After taking a few days off, let's jump back in with random stuff and nonsense:
- Big surprise here - ABC has yanked "George" and "Where I Live" off its Saturday night schedule. (The ratings were so low they were almost in the negatives.)Sadly, the network has promised that the abominable "George" will return to its schedule at a later date. And, even more sadly, there's no word on the very good "Where I Live."
ABC will fill the Saturday 7-9 p.m. time slot (it already canceled "Paula Poundstone," which aired twice at 8 p.m.) with movies through the end of the year.
- NBC has raided E! to find a replacement for Bob Costas on "Later."
And the new host is - Greg Kinnear, the host of E! Entertainment's wacky "Talk Soup." Cleverly retitled "Later with Greg Kinnear," the new show will be taped in Burbank in front of a studio audience beginning in mid-January.
(Costas taped in New York without an audience.)
Kinnear will also continue doing "Talk Soup," a highly entertaining compendium of what's on the daytime talk shows.
What Costas will do next is still uncertain. CBS is reportedly wooing him to take the post-Letterman late-night slot, but Costas may stay with NBC so he can broadcast baseball again.
- Gag on this - The L.A. Daily News reports that Fox is talking to Howard Stern about replacing Chevy Chase by hosting a late-night talk show.
Stern, of course, is the radio talk-show host who keeps getting the stations that air him fined by the FCC for indecency.
I once caught a bit of a TV show Stern did for superstation WWOR, and it was offensive beyond belief. It's hard to believe that even Fox could stoop this low.
- Shades of "Knight Rider" - NBC is premiering the action show "Viper" on Friday, Jan. 7, at 7 p.m.
It's about a a "metamorphosing, high-tech defensive vehicle." The human stars are . . . well, it really doesn't matter.
The really bad news here is that, while NBC hasn't made it official, this seems to spell the end of the family drama "Against the Grain." Two more episodes of that show are scheduled to air Dec. 17 and 24, but the network hasn't ordered any more episodes beyond the eight it original bought.
What a shame.
- Noticed KTVX taking credit for the outpouring of turkeys that came in to then-empty food banks after a report on Ch. 4.
Gee, you don't suppose that similar reports from the other local stations - not to mention the local newspapers - had anything to do with it, do you?
- Got a couple of tapes from CBS for upcoming TV movies - one titled "Shattered Dreams" and the other "Broken Promises."
Is it any wonder I have trouble keeping all these teleflicks straight?
- What a pleasant surprise last week when "The Waltons" beat the crud out of that smarmy "JFK: Reckless Youth" miniseries in the ratings.
- Had a chance to watch Bette Midler in "Gypsy" over the Thanksgiving holiday. It's an all-new version that will air on CBS on Dec. 12, and it's great. Stay tuned for more . . .