THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 31, 1994 TAG: 9412290055
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Long : 116 lines
GO EASY ON THE BUBBLY this New Year's Eve. You want to be in the best shape possible to watch 17 hours of ``The Twilight Zone'' on the Sci-Fi Channel beginning Sunday at 10 a.m.
Jack Klugman, who will appear in two episodes, hosts the marathon, which begins with the famous half hour in which William Shatner thinks he sees something on the wing of an airliner 20,000 feet up. Others who appeared in episodes when they were comparative unknowns include Robert Redford, Telly Savalas, Peter Falk and Robert Duvall.
The Sci-Fi Channel owns exclusive rights through 1999 to the series' 136 half-hour and 18 full-hour episodes. Meaning you'll be entering that dimension between light and shadow, between science and superstition, on the Sci-Fi Channel for some years to come.
As the new year dawns on cable television, the word is marathons. Scads of them.
Football? Bowl games? Puh-leeze. Who needs Nebraska-Miami when you can see the return of ``Ponch'' Poncherello on the ``CHiPs'' marathon (12 episodes) on TNT starting Sunday at 6 p.m.
Didn't Erik Estrada look cool in cop duds?
MTV counts down the Top 100 music videos of 1994 from 10:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Saturday. ``MTV's Top 100 of 1994 Video Countdown'' resumes Sunday at 8 a.m. That's hours and hours of Snoop Doggy Dogg and Stone Temple Pilots plus other MTV regulars.
On Monday, the new FX channel reels off 26 episodes of ``The Green Hornet'' starting at 10 a.m. and finishing up around midnight with two episodes in which Batman and the Green Hornet join forces. Van Williams stars as Britt Reed, who is often heard saying, ``Faster, Kato!'' His faithful companion and driver was played by Bruce Lee.
The Learning Channel on Monday unfolds all 13 episodes in its wonderful new series about the battles that took the lives of 600,000 Americans. ``The Great Civil War Marathon'' begins at noon.
It all started with that shot fired at Fort Sumter, S.C., on an April day in 1861. Richard Dreyfuss hosts.
TLC's companion channel, The Discovery Channel, reels off a marathon of its own, ``World of Wonder New Year's Eve,'' starting Saturday night at 8. This is a grand series covering everything from extinguishing fires in Kuwait to fish that live in Death Valley to people who hunt snakes and drape them over their bodies.
The Discovery Channel has another marathon scheduled for Monday starting at 10 a.m. ``The Wings Marathon'' features just about every airplane you can think of, including the famous World War II fighter, the P-51 Mustang.
Saddle up, ``Bonanza'' fans. The Family Channel has scheduled an eight-hour marathon Sunday beginning at noon. What's this? Hoss confessing to murder? That's the 2 p.m. episode.
TNT is reviving ``In the Heat of the Night'' with Carroll O'Connor starting Tuesday at 7 p.m. Before then, TNT sends your way ``The Heat Fest Marathon'' beginning Monday at 4:30 p.m. with the film that inspired the series and won Rod Steiger an Oscar.
At 7 p.m. Tuesday, TNT will show the pilot for the TV series in which O'Connor assumed Steiger's role and Howard Rollins played the Sidney Poitier part.
It's a kick to hear both Poitier and Rollins utter the famous line, ``From now on, you'll call me Mister Tibbs.''
At 9, TNT shows another two-hour ``Heat'' episode with Carl Weathers assuming Rollins' role, and concludes at 11 with ``The Organization,'' the third big-screen sequel to the original 1967 film.
Things are sure busy in Sparta, Miss.
On Tuesday, TNT brings back ``Starsky and Hutch'' for a nightly run at 6.
Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas) returns! Fargas in an interview predicted that the revival of ``Starsky and Hutch'' will bring backs 1970's fashions, including bell-bottoms.
``Some of the fashion trends we introduced back then are still going strong,'' Fargas said. Such as? Jeans, he said.
More marathons: HBO Sunday morning at 12:30 rings in 1995 with the best of ``Russell Simmons Def Comedy Jam.'' Laugh until dawn.
And speaking of ringing in the new year . . . Merv Griffin, the man whose fortune is built on game shows, is back in front of the camera Saturday night at 11 on WGNT in ``Merv Griffin's New Year's Eve.''
ABC again counts down to midnight with ``New Year's Rockin' Eve'' at 11:30, while on CBS at 11:35, Paul Shaffer is the big name on ``Happy New Year, America.''
New Year's Eve without the music of Guy Lombardo is like champagne gone flat. No problem here. WHRO and PBS bring back Lombardo's sweet melodies SAturday night at 9 in ``New Year's Eve With Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians.''
At 8 Saturday night, the Sesame Street gang throws its New Year's Eve party.
And after the new year begins, what does TV promise the ever-restless couch potato?
The Learning Channel Sunday at 10 p.m. begins a six-part miniseries called ``Desmond Morris' The Human Animal: A Personal View of the Human Species.'' Most fascinating is Episode No. 4 on Jan. 29. In ``The Biology of Love,'' cameras go where no cameras have gone before.
Friday night at 8, the A&E ``Biography'' series delves into ``Milton Hershey: The Chocolate King,'' the man whose factories created some of that candy you ate too much of over the holidays.
On Tuesday at 9 p.m., the Discovery Channel premieres two new hours of a series that first ran in 1993, ``How the West Was Lost.'' It's about a time when the frontier was just east of the Mississippi River.
Tired of all those year-end review specials? Showtime has one Sunday at 10 p.m. But before you reach for the remote, be advised that ``But Seriously '94'' is how last year shaped up in the eyes of comedians Andrew Dice Clay, Richard Belzer, Will Durst and others. Count the Tonya Harding jokes. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
"The Twilight Zone Marathon" begins Sunday at 10 a.m. on the Sci-Fi
Channel. Don't miss young Robert Redford as policeman Harold
Benton...
ABC-TV photo
Margaret Cho (a member of All-American Girl), left, Dick Clark and
Steve Harvey (star of ``Me and the Boys'') will cover ``Dick Clark's
New Year's Rockin' Eve '95'' from Times Square and the Walt Disney
World Resort.
by CNB