South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • 63

ADVICE DEALING WITH ADAPTATION The Orchid Thief Author sorts out fact and fiction. PAGE 3 es Television movie Times Wnr-V Trr'nV South Florida sun-Sentinel Wednesday December 18, 2002 section r'-m'm "Hk: K' 00 yA -LSI ppy 1 1 0 rn eaoyi Tovahlp. hnao-ahlf hoar's: hppn with for 1 00 vrars i I Was there ever a friend so precious? BYMARGOHARAKAS STAFF WRITER 1 7 Here's one you may not know: What do you call a teddy bear collector? Answer: arctophile. How about this: What is a group or collection of teddy bears called? Answer Hug. Is that too utterly sublime? The noun is the verb and the reason for being.

For were hugs not needed in this sometimes harsh world, those soft, cuddly old bears probably would not claim so much affection. On this 100th anniversary of teddy, we are reminded ti of how precious teddy is to so many. Some of us have teddys who have grown old with us. Ragged and worn, he keeps alive memories of loves past, of children now grown, of lost security, perhaps, and a time that seemed far simpler. The attachment begins for most, says psychotherapist Shelley Yedvarb, of Plantation, at the beginning stages of our development when we receive as infants or children a cuddlesome stuffed toy.

"It's a comfort object. I've observed after open heart surgery some hospitals give patients teddy bears to help nurture them and to help them to recover." That many older people still have their teddy bears doesn't surprise her. "People get attached to objects, especially objects that are soothing. It reminds them of different parts of their lives. It sustains them." i inn ninint GOOD BUDDY: Francisco Chapman keeps teddy close while listening to his teacher at Somerset Academy No one appreciates the appeal of teddy more than George Black, who runs the Teddy Bear Museum of during a "bear day" the school Naples, which boasts more than 5,000 stuffed bears, celebrated.

Staff photoUrsula E. Seemann Every year, 30,000 folks, "from 2 to 92," visit the museum, says Black. Black sees teddy's popularity rooted in ancient folklore. European, Chinese and Native American myth READERS SHARE THEIR BEAR STORIES. 8E and legend all have bear motifs, he notes.

The appeal is primeval. We asked readers to share their teddy bear stories. Judging by the heartfelt response, teddy seems destined for another 100 years of popularity. The century-long evolution of the teddy bear. BYMARGOHARAKAS STAFF WRITER It was Teddy and a hunting trip and a little black bear that started it all.

Or maybe it was the cartoon of President Teddy Roosevelt refusing to shoot the bear tethered by the hunting party to a tree. Unsportsmanlike, declared the prez, with an obvious look of disgust. The year was 1902. The cartoon by Clifford Ber- ryman appeared in The Washington Post. And shortly thereafter, the Teddy bear, or rather Teddy's bear, was born.

Morris Michtom, a New York shopkeeper, saw the possibilities and promptly propped two tiny toy bears, created by his wife, Rose, in his shop window. He called the stuffed bears Teddy's bears. Like most historic retellings, this one has some variations, including whether the bear that T.R. encountered was young or old, brown or black, tied or trapped, and who really named it. Not generally included in the legend is the fact Roosevelt actually ordered his hunting guide to dispatch the poor beast with a knife.

Seeing the bear 1 i-r! I JlK 7 surrounded by yelping dogs, unconscious and tied to a tree, the president thought it best to put it out of CUDDLY: Tweed Roosevelt, great-its misery. grandson of President Teddy While all this was happening stateside, over in Roosevelt, holds a reproduction of thu- Germany, toymaker Steiff was manufacturing its first teddy bear, left, and an original own toy bear, this one with movable limbs and head teddy made in 1 904. AP photo and made of mohair. Whether Michtom or Steiff was first to produce a stuffed toy bear remains a matter of debate. Regardless, 100 years later, adults and children alike still rind comtort in the cuddly teddy bear.

Here are some highlights in bear history: 1 902 Morris Michtom and Steiff independently produce stuffed bears. 1 903 Michtom establishes the Ideal Novelty Toy Co. HISTORY CONTINUES ON 8E Staff photo illustration Dina Cappillo Niblock; file photos Second String should never get off the bench GROUCH: Jon Voight plays a curmudgeonly football coach in Second String. TNT photo i ON TV "i i i mrf1 knack for closing the deal. Voight mumbles through his role as Chuck Dichter, a control freak coach who seems to be suffering from the football equivalent of punch drunkenness.

He also has a bad history with Heller. Dichter, in fact, ran Heller out of the NFL for not blindly following the coach's game plan. Their paths intersect again as Coach Dichter's Buffalo Bills TNT was able to get the NFL's permission to use real team names and game footage are FOOTBALL CONTINUES ON 4E need to have a conversation with their agents. Their credentials should have put them far out of range of a derivative, witless project like this. Bellows, whose postmortem resuscitation as a ghost was one of several jumping-the-shark moments on Ally McBeal, plays Dan Heller, a one-time hotshot college quarterback who thinks he never got a fair shot in the pros.

Relegated to the NFL's scrap heap, he's selling insurance but not very much of it. His name and wisecracking persona get him in the door, but he has no bytomjicha TVRADIO WRITER Second String is in the spirit of The Bad News Bears, The Mighty Ducks and Rocfey that is, the spirit of The Bad New Bears Go to Japan, MD3: The Mighty Ducks and Rocfey the charmless later-generation sequels produced for commercial rather than artistic reasons. This might be giving too much credit to Second String, which is every Grade hopeless-underdog-rises-to-improbable-triumph fable you've ever seen. The TNT movie is neither artistic Program: Second String Stars: Jon Voight, Gil Bellows, Teri Polo Airs: 8 and 1 0 tonight on TNT (encores 8 and 1 0 p.m. Friday; 1 0:30 a.m.

Dec. 21; 9 am Dec. 22) nor even commercial, which is why it is being buried on a week-night TNT movies almost always premiere on Sunday during the holiday doldrums. Unless the money was too good to resist, Jon Voight, Gil Bellows and Teri Polo really I SHERRI WINSTON'S COLUMN WILL RESUME ON DEC. 25..