Daily World from Opelousas, Louisiana • Page 15

re Friday, April 8, 1983-Thursday, April 14, 1983 DAILY WORLD Networks Faded dream turns ture grab video for I Mamou's Brian Gahn game craze NEW YORK (UPI) Video addicts scarcely have had time to digest the current television season, but the networks already are working on next fall's menu and Phil Burrell says it will have something to tempt just about every palate. "There is no clear-cut trend no overriding trend," he said. course comedies are dominant." Burrell is vice president of TV programming for Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, one of the nation's largest advertising agencies, which last year purchased nearly $300 million in television time for its clients. He is in a position to see what the networks will be using in their quest for Nielsen ratings, almost before network executives themselves know. In Dancer Fitzgerald's annual prime-time survey, he said 76 new pilots, plus 14 new series already given limited try-out runs in March, or slated for them in April, are under consideration for the 1983-84 schedule if the Screen Actors Guild doesn't cripple the industry with a strike on July 1.

The survey shows video games turning into series with "Automan" and "Herndon and Me" at ABC and "Whiz Kids" at CBS. "Whiz Kids" and "Herndon" involve computer-genius kids while "Automan" is a video game hero who actually comes to life to battle crime. Burrell said the new season will be offered a whole cross-section on family life, no less than five of which will be about widowers trying to cope with kids, and two Again" at CBS and "Jennifer Slept Here" at NBC will complicate the issue with ghosts. Shows with a "Ninja" theme, sort of an Oriental mix of the occult and martial arts, are under consideration at ABC and NBC, and all three networks will overflow with private eyes ranging from the super macho to the super klutzy. Notable ancestors may be celebrated with "Zorro and Son" at CBS and "'The Rousters," starring Wyatt Earp III, at NBC.

Media shows may range from the already premiered "Goodnight Beantown" to "'The National Snoop" an NBC "Laff-in" style parody of scandal-mongering tabloids. Burrell said the networks will woo viewers next season with a clutch of stars from the big screen, including Bette Davis, Madeline Kahn, Ann Jillian, Cybill Shepherd, Buddy Hackett, George Hamilton and Dennis Weaver. CBS already has given its blessing to a series called "The Four Seasons" based on the Alan Alda movie and "After in which Jamie Farr will take his "M-A-S-H" character, Klinger, into a new incarnation. Smarting, perhaps, under last week's ratings (Please see Networks, page 2) Gaining entry to the U.S. Naval Academy was, for Brian Gahn, a dream that faded and then came true anyway.

The Mamou youth, whose father was a 14-year U.S. Air Force veteran, dreamed of enrolling in one of the nation's service academies, but lost interest in the idea when he graduated from Mamou High School in 1977. But in just a few weeks, Gahn will be commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy after having completed four years of rigorous academic and military training in Annapolis at the Naval Academy. He'll get to throw his midshipman's cap high into the air at graduation ceremonies, just as classes have done for years, and then head off to Pensacola, Fla, for training as a naval air corps pilot.

But between then and high school graduation were six years of worry, elation and hard work. "With my father being a career officer, I was interested in the service academies. But I put them out of my mind when I left high school. "I enrolled at U.S.L. for a couple of years," he said, but noting he entered mechanical engineering, a field of heavy academic study at the Naval academy.

He sought and received a nomination to the academy from Congressman Gillis Long, hoping the academy "would just get a good look" at him, and gained acceptance with the fall class of 1979. "I was elated," Gahn said, and so were his parents, Dennis and Jeane Gahn and his 6 brothers and sisters. For a Mamou native, the first view of the picturesque and history-laden academy at Annapolis was a moment to remember. "As we were approaching the academy, I just thought it was a beautiful place. At the same time, I also wondered what I would feel like a few weeks later," he recalls.

Gahn tackled the tough academy academic program head-on, earning a double major in mathematics and mechanical engineering. He said the plebe, or first year, is the academy's toughest. "If you can finish your first year, you can make it through the last three years. That's because they put a lot of pressure on you, and try to see if you'll break down," he said. But the pressure of succeeding in one of the nation's premier schools also brings out the best in academy students, Gahn said.

"You're trying to compete with people who are as good or better than you are. But you also end up becoming close with them too," he said. Traditional pranks, too, also help lighten the load of tough academy life, Gahn said. "We pulled the old trick of stretching celophane over a glass on one plebe. We all watched as he lifted it and turned it over and spilled milk all over himself," Gahn said.

Adventure also enters into a midshipman's life, too, Gahn said. One summer found him on a B.T.SAHN Submitted Photo ACADEMY PRESSURE BRINGS OUT BEST Brian Gahn of Mamou to graduate at Annapolis "If you can finish your first year, you can make it through the last three years. That's because they put a lot of pressure on you, and try to see if you'll break down," he said. But the pressure in succeeding in one of the nation's premier schools also brings out the best in academy students, Gahn said. sailing cruise in the Atlantic, and another saw him take submarine training.

"It represents a commitment. You're looking at six years of your life when you leave here," he said, adding that he's not sure if he'll make the navy a career. "If I like it, I'll stay, and if I don't, I'll get out. But I feel great about it right now. "I think everybody respects you as an officer, and I know there are plenty of people who'd like to fly," he said..