The Daily Times from Salisbury, Maryland • 39

TELEVISION At 50, 'Today' takes a nostalgic look back Burning snoozing through 'First' By Bridget Byrne For Tin AuocUrtnl Prm By Frazier Moore AP TaUvWoa Writer Charles Durning ANGELES appears to be asleep. His character, Supreme Court Justice Henry Hoskins, is seated on the bench, his 1" Humpty Dumpty figure 1 slumped, his face rest- i i -1- i ii i ing in nis cuppea nana. "He may pretend like he's asleep, but he's using it as a device to cut out a lot of stuff except what he really needs to listen to," says Durning, explaining his 'Charles Durning Jane Pauley and "Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw, who confessed to having once overslept during his "Today" tenure. "No one seemed to notice," he said. "They started the show without me." In an unprecedented flash of detente between "Today" and its 2-year-old morning rival on CBS, a simulcast found current "Early Show" host Bryant Gumbel dropping by his "Today" alma mater.

He ended his 15-year "Today" run in 1997. "Today" was a brainchild of Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, now 93, who was represented on the show Monday by his actress daughter Sigourney Weaver. 'Today' was a big gamble" in its first years, she told Lauer. "I think they called it Weaver's Folly for quite a while." In more ways than one, it was a groundbreaking program when it premiered on Jan. 14, 1952.

In a film clip from that first day, original anchor Dave Gar-roway addressed its most basic breakthrough when he welcomed an audience perhaps caught off-guard by the very sight of him: "You've just arisen and find your TV sets working instead of a test pattern," he noted. Before "Today," the network programmed nothing at the breakfast hour. NEW YORK On its Golden Anniversary broadcast, NBC's "Today" reprised moments grand and goofy from its past 50 years. And at least one live segment Monday morning will likely become part of any future retrospective: Katie Couric and the baby chimp. A contemporary stand-in for J.

Fred Muggs (the popular "Today" chimpanzee in the 1950s), baby Jonah was very huggy with the "Today" host. Trouble is, his own Huggies had failed him, as alert viewers could see from his britches. "He's a little overexcited," laughed Couric, managing to return Jonah's embrace while holding him a safe distance from her lavender suit. As much as the planned events on the broadcast, this encounter summed up grace under the pressure of delivering the world even in the form of a sopping-wet monkey each morning on live TV. Along with the current team of Couric, Matt Lauer, Al Roker and Ann Curry, Monday's edition of "Today" roughly its also brought back alumni including Hugh Downs, Barbara Walters, Jim Hartz, AP Photo Actors Charles Durning, from left, James Garner and James Karen star in the new CBS drama "First Monday." Durning plays a snoozing supreme court justice.

1 Allil-tkl 3L www.cbs.comprimetimefirst monday character's sometimes snoozing demeanor. James Garner plays Chief Justice Thomas Brankin. Joe Mantegna is the court's most recent appointee, Justice Joe Novelli, on the new CBS drama, "First Monday," which airs Friday nights (9 to 10 p.m.). Novelli, the series' central character, has a pivotal role in an evenly split court of four conservatives and four liberals. Brankin is 'a staunch conservative, and Hoskins is one of Brankin's closest allies.

Helping the justices are a group of young law clerks played by Randy Vasquez (Miguel), Hedy Burress (ElUe) and Christopher Wiehl (Jerry). The courtroom and its surrounding corridors and offices have been built on sound stages at Sunset'Gower Studios in the heart of Hollywood. The scale is impressive. The floors and pillars look like marble but they're just plaster. "We have to dub in the click of footsteps afterward," explains executive producer Don Bellisario, whose military-court drama "JAG" also airs on CBS.

The veteran producer says it only took seconds" to sell the concept of this new series to CBS President Leslie Moonves. He ticks off the compelling ingredients: well-known older actors for the justices; attractive, younger actors for the "passionate young and "ripped-out-of-the-head-lines" plots. i "I wanted to play Toto and pull the curtain aside to reveal the nine wizards behind it," said Bellisario, who believes the timing is right for the series about the inner workings of ultimate American justice. Last September's terrorist attacks have "sobered the public up," Durning says. want to know what goes on, as we all do," so he hopes the series may prove to be a hit of an "eye-opener." "Court Date" is the episode being shot on this day.

It focuses on a young athlete's right to skip high school to play in the big leagues. 1 ti A His early jobs included ushering at a burlesque show, then quick-changing backstage to take to the boards as an all-singing, all-dancing comedy star. He's been nominated for two best-supporting actor Oscars, one for his role as the prancing politician in 1982's "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," and the other for playing a Nazi in 1983's "To Be or Not to Be," also starring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. He won a Tony for his Tole as Big Daddy in the 1989 Broadway revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." His role as the blustery small-town doctor Harlan Elldridge on the hit ensemble sitcom "Evening Shade" with Burt Reynolds, which ran from 1990-94, brought him two supporting-actor Emmy nominations. Durning, who turns 79 on Feb.

28, knows well how to channel his energies, which probably explains his clever sleeping-old-dog take on the Hoskins character. The cameras eventually find their marks. Garner's Chief Justice Brankin asks the basketball player's lawyer, "Are you saying this case is a slam-dunk?" She insists it is, stressing that all the young man wants is to use "his talent to support his family." Justice Hoskins' eyes open with penetrating acuity. "But counselor, where's it written in the Constitution that Mr. Greene has the 'right to work?" Durning utters his lines with perfect timing, clearly never asleep on the job.

4 PL is The young clerks chatter as they go walk down the corridor, entering the court to hear the case being argued. The nine justices, dressed in their black robes, peer down from their eminence, interjecting questions and comment. Durning says the view from the elevation of the justices' bench is "like looking down on people," but senses that "actually it seems a very humanistic and humbling experience, because as a judge, no matter your personal feelings, there must often be some conflict because the law is the law." 'The actors have plenty of time to joke with each other as they wait for the complicated camera moves to find their mark. Bellisario says a "little bit naughty limerick" element has been added to Durning's character, who tends to be very politically incorrect around ladies. (That won't stop him from hitting it off in a future episode with a blind date, played by guest star Debbie Reynolds.) On Mantegna's recommendation, Bellisario immediately bought the idea of casting Durning as Hoskins because "Charles brings a chuckle to everything.

And a world of experience." Durning describes himself as a "Depression baby" who left home in his mid-teens. IM 1 AP Photo Former NBC "Today" hosts Jane Pauley, from left, and Bryant Gumbel make an appearance with current hosts Katie Couric and Matt Lauer during a three-hour retrospective observing the show's 50th anniver- I sary Monday in New York. i i mm loniGHT Programs ufcal bub UPN uncertainly New 'Blue's guy NEW YORK MTV Networks, the umbrella for MTV. VH1, Nickelodeon and other Viacom cable networks, unveiled new programs and a new human companion for the animated star of "Blue's Clues." Donovan Patton, a young theater actor, will play Joe, the younger brother of Steve (Steve Burns), on "Blue's Clues," which runs in Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. preschool block.

In a three-part transition starting April 22, Joe will join the show before Steve leaves to go to college. Ozzy Osbourne will play himself "fatherrock star bat-eater" in "The Osbournes," which MTV is calling the first "situation-reality" series. His wife and two of his teen-age children join him in the real-life drama, which premieres March 5. On VH1, a series looking at 'fame from the rock star's perspective tops spring's lineup of new shows. Another March premiere is "Ultimate Albums," a weekly series focusing on watershed albums such as TLC's "CrazySexyCool" and "Led Zeppelin IV." The 1980s battle over offensive lyric.s gets a comic take in "P.M.R.C.", a VH1 movie starring Jason Priestley, Mariel Hemingway and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister on April 17.

On Feb. 12 at 10 p.m. "VH1 News Special: Inside Hate Rock" examines music that advocates white supremacy and violence. BillKeveney USA Today PASADENA, Calif. These days, the first initial in UPN might as well stand for uncertainty.

CBS president Leslie Moonves, named last month to oversee the sister Viacom network, said Monday that UPN is in "a time of transition," but that it is too early to discuss possible changes to its "Pf ograms or personnel. "Enterprise" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" have helped boost ratings this season for UPN, which has failed to attain profitability or a consistent identity during seven years of existence. A varied lineup of African-American comedies, wrestling and those dramas niakes it difficult to cross-jpromote shows on UPN. Profitability and synergy with CBS are goals, Moonves said. In an example of the latter, he suggested the possibility of UPN joining CBS in 'broadcasting NCAA basketball tournament games in the future.

However, he said UPN wouldn't become "CBS II." Uncertainty also extends to UPN's new midseason series, which did not have pilots or launch dates available, as most shows do. New shows include "As If," an Americanized version of a British dramedy that looks at the emotional lives of six young, urban adults; "The Random Years," a comedy about three young men in New York Gity; and "Under One Roof," an unscripted series following a cross-section of American families who go to Ftfi to compete for a luxurious beachfront home. Sunday, Jan. 20 "RootV9p.ni., Hallmark Channel. Twenty-five years ago this sprawling epic changed television.

It Introduced great actors, including a remarkable teen-ager, LeVar Burton. It propelled the idea of a miniseries as the ultimate form of storytelling. And it reminded us that the most important thing for any film is a passionate story. Author Alex Haley traced his own roots back to the African lad who was snatched by slave traders. In rediscovering his ancestors, he put human faces on a powerful and shameful stretch of American history.

Beginning tonight, the entire saga reruns at 9 p.m. each night through Jan. 25. "Alias," 9 p.m., ABC On an ordinary week, this show is worth catching. It has style, wit and audacity; it takes an outrageous concept a skinny grad student (Jennifer Garner) who doubles as an international super spy and makes it work.

"101 Dalmations" (1996), 7- 9 p.m., ABC. The classic cartoon was transformed into this live-action comedy with Glenn Close starring as Cruella de Vil, the nasty puppy-snatcher. "Golden Globe Awards," 8- 11 p.m, NBC The best thing about this ceremony is its glitz and glamour and it slowly has become the precursor to the Academy Awards. Tonight we get lots of movie and TV nominees. The films are split into dramas of the Rings," "A Beautiful Mind." "Mulholland Drive," "In the Bedroom," and "The Man Who Wasn't and comedies or musicals "Bridget Jones's Diary," "Moulin Rouge," "Legally Blonde," and "Gosford "The Practice," 10 ABC This rerun has Jimmy, faced with heavy gambling losses, representing his bookie in a civil case.

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musician Ian Hilt (Judas.