THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 25, 1995 TAG: 9511220078
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
IT'S NICE TO have Charles Kuralt back on television, even if only for six hours.
Kuralt narrates ``The Revolutionary War'' on The Learning Channel beginning Sunday night at 8 with ``Rebels and Redcoats.''
Kuralt, recovering from open-heart surgery, is the same old Kuralt, painting marvelous word pictures as he did for years with CBS News before he retired a few months ago.
This is how he describes the Colonists who went after the 100 British siege cannons at Fort Ticonderoga: ``The brawling woodsmen, who called themselves the Green Mountain Boys, were led by a rum-swilling giant of a man named Ethan Ellen.''
Watching TLC beats learning history in some stuffy ol' classroom.
Did you know that when George Washington was a general, he had his uniforms tailored to show off his 6-foot-3-inch physique? That Paul Revere never said, ``The British are coming!''? (It was more like, ``The British regulars are coming.'') That in 1871, Pennsylvania emptied its jails recruiting soldiers, and paid each recruit $81 to boot?
It wasn't easy re-creating 18th-century America, said Carol Fleisher, executive producer. ``Sometimes we'd be filming, look into the monitor and see a bottle of imported water in some soldier's back pocket. We had to avoid all traces of the 20th century that surround us, including power lines, telephone poles, anything plastic.''
The miniseries concludes Tuesday at 8 with two hours, ``The Dark Days'' and ``A Harvest of Victory,'' which brings the story close to home - the British surrender at Yorktown on Oct. 19, 1781.
The week ahead is a week of good, special events on TV. The one you do not want to miss is ``Cyclone!'' which airs on NBC at 8 p.m. Wednesday. I've never seen footage of tornadoes as vivid as the pictures in this National Geographic special.
See a TV camera crew in Kansas try and fail at 85 miles an hour to outrun a tornado. It's all here: the fury of tornadoes, hurricanes and typhoons. In a terrible irony, meteorologist Stanley Goldenberg, who routinely flies through eyes of hurricanes to study and track them, was caught on ground level when Hurricane Andrew lashed at Florida in 1992.
``The hurricane was in the house. . . . The noise was getting louder and louder. . . . The water was rising beneath us. . . . I thought we were going to suffocate.''
Great TV.
TBS on Monday at 8:05 p.m. starts a series you might want to tape and add to your video collection. It's ``Idols of the Game'' narrated by Bob Costas. The sports icons who come under the TBS microscope include Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Jim Thorpe, Muhammad Ali, Arnold Palmer, Joe Namath and Old Dominion U.'s very own ``Lady Magic,'' Nancy Lieberman. Part II runs Tuesday at 8:05 p.m.; Part III follows on Thursday night at 8:05.
In Part III, ``Love and Money,'' you'll see how the infusion of TV cash has changed sports forever, and maybe not for the better. Yes, His Airness, Michael Jordan, is one of the idols profiled here. The narrator is Dabney Coleman.
Another must-see special this week is ``Rod Serling: Submitted For Your Approval'' in the ``American Masters'' series on PBS Wednesday at 9 p.m. There are plenty of clips of Serling's ``Twilight Zone,'' which he had a hard time getting on the air. ``Who wants fantasy TV?'' the CBS execs asked.
Watch this and you will see that there was much more to Serling than playing host for 156 ``Twilight Zone'' episodes. Said executive producer Susan Lacy: ``He was a man who fought hard for quality television, wasn't afraid to remind people of television's potential, and also wasn't afraid to fight against censorship and meddling from sponsors.''
Imagine ``The Twilight Zone'' in color. Ugh. Serling wouldn't consider it. He loved the film noir quality that black-and-white TV gave the series. (WHRO will repeat this special on Dec. 3 at 12:30 a.m.)
While we're drifting back in time to black-and-white TV, let's go all the way with the NBC special ``Kelsey Grammer Salutes Jack Benny,'' which is on the schedule Thursday at 10 p.m. after it was originally set to run on Thanksgiving. ``Comedic timing is a rare thing, and Jack was born with it,'' Grammer said. This is a festival of clips. Perfect holiday TV.
Also in the week ahead, Home Box Office on Saturday at 8 p.m. premieres a movie (``Sugartime'') about the lives of singer Phyllis McGuire and mob guy Sam Giancana. This one plays like a cartoon, with Mary-Louise Parker coming off as a young Marilyn Monroe in the McGuire role and John Turturro doing a bad Godfather imitation as the Las Vegas mobster. Did the McGuire sisters really dress this badly on stage? . . In a bit of perfect timing, with Christmas almost on the doorstep, the E! Entertainment Televsion channel on Sunday at 9 p.m. presents ``World's Coolest Toys.'' Jason Alexander and Tim Allen are among the celebs selecting their favorite plaything. . . . Had enough of the Beatles after ABC's recent six-hour anthology? If not, catch ``The Man Who Shot John Lennon'' on PBS' ``Frontline'' Tuesday at 9 p.m. See what makes the shooter, Mark Chapman, tick. . . . Saturday morning at 11 on NBC, President Clinton drops in on ``Saved by the Bell: The New Class'' to deliver a message about the bad stuff that comes with smoking. Maybe the kids can give him a lesson on balancing the federal budget in seven years or less. from the neck down, actor Christopher Reeve hosted ``Gray Whales: In the Wild,'' which PBS will broadcast Monday at 8 p.m. On Tuesday, local PBS station WHRO airs ``Abortion: Seeking Common Ground in Hampton Roads'' at 10:30 p.m. after a ``P.O.V.'' special at 9:30 about a woman whose life has become the focus of some battles over abortion, ``Leono's Sister Gerri.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Muhammad Ali is one legend featured on ``Idols of the Game,''
beginning at 8:05 p.m. Monday on TBS.
by CNB