THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 2, 1994 TAG: 9406300115
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
WHAT'S THE FOURTH of July without fireworks?
Pizza without pepperoni. Beavis without Butt-Head. Joynes without Bieber. The Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway without tolls.
Television wouldn't think of letting Independence Day come and go without filling the screen with fireworks. . . stars bursting in air.
This year, the A&E cable channel goes one better with a program that will show you fantastic fireworks, and then will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about these dazzling displays - more than you want to know.
``Fireworks! With George Plimpton'' will be seen on A&E Sunday night at 8.
The two-hour show - it is a bit long - was filmed at locations around the world. It introduces viewers to a New Jersey family who has been making fireworks for decades at no slight risk to life and limb.
``I've had a fierce and abiding passion for fireworks since childhood, since the first day I held a sparkler in my hand,'' says Plimpton. Did you know that the famous author is the fireworks commissioner of New York City?
More fireworks from A&E this weekend: The channel presents ``Pop Goes the Fourth'' on Monday at 7:30 p.m. with Marvin Hamlisch leading the Boston Pops Orchestra on the banks of the Charles River.
A half hour later on PBS (WHRO), the granddaddy of all Fourth of July celebrations, ``A Capitol Fourth,'' begins its 1994 spectacular with a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. This year, it's a salute to that most famous Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, with Joel Gray, Faith Hill, Aaron Neville and the Neville Brothers, John Raitt and Florence Henderson taking part. (On radio, WHRV-FM (89.5) will carry the simulcast.)
A crowd of 350,000 is expected in person to hear the numbers we all want to hear on the Fourth of July: ``Stars and Stripes Forever,'' ``God Bless America'' and ``The 1812 Overture.''
WHRO begins the holiday celebration early at 10 a.m. Monday when it airs ``Your Hometown American Parade'' from Pittsfield, Mass.
Airing on WHRO immediately after ``A Capitol Fourth'' is a holiday bonus for baseball fans. PBS will show a 30-minute documentary about the making of Ken Burns' series about the Grand Old Game. It will be seen in September.
Other holiday fare: The Family Channel beams a program to its viewers from Branson, Mo., on Sunday at 9 p.m. and again Monday night at 8. Featured on ``Star Spangled Branson'' will be Barbara Mandrell, the Oak Ridge Boys, Marie Osmond, Mel Tillis, Jim Stafford and Tony Orlando. PBS is not alone in saluting T. Jefferson this Fourth of July. On Monday at 7 p.m., The Disney Channel presents ``Thomas Jefferson: The Pursuit of Liberty''
On a weekend when Americans remember what it takes to win and hold freedom, it's ironic that the Discovery Channel is showing a documentary about freedom denied - a shameful business carried out right here in Jefferson's Virginia.
``The Lynchburg Story: A Discovery Journal Special,'' which will be seen Saturday night at 10 and again at 1 a.m. Sunday, is about Virginians who were forced by the state to undergo sterilization between 1927 and 1972 - an unsettling look behind the doors of the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and Feebleminded in Lynchburg.
``It's the story of a shocking aspect of our history that most Americans are not aware of,'' said Clark Bunting, senior vice president of programming for the Discovery networks. ``It's amazing how a country such as ours, one that prides itself on diversity and the rights of the individual, was so obsessed with purifying the population.''
Elsewhere on the tube in the days ahead, a change of pace:
WGNT will bring you all the gritty competition - just kidding about the grit - that takes part when the 1994 Miss Virginia will be crowned in Roanoke.
The pageant that is a preliminary to the Miss America finals airs tonight at 9 with a handful of local contestants including Miss Virginia Beach (Lynne Economou), Miss Virginia Peanut Festival (Stacey Mosely), Miss Tidewater (Tamara Lee Rogers), Miss Chesapeake (Beth Sawyer), Miss Portsmouth Seawall Festival (Enga Davis), Miss Suffolk (Jennifer Martir), Miss Southside Virginia (Traci Hinton), Miss Norfolk (Melissa Bagwell) and Miss Norfolk State U. (Maisha Brown). Southside Virginia? Tidewater? Isn't it all the same place?
Two nifty programs for viewers here in the capital of the Navy, in this old seaport: On Tuesday night at 9, PBS begins a series that will run into August. ``Seapower: A Global Journey'' begins with a peek at what's left of Russia's submarine fleet. See a tanker carrying 135,000 tons of crude oil squeeze through the Suez Canal. On Friday at 9 p.m., and again at midnight, the Discovery Channel presents the story of the World War II carrier that survived round after round of kamikaze attacks. ``Saga of the USS Franklin: The Ship That Wouldn't Die.''
Tonight at 8 on WVEC, meet the new inductees into the Television Hall of Fame. . . More good stuff from the Discovery Channel: ``The Big Swim,'' which is about swimming around the island of Manhattan. It's on Sunday at 10 p.m.. . It in Hollywood'' on the E! Entertainment Channel Saturday night at 6. . . . Cinemax has scheduled Horror Night for Saturday with five thrillers beginning at 8 with ``Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway,'' which is slightly better than a horrible horror movie. ILLUSTRATION: ``A Capitol Fourth'' airs Monday night at 8 on PBS.
Florence Henderson takes part in "A Capitol Fourth" Monday night at
8 on PBS.
by CNB