by area television viewers. @ART:Photos (2, color)

Tales of KC's founding lead to lively 'Crossroads'

Would there have been a Kansas City had an unlucky frontiersman not gotten himself killed in a bar fight in 1831, forcing his wife to auction off their 250-acre estate at river's bend? Would Congress have authorized the Hannibal Bridge in 1866 - the railroad link that made Kansas City possible - if a certain legislator from Leavenworth had not been using the washroom? These are some of the livelier questions raised by a special prime-time edition of "Kansas City Crossroads," Channel 41's illuminating vignette series on the history of our area, airing at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The half-hour program, narrated by Bill Kalahurka, looks at several turns of fate in Kansas City's history and how residents made the most of those opportunities. There was adversity as well: the 1900 fire that destroyed the city's first auditorium, the 1951 flood and the departure of the Athletics baseball team. But people also responded to these turns of fate with an indomitable "Kansas City spirit" that kept the town moving ahead. Three local historians do much of the talking during the program: author Dory DeAngelo, The Star's Monroe Dodd and Bill Worley of the Kansas City Regional History Institute at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Tuesday night's program includes segments on boss Tom Pendergast and on Harry Truman's 1948 election surprise (featuring the Trumans' friend and longtime Independence Examiner columnist Sue Gentry). But these political stories seem out of place; there is nothing accidental about them. That, however, is the only blemish in this program, which is executed with the usual polish that has come to define this Emmy-winning series. KMBC off cable? Some of you have noticed that Time Warner Cable is running an announcement on its Channel 5 bulletin board about a "retransmission consent agreement" with KMBC, Channel 9. By federal law, cable operators must obtain permission from the broadcasters in their areas to carry their over-the-air signals on cable. In exchange, the cable operator compensates the broadcaster. The KMBC agreement with Time Warner expires next Friday, and renewal talks have reportedly bogged down. That's why you're seeing that message on your screen; the law requires it whenever a retransmission deal is about to expire. The negotiations aren't taking place here, but on the East Coast, where both Hearst-Argyle (owner of KMBC) and Time Warner Cable's corporate office have their headquarters. According to one of several frustrated executives in Kansas City, the latest word is that both sides are "waiting for the other one to blink." Public TV notes Maybe it was just a coincidence, but the program that was airing on KCPT, Channel 19, when lightning knocked the station's audio off the air last month was a "Frontline" special titled "Apocalypse." The two-hour program fell silent for about 20 minutes until the station could get sound restored. So to make up for it, PBS is feeding the whole program again, and KCPT will air it in two parts, 9 p.m. Tuesday and 9 p.m. Jan. 4. Congratulations to Warrensburg PBS station KMOS, Channel 6, which celebrated its 20th anniversary Dec. 22. Last month's on-air auctions yielded $115,000 for KCPT and $54,000 for Topeka's KTWU, Channel 11. Country marathon They're calling it the "Millennium of Country" at WDAF-AM (610) - a round-the-clock marathon of 3,000 of the most popular and influential songs in country music history. The marathon, expected to last at least two weeks, is said to be the only one of its kind. WDAF won this year's Marconi Award as the top country station from the National Association of Broadcasters. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit TV Barn at www.tvbarn.com

Get into the season's meaning with these picks

Usually by this time of the Advent season, we've had about all the sweets and cookies we can take - and so it is with holiday TV and its monthlong parade of saccharine Christmas messages. Yet the mood always seems to shift in the days leading up to Dec. 25, as though the networks can sense that families everywhere are laying off the sugary stuff and trying to reflect on the season's true meaning. Among the more grown-up holiday offerings this weekend: "The American Red Cross Holiday Music Spectacular" (7 tonight, Channel 4) marries a typical TV variety special to a public service announcement on a grand scale. Among those featured on the program: Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black; Art Garfunkel; Patti LaBelle; and - in the first of two holiday appearances - 98 Degrees. In between numbers, celebrities deliver testimonials to the good works done by the Red Cross (including Bill Cosby, Rosie O'Donnell and "Ally McBeal's" Jane Krakowski). "Holiday Voices" features Kansas Citians singing favorite hymns of the season at area venues. The special airs at 9 tonight on Channel 29 and re-airs Saturday at 6 p.m., or whenever football ends, on Channel 9. The program, produced by midtown studio Trans Digital Interface and area filmmaker Jay Crotchett, also will spread goodwill by allowing viewers to donate to local charitable organizations during the broadcast. "Christmas Kansas City," taped Christmas Eve at Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, airs at 8 a.m. Saturday on Channel 5. Several area chorales perform Christmas favorites under the direction of William Baker. "The Nutcracker," as performed by Chicago's internationally acclaimed Joffrey Ballet, airs in a one-hour version at 7 p.m. Saturday on Channel 19. The performance, taped in 1998 in Chicago, is based on Tchaikovsky's classic tale written by Robert Joffrey, co-founder of the prestigious company, and is set in New York's Washington Square in the mid-19th century. The full cast appears in the televised version, as do all the classic waltzes, but they are edited for length. Parades are usually something you watch in the morning, but the "Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade" is airing this year in prime time, starting at 7 p.m. Saturday on Channel 9. (Among other things, the two-hour special features a fireworks display, which wouldn't show up very well during the daytime.) Harry Connick Jr. will perform, as do the Cirque de Soleil troupe, James Ingram, SHeDAISY and two boy bands, 'N Sync and 98 Degrees. And the composer who seemed to have a timeless song to accompany every American tradition - including Christmastime - is remembered in a new "Biography" special, "Irving Berlin: An American Song," airing at 7 p.m. Sunday on A&E. Berlin produced hits beginning with "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and never left the heart of the pop culture after that, whether capturing the mood of ballroom dancing ("Cheek to Cheek"), the movies ("There's No Business Like Show Business"), the holidays ("White Christmas") and something dear to every immigrant like himself, patriotism ("God Bless America"). Behind the effortless sounds of Berlin's melodies, we learn in this two-hour special, was a ferocious work ethic. By sheer dint, Berlin overcame his inability to read music and was churning out 50 new titles a year starting at the age of 19. His other great asset was his willingness to sentimentalize anything, from the death of his first wife to the then-scandalous ragtime scene. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit TV Barn at www.tvbarn.com

Get into the season's meaning with these picks

Usually by this time of the Advent season, we've had about all the sweets and cookies we can take - and so it is with holiday TV and its monthlong parade of saccharine Christmas messages. Yet the mood always seems to shift in the days leading up to Dec. 25, as though the networks can sense that families everywhere are laying off the sugary stuff and trying to reflect on the season's true meaning. Among the more grown-up holiday offerings this weekend: "The American Red Cross Holiday Music Spectacular" (7 tonight, Channel 4) marries a typical TV variety special to a public service announcement on a grand scale. Among those featured on the program: Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black; Art Garfunkel; Patti LaBelle; and - in the first of two holiday appearances - 98 Degrees. In between numbers, celebrities deliver testimonials to the good works done by the Red Cross (including Bill Cosby, Rosie O'Donnell and "Ally McBeal's" Jane Krakowski). "Holiday Voices" features Kansas Citians singing favorite hymns of the season at area venues. The special airs at 9 tonight on Channel 29 and re-airs Saturday at 6 p.m., or whenever football ends, on Channel 9. The program, produced by midtown studio Trans Digital Interface and area filmmaker Jay Crotchett, also will spread goodwill by allowing viewers to donate to local charitable organizations during the broadcast. "Christmas Kansas City," taped Christmas Eve at Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, airs at 8 a.m. Saturday on Channel 5. Several area chorales perform Christmas favorites under the direction of William Baker. "The Nutcracker," as performed by Chicago's internationally acclaimed Joffrey Ballet, airs in a one-hour version at 7 p.m. Saturday on Channel 19. The performance, taped in 1998 in Chicago, is based on Tchaikovsky's classic tale written by Robert Joffrey, co-founder of the prestigious company, and is set in New York's Washington Square in the mid-19th century. The full cast appears in the televised version, as do all the classic waltzes, but they are edited for length. Parades are usually something you watch in the morning, but the "Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade" is airing this year in prime time, starting at 7 p.m. Saturday on Channel 9. (Among other things, the two-hour special features a fireworks display, which wouldn't show up very well during the daytime.) Harry Connick Jr. will perform, as do the Cirque de Soleil troupe, James Ingram, SHeDAISY and two boy bands, 'N Sync and 98 Degrees. And the composer who seemed to have a timeless song to accompany every American tradition - including Christmastime - is remembered in a new "Biography" special, "Irving Berlin: An American Song," airing at 7 p.m. Sunday on A&E. Berlin produced hits beginning with "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and never left the heart of the pop culture after that, whether capturing the mood of ballroom dancing ("Cheek to Cheek"), the movies ("There's No Business Like Show Business"), the holidays ("White Christmas") and something dear to every immigrant like himself, patriotism ("God Bless America"). Behind the effortless sounds of Berlin's melodies, we learn in this two-hour special, was a ferocious work ethic. By sheer dint, Berlin overcame his inability to read music and was churning out 50 new titles a year starting at the age of 19. His other great asset was his willingness to sentimentalize anything, from the death of his first wife to the then-scandalous ragtime scene. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit TV Barn at www.tvbarn.com

Remote patrol

They don't make holiday shows like this anymore: Screen Gems Network, which serves up two reruns a day from its vast vault of old TV programs, airs Christmas-themed episodes of "The Partridge Family" and "The Monkees" at 9 a.m. today on Channel 38. The Partridge bus breaks down in an Old West ghost town on Christmas Eve, while Mickey, Davey, Peter and Mike try to teach a grumpy child the reason for the season.

Remote patrol

They don't make holiday shows like this anymore: Screen Gems Network, which serves up two reruns a day from its vast vault of old TV programs, airs Christmas-themed episodes of "The Partridge Family" and "The Monkees" at 9 a.m. today on Channel 38. The Partridge bus breaks down in an Old West ghost town on Christmas Eve, while Mickey, Davey, Peter and Mike try to teach a grumpy child the reason for the season.

Remote patrol

In the five-gallon mayonnaise bucket that is all of cosmic history - some 13 billion years' worth - a millennium is not even a tiny dollop. That's the sobering perspective of the National Geographic special "Adventures in Time" at 7 tonight on Channel 41. John Lithgow narrates this compilation of past National Geographic specials focusing on the evolution of the Earth and the development of species to the present and even into the future. Some new scenes speculate on how humankind will evolve beyond the millennium.

Remote patrol

In the five-gallon mayonnaise bucket that is all of cosmic history - some 13 billion years' worth - a millennium is not even a tiny dollop. That's the sobering perspective of the National Geographic special "Adventures in Time" at 7 tonight on Channel 41. John Lithgow narrates this compilation of past National Geographic specials focusing on the evolution of the Earth and the development of species to the present and even into the future. Some new scenes speculate on how humankind will evolve beyond the millennium.

Goofin' on Andy Kaufman (and paying tribute, too)

It's wonderful to see Hollywood and the entertainment establishment embrace Andy Kaufman now that he has been safely dead for 15 years. Perhaps even the American public - portions of which voted him off "Saturday Night Live" for good in a telephone poll in 1982 - will find a warm place in their hearts for him, or at least for Jim Carrey's version of him opening in theaters nationwide Wednesday. With the release of "Man on the Moon," the feature film based on Kaufman's life, his legacy as a singular comic phenomenon seems complete. All those things for which he was reviled toward the end of his life have been rediscovered as timeless treasures. The reviewer for Entertainment Weekly - who gives "Man on the Moon" an "A" - describes Kaufman's obsession with wrestling women as "thrilling," although audiences at the time found it revolting, and Kaufman couldn't get booked anywhere because of it. The same reviewer describes the lounge act of Tony Clifton, the foul-mouthed "entertainer" who was variously performed by Kaufman and others in disguise, as "fantastically abrasive" and "mesmerizing. " That would be news to the crowds that threw debris at Tony and demanded their money back. The fact that Kaufman by the time of his death (of lung cancer at 35) had made himself unwelcome on every TV show but one (David Letterman's) and had been written off by many critics as stale and predictable are forgotten now. Today, the kind of artistic purity Kaufman fearlessly sought in everything he did is admired and valued, as evidenced by reports that during the filming of "Man on the Moon," Carrey would continue to "be Andy" off-camera. Carrey knew Kaufman was inscrutable even to his closest friends and was obviously trying to pay tribute to the master. But tribute is something Carrey, who commands $ 20 million paychecks, can afford. It is Carrey, after all, who has parlayed his shtick on a sketch-comedy show into Hollywood megabucks, while Kaufman was cast as a robot in "Heartbeeps ' (alongside Bernadette Peters), effectively short-circuiting his movie career. Camera crazy It was television where Kaufman shaped his comic consciousness, which made it all the more heartbreaking when TV shows stopped returning his manager's phone calls late in Kaufman's career. These are among the details we learn from writer Bill Zehme from his fascinating and frequently hilarious new biography, Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman. From Zehme, we learn that young Andy spent hours each day in the bedroom of his upper-middle-class Jewish home on Long Island, strutting before imaginary TV cameras hidden in the walls. Soon a whole cast of TV characters was crowded into his head: monsters, bad guys, cops, wrestlers (especially wrestlers), etc. Some of the creations for which he later became notable, such as the foreign man ("tenk you veddy much") and Elvis Presley, can be traced back to Kaufman's junior high days, when he performed for schoolmates and at birthday parties. By the time NBC executives discovered Kaufman in 1975, he was playing clubs like Catch a Rising Star, alongside Robin Williams, Richard Belzer, Jay Leno and other ascendants. No one was sure what made him so side-splittingly funny; in fact, he had a kind of anti-routine. NBC knew "Saturday Night Live" was going to mark a generational divide in TV comedy, if it was going to do anything, and Kaufman was clearly beyond that divide. He was beyond, period. Kaufman was the very first player signed by "SNL" in 1975, and his brilliant routine with a phonograph playing the theme to "Mighty Mouse" was the highlight of the show's premiere telecast. (In it, Kaufman stood next to the record player, looking around nervously, until suddenly he would burst into a spirited lip-sync with the record as it sang, "Here I come to save the day! ") His popularity peaked with his role as Latka Gravas on the sitcom "Taxi. " It was a version of his "foreign man" character. But as Zehme writes, Kaufman always thought "his best work as Latka (happened) five years before there ever was a Latka." Instead, Kaufman felt the urge to drop his old characters and introduce new ones, a tendency that would mark his career. He started wrestling in public. All his life Kaufman had loved the extreme emotions of pro wrestling, and now he experienced them firsthand. Crowds turned on him instinctively, booing lustily and cheering his injuries. Then there was Kaufman's Tony Clifton character, who also began to show up more often, especially as Kaufman passed the persona on to his friend and co-conspirator Bob Zmuda. After Clifton created a melee during a taping of the Dinah Shore show - he was dragged off the set screaming, "What do you think you're doin'? Do you know who I am? I'm a big star! " - Clifton and Kaufman vanished from the airwaves. Part of the problem is that Kaufman was manipulating his audience for his own benefit. He refused to explain what he was doing, or why, which only confused and angered his fans, who couldn't tell if he was putting them on or what. Zehme says, "It was all part of his mad agenda to thumb his nose at television and show business generally, and the constraints therein. I think that's why he's being celebrated now." But back then, the supposedly sophisticated audience of "SNL," 366,000 of them, dialed a 900 number during a broadcast and voted yes or no on whether to ban Andy from the show. Kaufman was given the heave-ho by more than 25,000 votes. The studio audience applauded the result. So then it was down to Letterman. In "Late Night" Kaufman finally found someone with seemingly infinite patience for his experiments. He cursed out wrestling legend Jerry Lawler and threw coffee at him - another one for the pop-culture books. Another time, Kaufman brought three surly-looking toughs onto the show and announced he was adopting them. In late 1983, Kaufman told his manager that he wanted Letterman to have him on the show and ask him what he got for Christmas so that he could say, "Cancer." The only label that really works for Kaufman is "performance artist," like Joey Skaggs, the media prankster who worms his way onto talk shows and news programs under fake personas (he once appeared on "Good Morning America" as Joe Bones, sergeant of the Fat Squad, a quasi-military outfit that bullied its members into losing weight). They thrilled to the perfect execution of their meticulously made plans - and after the jig was up, if only a few patrons appreciated their work, so what? Looking back, one can't help but wonder what would have become of Andy Kaufman had he lived to see the rise of cable TV. Then again, Skaggs rarely appears on television - so perhaps Kaufman would be performing mostly for imaginary TV cameras, playing to small assemblages of true believers, which may or may not have included Jim Carrey and some of the other comic superstars now clutching his memory. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit TV Barn at www.tvbarn.com >>>

Remote patrol

"Nova" checks the pulse of artificial heart research in an absorbing program that airs at 8 tonight on Channel 19. Two competing teams of surgeons - one of them led by heart-transplant pioneer Michael DeBakey - are no longer trying to develop replacement hearts but instead are focusing on the left ventricle, the chamber that pumps blood through the body. The devices made by DeBakey and his rival, artificial heart creator Robert Jarvik, attach to the heart rather than replace it, and allow patients to resume normal activities after only a short hospital stay. Not only is this turning out to be the sounder medical option, but metaphysically it seems to sit better with everyone. "This mechanical device couldn't possibly be the seat of love and respect and honor," one physician says. "It's polyurethane." >>>

Remote patrol

"The Twelve Apostles," narrated by Martin Sheen, examines the story behind the story of the followers of Jesus. Airing at 8 tonight on The History Channel, "The Twelve Apostles" comes from the Paulist Productions shop, which also have produced feature films on the lives of Oscar Romero and Dorothy Day (the latter also featuring Sheen). Also tonight, Court TV takes a look back at cases it has reported on over the years - back when you probably weren't watching the formerly ultra-low-rated cable channel - in "Winners and Sinners." On tap this week are the Manson family, Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers. The series will show weeknights at 9 beginning tonight through Dec. 31 (mercifully taking off Christmas Eve). >>>

Dot-com ads miss the mark

At a time when Y2K looms smaller by the day, it looks as if the really big deal will be 1999.com. Retailers that sell on the Internet - or dot-coms, to use the imprecise shorthand - have lately been all over your television dial: Egghead.com, Toys.com, Monster.com, DSports.com, Ditech.com and 800.com, to name a few. And, like Santa's elves, they've been busily creating almost a subgenre of television advertising - a recognizable, loaded-with-attitude blizzard of pitches, the most notable of which may be the 30-second messages from our friends at Amazon.com. If you believe what you hear in the business media, these dot-coms are part of the new economy of e-commerce. Soon, we are told, all of America will be shopping on the Internet. Whether it's for cat food, computers, stocks, a new job, DVDs, BVDs if you're not buying these things on the Web by now, it's easy to feel as if you're the only one who is not. That's a myth, of course - plenty of shoppers are still crowding the malls, spurred on by tradition and mild weather. But the dot-coms are spending furiously on advertising to make you think otherwise. By the end of 1999.com, these companies will have shelled out $ 2 billion on television advertising, or 15 times what they spent last year, according to PaineWebber Group. And on Sunday, Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com founder whose company - while losing millions of dollars - has helped foster the point-and-click revolution that is changing the way Americans shop, was named Time magazine's person of the year. "This year it was easier than most," said Managing Editor Walter Isaacson. "Because there were two great themes of the year - online shopping and dot-com mania. The minute we thought of Bezos, it was obvious that he embodied both." Time dubbed Bezos, 35, the "king of cybercommerce" and said his ambitious, ever-expanding online venture had "helped build the foundation of our future." Whenever a dot-com chief executive makes an appearances on one of those financial talk shows, the interviewer always asks about the company's marketing strategy, or the "growth potential" for the next quarter, or what dot-com his or her dot-com is going to acquire. But never does anyone ask the basic existential questions a lot of us would like to ask. Namely: Why is this company in business? And why should we care? Dot-coms never give us answers to such obvious questions. In their TV advertising, they give us comedy routines instead. One current commercial shows a guy dropping his cellular phone into a urinal while he's, uh, multitasking. Then we're told you can buy a hands-free cellular phone online. (OK, but what if you're not an idiot?) Outpost.com, a computer and software store, uses even less subtlety in its ad, which made its million-dollar debut in the Super Bowl. A well-dressed man sits in a comfortable chair and explains that the company thought the best way to get viewers' attention would be to show a marching band being hunted down by jackals. With that, we cut to a few seconds of something that looks sort of like the promised melee. And so it goes. Bob Newhart plays a nervous company chief mailing out recall notices with Stamps.com. Wacky product testers try out wacky products for Gifts.com. A snotty, redheaded cyberpunk is revered for his online trading prowess. Something called a "fogdog" howls at the end of the ads for Fogdog.com. (Here's a quiz for you couch potatoes: What does Fogdog sell?) The use of edgy humor and the nearly nonexistent sales pitch has defined dot-com ads in 1999. But much like the "grunge wave" that dominated marketing in the mid-'90s, once everyone starts using the same approach, its distinctiveness vanishes, as does viewer recall. (Answer to above pop quiz: Sporting goods.) >>> Amazin' Amazon That is why Amazon.com's spirited and joyfully retro holiday ad campaign is such a revelation. Instant classics when they hit the airwaves last month, the Amazon ads sing their way into viewers' hearts and carry with them a powerfully simple message. Amazon, a veritable granddaddy among Internet companies, created five 30-second spots based on the TV variety shows of days gone by. In their use of color, wardrobe, casting and music, these ads look and feel as if they came right out of a time capsule buried in the Kennedy administration. We watch an all-men's chorus, decked out in sweater vests, cheerfully belting out tunes to a bouncy polka beat. The lyrics are flashed on the bottom of the screen in primitive TV letters. All that's missing is Mitch Miller's bouncing ball. And what songs they sing: I spent two minutes Two whole minutes Two minutes shopping for your gift And it was so pleasant Getting credit for a present That was really super easy to give The commercials are mesmerizing. The songs are hilarious, with enough squaresville in them to stand apart from the rest of the dot-com pack. (Another song, extolling the joys of being done with Christmas shopping, includes the lines, "Nothing else to do today/But worry about Y2K/Soaking in a bubble bath/With 15 days to go. ") Amazon chose this campaign because it appealed to audiences of all ages and because it invoked an earlier time when - true or not - people seemed to be less hassled during the holidays. "We think shopping online is becoming a new tradition," explained an Amazon spokesman. "It saves time, and you have more time to do things that the holidays are traditionally all about." The Amazon campaign assumes that viewers are intimidated by online shopping. To these people, Amazon offers an oddly comforting incentive: Shop with us and you'll be offline in no time. Just two minutes, two whole minutes, and you're done, the phone line is free, and you're in the next room styling homemade Christmas cards with glitter and glue. No one doubts that eventually e-commerce is going to be, as William Shatner tells us in those Priceline.com ads, "big, really big. " But it isn't now. According to figures from Jupiter Communications, a research firm specializing in e-commerce, consumers will spend $ 6 billion online this holiday season, a fraction of their offline purchases. Four out of five persons who have Internet access won't go near an online mall this season. Far from changing these consumer attitudes, the rash of look-alike dot-com ads may have the opposite effect. With their sneering, hipper-than-thou approach, they make the Internet seem as cluttered and uninviting as ever to mainstream users. With Amazon as the notable exception, it's hard to see how the dot-coms will have much to show in January for their holiday spending spree. To reach Aaron Barnhart, call (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com The Associated Press contributed to this report

Millers won't miss scrambled signals of TV business

Looking back on their decision to get into the television business a dozen years ago, Monte Miller admitted, "We hit the ground at absolutely the wrong time." His wife, Doris, chiming in on a speakerphone, agreed. "We could write a novel," she said. But if the Millers picked a terrible time to start up a TV station, they picked a propitious time to sell it off. KMCI, Channel 38, the station the Lawrence couple started in 1988 as a Home Shopping Network affiliate, is being sold to E.W. Scripps Co., owner of KSHB, Channel 41. For the last three years the two stations have shared Channel 41's studios on Oak Street. Scripps filed papers with the government to buy the station on Nov. 16 - the first day petitions were accepted for companies wanting to own two TV stations in the same market. The Millers had thought they knew what they were getting into when they outbid several parties for the newly issued broadcast license for Channel 38. But they weren't prepared for what happened next: Their first TV tower proved architecturally unsound and had to be scrapped. That drove the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy for a time, but the manufacturer made amends and the Millers got a state-of-the-art tower. Compounding their problems, KMCI wasn't carried on area cable systems during those years because it was deemed to be beyond the Kansas City metro area (the tower is just southeast of Lawrence). That, too, was eventually rectified, but Channel 38 scarcely made a blip in ratings. It took yet another bit of bad tidings to finally turn the station's fortunes around. In 1995 Home Shopping Network announced it was taking back some of the commercial time that KMCI had previously been able to sell itself. The Millers sued for breach of contract (a court later ruled in their favor), and they began looking for new broadcast partners. That's when Scripps stepped in and agreed to run the station. Channel 38 was re-christened as "38 Family Greats. " It's still not much of a ratings draw - in November KMCI ranked ninth among 10 area stations - but its combination of family-friendly shows by day and science-fiction programs by night have drawn two appealing niche audiences. Scripps executives have deemed the format a "success" and plan to continue it. As for the Millers, the sale of KMCI is actually their second big divestment this year. They also sold off their two business weeklies in Lawrence and Baldwin City, Kan. But they say they're not thinking of retirement, though a move to Colorado, where they also own a home, is not out of the question. "We took a few weeks off this summer, and Doris and I realized we're too young for the rocking chairs on the porch," Monte Miller said. Expanded cable Both of the cable operators serving the metro area are juggling their channel lineups this month. On Monday, Time Warner Cable customers in the old American Cablevision regions will see ESPN2 (Channel 39) and Odyssey (Channel 61) added to their basic cable lineups. In addition, Game Show Network will share Channel 55. Knowledge TV, which is currently on Channel 39, is being dropped. ESPN Classic moves into ESPN2's old spot on the AXS tier (Channel 99), while the Catholic network EWTN moves to Time Warner Cable's new digital tier (Channel 222). Also being added to digital is a fifth Showtime channel, Showtime Beyond. Comcast Cable, which serves 21 communities including Olathe and Independence, added the Food Network, Golf Channel, Game Show Network and E! Style to its systems earlier this month. Check Star TV for the placements of these channels as they vary depending on where you live. 60 minutes, too KCTV, Channel 5, last weekend joined channels 9 and 41 in expanding its late Sunday newscast to one hour. With the extra half-hour, KCTV now airs 31Z x hours of news per week, second only to WDAF's 46Z x hours. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit TV Barn at www.tvbarn.com

Return to yesteryear in style with Radio City special

If you have fond memories of visiting New York and Radio City Music Hall and are itching to see how it looks after a $ 70 million face-lift, you can catch a glimpse when NBC airs "Radio City Music Hall's Grand Re-opening Gala" at 9 p.m. Saturday on Channel 41. Radio City opened in 1932, just six weeks after New York's Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in the depths of the Great Depression. Henceforth the auditorium would evoke the aura of that time, when live entertainment was king and even a fourth-balcony seat was a thrill to occupy. Over the decades, however, having a '30s aura became not such a good thing. Grime, decay and simple neglect took their toll on the place, including the three-story "Fountain of Youth" mural, the 3,000-pound gold-threaded stage curtain and giant Wurlitzer organ. Some of Radio City's vast history is recounted in snippets during Saturday's broadcast of the gala, which was held Oct. 4. Mostly, however, it's a made-for-TV extravaganza with musical performances by 98 Degrees, salsa star Lou Bega, Mary J. Blige and, of course, the Rockettes. The show gets off to a slow start when Christian Slater is asked to open with a few humorous remarks. (As a child, Slater appeared onstage in two Radio City productions.) Unfortunately, neither he nor comedian Jon Stewart can get much of a rise out of the black-tie crowd of bigwigs. The night's biggest laugh comes when Shirley Jones notes ruefully that, despite her Academy Award, she's still best known for her role in "The Partridge Family." Among the highlights are Sting performing a new song and Billy Crystal doing some shtick (I'll just say it involves pantyhose and the hall's famed on-stage elevator). Among the lowlights: Liza Minnelli rasping her way through a medley of New York-themed show tunes with the Rockettes. On Tuesday, American Movie Classics continues the tribute with "Radio City: The Story Behind the Showplace," a one-hour documentary special. It starts at 7 p.m. Has it really been 22 years since the Clash stole the keys and took rock 'n' roll on a hell-raising joyride? Yes it has, and it's about time "VH1 Legends" paid tribute to the band that, more than any other group at the time, suggested the wider impact that England's punk-rock movement would one day have on the world music scene. Principals Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon do most of the talking during this lightly narrated one-hour program. It airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on VH1. The addition of Strummer in 1976 and Headon in 1977 started to move the band in new directions. Influences of ska, rockabilly and soul would soften the beat - slightly - but Strummer's angry political views and the group's youthful disdain for convention made them seem more threatening than when they were pure punk. "We were almost Stalinist in the way we had to shed our friends and everything we'd ever known before," Strummer says during the program. The collaboration produced five of the greatest stacks of wax from that period: the double-album "London Calling" (1979) and the triple-LP "Sandinista! " in 1981. The program, richly textured with film from the group's early years, is worth watching just for the reflections of Strummer. His keen understanding of the forces that made the Clash possible renders moot the need for extra narration. He's even philosophical about the Clash's demise: "I figure you have to have some regrets," he says. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com