This weekend's "Wonderful World of Disney" movie - "Angels in the Endzone" (Sunday, 6 p.m., Ch. 4) - makes a rather unexpected reference to Utah's NBA franchise.
The made-for-TV movie, a sequel to the theatrical "Angels in the Outfield," is actually more of a kids movie than most of what Disney has been programming for this franchise. It's the story of two boys - Jess (Matthew Lawrence) and Kevin (David Gallagher) who lose their father in a traffic accident.While the teenage Jess retreats from football - his father's favorite sport - and from life in general, pre-teen Kevin has his faith bolstered when his prayers are answered in the form of Al the angel (Christopher Lloyd, who reprises his "Outfield" role).
If you've seen the first movie, you can pretty much guess where the sequel goes from there. Al and his angel pals turn the hapless high school gridders - not-so-coincidentally nicknamed the Angels - into a winning team.
(Their antics may seem a bit silly to grownups, but the kids at my house laughed their heads off.)
The angels can only help up to a certain point, however. Once the Angels make it to the title game, it's all up to them. "You gotta win championships on your own," Al explains to Kevin, echoing what happened in "Outfield."
Which leaves Kevin wondering why Al bothered to come to the game at all.
"I'm a big sports fan - baseball, football, basketball," Al says. "One thing I don't understand though."
"What?" Kevin asks.
"Utah Jazz?" Al replies. "Huh? What's the connection? I mean, these are the things that keep me up nights."
It's certainly not an original observation. And, of course, the explanation is pretty simple, given the team's New Orleans origins.
But it's a pretty funny bit.
And the way things are going for the real-life Jazz at the moment, perhaps they could use a bit of help themselves from Al and his fellow angels.
VIDBITS: The Catholic League will now have something else to protest - ABC has ordered six more episodes of "Nothing Sacred."
The network has also ordered six more episodes of "Cracker" and five more of both "Teen Angel" and "Hiller & Diller." (That still leaves all four series short of a full season's order - 22 episodes.)
On the other hand, ABC has told the producers of "You Wish" that it won't be upping its original order of 13 episodes - effectively canceling the show.
- ABC is looking at adding yet another news magazine of some sort, this one to fill an hour on Saturday nights - reportedly the 8-9 p.m. time slot currently filled by "Total Security." The network's Saturday-night ratings are abysmal.
- The producers of "Frasier" have signed Nathan Lane to a sit-com deal. Although speculation centers on NBC, the show has not yet been sold to any network.
- Fox has renewed the animated series "King of the Hill" for next season. (Animated series need those early pick-ups because of the time needed to produce the shows, which are actually animated in Korea.)
- CBS has apparently decided to stand pat with its rather low-rated Tuesday lineup - "JAG" received a full-season order last spring; the network has ordered more episodes of "Michael Hayes"; and CBS is reportedly ready to order more episodes of "Dellaventura."
(In the case of "Dellaventura," the big question is - why?)
- Just when we thought there was nothing that Fox wouldn't do to get ratings, the network pulled a special titled "Prisoners Out of Control" off its schedule. The hourlong show - which featured surveillance camera footage of prison violence - is being reworked for possible future broadcast.
Not that Fox has completely changed its policies. The network is still planning more of those awful "When Animals Attack" specials.