The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 439

0R THE KIDS SUNDAY Jake, a country-western singer who has fallen in love with all the kids in a foster home and refuses to let them leave. Mac Davis is the guest star. SATURDAY 6:30 CD The Candy Apple News Company Matt finds a horseshoe that seems to trigger a series of lucky happenings. Events prove that people just can't trust things to luck. 7:30 CD Kids world Segments include a look at the Boys Choir of Harlem; a visit with the Y-Circus of Redlands, the oldest amateur circus in the United States; a portrait of a 10-year-old ski champion from Miami; a look at snow-tubing in Eau Claire, and an interview with the pop group Menudo.

6:30 SQ Wonderworks "How to Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days" Twelve-year-old Milo Crimpley takes the prize for being the ultimate klutz until he enrolls in a bizarre crash course in how to be a perfect person. The play features Hermione gold, Wallace Shawn, Lenny Von Dohlen and Ian Mitchell-Smith as Milo. 7:00 OO Punky Brewster In the third segment of this six-part episode, Punky and Margaux switch identities so that Punky can sneak out of Fenster Hall to visit her beloved friend Henry in the hospital. Margaux remains at the orphanage, where tests reveal that she should have new foster parents. 7:00 The Last Electric Knight The first film on tonight's Disney double feature stars Gil Gerard, Ernie Reyes Jr.

and Keye Luke in the story of an Asian boy, and his grandfather, whose martial-arts training leads him toward a special energy to use in coping with today's world especially when getting to know a crusty policeman. In 2 Dads, two fathers and a bachelor decide to share a big house to keep expenses down and help relieve loneliness. The children involved are unhappy about the arrangement as friction and problems develop. George Dzundza and Sal Viscuso star. 7:30 OO Silver Spoons Rick Involves his entire family in the production when he Gil Gerard (left), Nancy Stafford and Ernie Reyee Jr.

on 'The Lett Electric Knight' Sunday at 7 p.m. on O. enters a student film contest. FRIDAY 8:00 Webster Webster visits his Uncle COVER STORYMcCarthy During the first few years, he spent more than 200 nights a year on the road, and it began to take its toll on his family. "I realized I was missing things along the way," McCarthy says.

"I started making excuses to be home for a school play or a Little League game." Still, he was very happy in Bean-town, and when the network asked him in late 1982 to transfer to Washington, it took a lot of persuading. What ultimately sold him was the prospect of significantly less travel. In January 1983, he became one of 28 NBC Washington correspondents. Things were sailing along until March 1985, when McCarthy began doing lengthy features on a full-time basis for the weekend editions of NBC Nightly News. Once again he was on the road, seeing his family only on weekends.

He put out a job feeler to Taft's station in Phoenix, Ariz. where his wife's family lives but never got a reply. Taft didn't forget him, though. When LaMay went searching for a news anchor, the company gave him McCarthy's name. LaMay contacted him in late November, and the deal was signed a month later.

"This is no rinky-dink operation," says McCarthy, who plans to continue reporting three times a week. "But we're still taking it one day at a time. At this point, we're more concerned with blocking and tackling than the Washington's WTOP as a radio traffic reporter in the mornings and television street reporter in the afternoons. Sam Donaldson, now the White House correspondent for ABC, was then one ofWTOP-TV's reporters. "When I walked into the newsroom, Donaldson came up to me and asked how old I was," McCarthy recalls.

"I said, He said, 'How can you possibly know enough to be I didn't know what to say." In May 1969, after working his way up to weekend anchor, McCarthy went across town to rival WRC-TV, an NBC-owned station, as a general assignment reporter. His big break came in the summer of 1975, when he was asked by NBC on 48 hours' notice to fill in for vacationing network correspondents in London, Rome, Paris and Bonn. He was supposed to spend one week in each city. But after completing his first story in London, McCarthy was immediately sent to cover the revolution in Portugal. He thought he would be gone for a weekend.

Instead, he spent the next seven weeks there grinding out 21 stories and never got to the other three cities. Soon after, NBC offered McCarthy a reporting job, based in either Beirut or Boston. He was game for either city. After a month of orientation in New York, during which he covered the Boston busing crisis, the network asked him to open a Boston bureau. Continued from Page 4 the political beat, he usually will cover the day's top story.

"With only one broadcast a day, I'll have the luxury of developing more information," he says. "That grind-it-out approach won't happen here." Kathv Hart, 33, most recently with WSPA-TVin Spartanburg, S.C., will cover New Jersey and the environment. Jill Chernekoff, former host and producer of Channel 29's public affairs show Newspmhe, will handle health and the suburbs. Sam Ringgold, 26, former City Hall reporter for WPEN-AM (950), will concentrate on City Hall and the police beat. The baby of the group, Dan Mechem, 25, formerly with Capitol Broadcast News of Washington, is in charge of transportation and business stories.

Growing up in a household where The Huntley-Brinkley Report was turned on every night, McCarthy decided at an early age that his ambition in life was to be a correspondent for NBC News. After graduation from the University of Notre Dame in 1965, he began his broadcast career at town's WYTV-TV. It was a real hands-on learning experience for the young McCarthy. Just before he signed on, the station's news director left and took his entire staff with him. For a while, McCarthy was news director, anchorman and the entire reporting staff.

Less than two years later, he joined 93 Pi 5 passing game. nJITTTWI I 4-1 U-HWJ WOOD KITCHEN CABINET REPLACEMENT DOORS 26 Styles Unlimited Finishes Instolted in 1 to 4 Days Counter Tops Cabinets Available 100 Financing Available Free Estimates KITCHEN MAGIC 532-2227 West Chester: 431-2575 Wilmington: 654-4139 mtmmmmmmmmrlseaMemtlmmeeeeeeeeMemr 67 THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER TV WEEK. February 16. 1986.