The Advocate-Messenger from Danville, Kentucky • Page 97

THE KENTUCKY ADVOCATE Magazine TV Parade, Danville, Kentucky, Sunday, October 12, 1980 3 Tiihft talk III fl 11 11 1 -w i 1 I 1 Burgess Meredith advises: Don't overexpose yourself i I- I LOS ANGELES (AP) Burgess Meredith professes not to mind being upstaged by a precocious penguin, or any of the other cuddlies on ABC's "Those Amazing Animals." "As long as they carry the burden it's fine with me," Meredith says as he waits a call to tape a segment. "There's not much you can do except be a master of ceremonies. My reputation doesn't depend on this. I just introduce some animal and let him take the ball awl run." As he spoke, three parrots kept up a continuous squawk on the stage at Sunset-Gower Studios, where the Alan Landsburg production is taped with his cohosts, Priscilla Presley and Jim Stafford. Oddly enough, many television viewers best remember Meredith as a kind of anthropomorphic character.

He was a frequent guest star on "Batman" as the archvillain The Penguin, which he played with Dickensian flair and malevolence. On "Those Amazing Animals" his mascot is Penny, a tropical penguin. Meredith, 72, nominated for an Oscar for his role as the manager in "Rocky," is one of Hollywood's most enduring character actors. His secret: "Don't expose yourself too much." The actor advises: "Kind of disappear for a while, then when you come back people will rediscover you. I go back to the stage, I direct.

This kind of show is one way not to be overexposed, Meredith's roots are on Broadway, where he was one of the famous stage actors of the 1930s. Maxwell Anderson wrote a play for him when he was only 21. In all, Anderson wrote "Winterset," "High Tor" and several other plays for Meredith. It was Anderson who induced Meredith to move to Rockland County, N.Y., for many years a haven for artists, writers and actors. 'Meredith lived on a farm near Mount Ivy until he moved to Malibu eight years ago.

His first movie was the film version of "Winterset," and he also did movie versions of such other Broadway shows as "Of Mice and Men." One of his most famous portrayals was that of Ernie Pyle, the beloved front-line columnist of World War II, in "The Story of GI Joe." He had starring roles in two television series, "Mr. Novak" and "Search." Meredith says he believes he was selected for "Those Amazing Animals" because of his long association with animals, He's a beekeeper, raises waterfowl on his California ranch, raised jumping horses when he lived in New York, and for many years has been associated with the Human-Dolphin Foundation. Occasionally, Meredith is called to the set of "Those Amazing Animals" shows to introduce another animal segment Raccoons play in one of the big cages behind him. His topic is beached whales. As he leaves the set, a reindeer is led out, its hooves unsteady on the shiny vinyl floor of the sound stage.

The reindeer is soon followed by a black bear, an Arctic fox, some chinchillas, a baby kangaroo, flamingos and other members of the menagerie. Meredith has four movies and one television production waiting to come out. One is' "Clash of the Titans," a special effects super epic based on Greek mythology. He plays a playwright, somewhat in the manner of Aristophanes. Laurence Olivier also stars.

He's an aviator in "The Last Chase," with Lee Majors, and is a Canadian furrier in "The Final Assignment," which also stars Michael York and Genevieve Bujold. In "True Confessions," which stars Robert DeNiro and Robert Duvall, he plays an old priest in the desert. In "Mr. Griffin and Me," directed by Patrick O'Neal for television, he plays a retired director. "It was nice," he says.

"They filmed them all over the world. Malta, Spain, Canada." Jerry Buck 21 In a scene from "Pete" New Orleans clarinetist Pete Fountain jams for his buddies at a picnic. Two music specials hit a high note through a profile of Fountain's career from his roots in Dixieland to his present status as a top tourist attraction of New Orleans. Along the way there is plenty of music by Fountain and some of the groups be has played with, including the Dukes of Dixieland, Al Hirt's band and the Lawrence Welk Orchestra. There are rare film clips of Fountain and the Basin Street Six in the 1940s and of his last night 00 the "Lawrence Welk Show," when he reluctantly agreed to dance with the ladies in the audience.

Dionne Warwick and Pete Fountain appear in back-to-back special on KET channel 46 Wednesday night. "An Evening with Dionne Warwick A Soundstage Special" ain at 9 p.m. followed by "Pete" at 10 p.m. In Warwick's concert she entertains a live audience with a medley of 23 hits that includ "Raindrops," "What the World Needs Now," "Deja Vu" and "I Know I'll Never Love This Way Again." In the 60-minute Fountain special viewers meet the renowned clarinetist KET goes on cable 'Nova' examines sea creatures the 200,000 eggs she lays, possibly one will mature to return again in four year's "Nova's" cameras miss nothing. A male pipefish hovers in the eelgrass, his abdominal pouch bulging.

Soon the bulge splits lengthwise to release a brood of fully formed babies. An inch-long ghost shrimp floats by, so transparent as to reveal all the workings of its internal organs. Migrant seals, terns and geese stop to eat and rest for a day or a season before moving along. This intriguing documentary is a co-production of Peace River Films and "Nova," the team whose first two collaborations, "A Desert's Edge" and "Still Waters," won international recognition. they show off habits that seem alien and absurd to our own conventional biology.

On June's longest day, hundreds of sea-dwellig horseshoe crabs race the year's highest tide to the beach. "Nova" follows these living fossils as they pursue appointments with antiquity. Their mating ritual, which is 300 million years old, predates dinosaurs. Horseshoe crabs are only one of the species "Nova' spotlights in "the Sea Behind the Dunes." The diamond-back terrapin lavs her eggs in the sand, leaving them to incubate in the sun. The alewife, the ocean's silver bloodhound, senses the faint flavor of the freshwater stream of her birth amid gallons of moving seawater.

She follows it straight home. Of One year in the intricate life of a coastal lagoon unfolds in an hour's time, when "Nova" documents the fragile tidal eco-system that support the entire ocean, in TW Sea Behind the Dunes," Tuesday, Oct 14 on PBS. To make "The Sea Behind the Dunes," producers Neil Goodwin and John Borden learned to work side by side with herons, gulls and pipefish. They established a year's residence on the shore of Pleasant Bay, a tidal inlet 00 the elbow of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. What results from this year-long immersion in salt water is an evocative tapestry of inter-connecting lives.

"Nova's" anderwater close-up lens bestows character on commonplace creatures Is When Telecable of Lexington begins providing cable TV signals to the Lexington market in late October, KET will occupy two of the channels. Channel (2 will carry KET's regular broadcast schedule of in-school, cultural and Kentucky public affairs programming. Channel 13, called KET ETC, will carry adult learning programs and others not now on the regular broadcast schedule. "How To" preserve food, cook international cuisine, play the banjo, freehand sketch, and speak basic German are just a few of the subjects cable viewers can learn when channel 13 signs on. KET ETC will also provide alternate plays of three KET-produced public affairs series, "Kentucky Journal," "Bywords" and "Comment on Kentucky." Additional plans include year-round morning plays of "AM Weather" and extra plays of KET's own "GEf" series.

Current plan call for KET to provide programs 24 hours day, seven days a week. Individual programs will change once week with the exception of public affairs shows, which will change daily. Program director Kirk Lehtomaa says there's nothing to prevent this KET service from being added to other cable systems around the commonwealth should those systems desire 11.