THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 29, 1996 TAG: 9606270029
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: 94 lines
TELEVISION in the next week speaks out for God and country with specials that celebrate Independence Day and suggest that this relatively young nation is undergoing a great religious revival.
The festive holiday mood on PBS and WHRO kicks in on Wednesday at 8 p.m. with ``In Performance at the White House,'' featuring Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville in a one-hour special taped on the South Lawn at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
PBS is inviting you to join 400,000 celebrants on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday for ``A Capitol Fourth 1996,'' a 90-minute special featuring Erich Kunzel leading the National Symphony Orchestra. It starts at 8 p.m. and will be repeated on WHRO at 3 a.m.
Featured this year will be the music of George and Ira Gershwin including ``O Land of Mine,'' which some call America's lost national anthem. It was written 12 years before Congress embraced ``The Star Spangled Banner'' as the national anthem. Also supplying the music will be Robert Goulet, K.T. Oslin, Peabo Bryson and opera soprano Harolyn Blackwell from the Met. (A&E's observance of the Fourth of July includes ``Pops Goes the Fourth'' at 7:30 p.m. Thursday from the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra).
Yes, there will be spectacular fireworks on both telecasts, and on PBS, rousing renditions of ``1812 Overture,'' ``Stars and Stripes Forever'' and ``The Washington Post March.''
Other special holiday program-ming:
It's a bit before the July Fourth holiday - this marathon begins at 6 a.m. Saturday - but The Cartoon Network is listing ``June Bugs'' as TV holiday fireworks. It's 24 hours of Bugs Bunny cartoons, including many from the 1940s when movie houses gave you a double feature, cartoon, newsreel, serial, selected short subjects and coming attractions for a quarter.
Starting Thursday at 11 a.m., E! Entertainment Television reels off ``The Late Night Anniversary,'' which is eight of David Letterman's ``Late Night'' anniversary shows back to back. It's a return to the good old days when Letterman on NBC was creative and bursting with energy. In the 6:30 p.m. special, see Dave and Jay Leno share the stage long before they were rivals at 11:35 p.m.
The Family Channel, enjoying nifty ratings with The Three Stooges revival, delivers Moe, Curly and Larry in a great big dose on Independence Day. ``The Three Stooges Marathon'' signs on at 3 p.m. and runs until 6. That's an awful lot of nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.
In the sporting life, TV has these events of note in the week to come:
With Olympic fever building - or is that just Atlanta's heat and humidity? - TBS on Sunday at 9 p.m. puts on ``America's Greatest Olympians,'' and repeats the special Monday night at 8:05. Spend two hours with the world's best amateur athletes over the last 100 years, including discus thrower Al Oerter, the only competitor to win four consecutive gold medals.
In sports of another nature - let's face it, these are trash sports - ESPN2 on Sunday at 4 p.m., and again at 8:30 p.m., concludes The X-Games. That's X as in extreme sports such as barefoot water ski jumping and sky surfing. Will bungee jumping ever evolve into an Olympic event?
The Home Box Office coverage of Wimbledon tennis begins week No. 2 at noon Monday, continuing until 5 p.m. with the 16 best players in the men's and women's divisions competing. HBO's first ever all-female broadcast team includes Mary Carillo, Billy Jean King and former Virginia Beach resident Martina Navratilova.
TV of a less frivolous nature in the week ahead includes ``Searching for God in America,'' a series of eight programs that begins on PBS Friday night at 9 and will continue on WHRO through July 26.
The producers engage in one-on-one conversations with religious leaders ranging from the Dalai Lama to Rabbi Harold Kushner. Is America in the midst of a great revival like those of the 1880s and 1920s? PBS says it's so. The special also touches on heavy questions such as: Who is God? How do we know He exists? Why has He made the world as it is?
Other TV of note:
American Movie Classics puts on its fourth annual film preservation festival starting Sunday and continuing through Friday. On Thursday at 2 a.m., AMC shows ``State Fair'' followed by ``Oklahoma!,'' ``Carousel,'' ``The King and I,'' ``South Pacific'' and ``Flower Drum Song.'' It's a Rodgers and Hammerstein festival, too. At 8 p.m. on the Fourth of July, there will be a showing of ``The Sound of Music.'' AMC helps raise money to restore and preserve old black and white and color films. In the past, AMC viewers have kicked in more than $1 million.
Who says the summer is a desert of reruns? Home Box Office on Sunday at 8 p.m. breaks out an original drama, and a good one, too, in ``Grand Avenue.'' This is about an American Indian family (a widow and her three young children) setting down roots in Northern California after being tossed off the reservation. You will see the Native Americans as they really are - ``complicated, everyday people like everybody else,'' said Greg Sarris, who is co-executive producer and the screenwriter. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Bob Llewellyn/Uniphoto
Fireworks, country music and a ssalute to the Gershwin brotthers top
"A Capitol Fourth" Thursday on PBS.
HBO/CINEMAX
Irene Bedard, left, Alexis Cruz and A Martinez star in ``Grand
Avenue,'' HBO's original drama about an American Indian family,
Sunday at 8 p.m. by CNB