Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 37

The invisibility of a teen-ager's mom2C What's that smoke near the So you'd like to flee from those fleas3C Crossword 11C Weekend Alert 2C TV, Radio 10C Play safe3C ys newscasts attract the viewers Sweeter Noel Holston JIlUlMUlUlll.aUUJMlMJI-lUlilL Television Mhat is it about the KARE package, anyway? Ch. 1 1 's news, designed to create a niche for a perennial also-ran, gradually has become the market's hottest ticket. Viewers are defecting from WCCO-Ch. 4, one of the most journalistically distinguished TV stations in the country, to a station partial to pretty pictures, McNugget-sized news stories and features about homeless pups. KARE won the 10 p.m.

news competition for the first time in July, while perennial powerhouse WCCO finished an unprecedented third. According to the A.C. Nielsen July survey, KARE attracted 29 percent of the 1 0 p.m. audience compared with KSTP-Ch. 5's 25 percent and WCCO's 24 percent.

More remarkable than KARE's current lead, however, is the overall distance it has traveled: Its 10 p.m. news was barely cracking double figures in the ratings just four years ago. Theories abound as to what makes KARE click, from savvy exploitation of its evocative call letters, tq the quasi-evangelistic appeal of its up-with-people news emphasis, to the simple fact that it is affiliated with NBC, the most successful network nationally. But there is no simple explanation. Superficially, the station's product is much better than it was in 1983 when Gannett the communications giant that also owns USA Today newspaper bought WTCN (redubbed WUSA, then KARE) and started beefing up the staff and equipment it had to work with.

From the stylized images of Twin Cities skylines in the opening credits to the informational graphics to the photography, KARE's news invariably looks marvelous. Even colors look richer and brighter on KARE. KARE also has some good reporters. It has a knowledgeable, per- KARE Continued on page 11C Wine Author says sexy books mirror life in Hollywood By Nikkl FinkeLos Angeles Times Hollywood, Calif. A small earthquake registering moderately severe on the Beverly Hills panic scale is rumbling from Malibu to Hollywood.

Jackie Collins is finishing her 12th novel in 20 years, and her friends already are feeling the aftershocks. Standing in the garden terrace of Hollywood hangout Spago, a drink in one hand, a slice of pizza in the other, producer David Niven Jr. whispers conspiratorially: "People keep saying to me, 'David, don't you think you should write a But how can I when everything, everything, I have ever done, said or thought appears in Jackie novels. "There's nothing left," he laments. "I don't know why the headings on some of the chapters shouldn't be, 'I'd like to dedicate this to COLLINS Continued on page 5C Jiminy Cricket creator to address film session A good 'home' wine is what the doctor makes with pride By Dean RebuffoniStaff Writer 1 few years ago a Minnesotan brought something called li i "Jun9'e Juice" to the home winemaking competition at the State Fair.

It was entered In the "Any Other" category, which might best be termed the "Anything Goes" category. "Neither I nor any of the judges ever figured out what was in the Jungle Juice," said Lou Quast. "But I do know this: It didn't do very well in the competition." Quast has supervised the Fair's homemade wine competition since it was started nine years ago. He has seen a lot of wine good, bad and downright ugly come and go, and has seen a lot of wines that were made from a variety of fruits and vegetables and, well, other things. Included were wines made from grapes, rhubarb, apples, several types of berries, honey, corn, mint and, on one notable occasion, oak leaves.

"One of the judges complained that it gave him oak wilt," said Quast. This year, there was even an onion wine. "And if the thought of that brings tears to your eyes, so did the wine," said Quast. But there also have been a good many wines that brought joy to State Fair judges, including the wines of Dr. Harold Panuska, an oral surgeon and one of Minnesota's most prolific and proficient home winemakers.

He was the sweepstakes winner in the wine-making competition this year, just as he was last year and in 1984. And he was first runner-up in the 1985 competition. WINE Continued on page 2C ill. vv- By Jeff StricklerStaff Writer f7 ard Kimball thought his first assignment from ill Ml Walt Disney also might turn out to be his last it After five years as an "in-betweener" one of the illustrators who make the mundane drawings that go "in between" the important frames of an animated film he was promoted by Disney, who promptly handed him what Kimball considered an impossible assignment to create a lovable insect. "Walt wanted me to create a cute, cuddly insect, but there's no such thing as a cute, cuddly insect," said Kimball, a Minneapolis native who's keynote speaker at FILM Continued on page 8C Staff Photo by Bruce Bisping Dr.

Harold Panuska examined a bottle of Minnetonka Red, which he makes at Minnetonka Vineyards, his home winery in Long Lake..