The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 48

CALENDAR Cos Amides (Times San Diego County Tuesday, January 28, 1986 Part VI 'HANDS' SONG IN LIMBO AT JACKSON'S URGING ABC'S ARLEDGE TO SHIFT JOBS AND FOCUS ON NEWS producer, news director and station manager at the network's KABC-TV Channel 7 here and general manager of its station in Chicago. ABC said that no decision has been reached on a replacement for Swanson, who heads eight television stations and nine radio stations. Another seven radio stations in his division are expected to be sold by May, 1987. Network sources said that the leading candidates for Swanson's position appear to be Ken Johnson, general manager of KTRK-TV in Houston, and Lawrence Pollock, vice president and general manager of WPVI-TV in Philadelphia. Sias said that the new management "supported" Arledge's decision but wanted him to remain in a position to provide a "creative overview" to the sports operation.

Please see ARLEDGE, Page 2 1 By DAVID CROOK, Times Staff Writer In yet another senior executive change since the merger between Capital Cities Communications Inc. and ABC the company said Monday that Roone Arledge will relinquish day-to-day control over the network's sports division that he has headed for 22 years. Arledge, 54, will keep the title of president of ABC News, however, and retain nominal control over sports with the new title of group president of ABC News and Sports. But, according to the company, Arledge's only day-to-day role in the sports division will be to serve as executive producer of ABC's 1988 Winter Olympics coverage and to provide a "creative overview" to the sports operations. largely because "sports didn't interest" him as much as it used to and "news was taking more and more of his time." "This new structure gives us the benefit of Roone's full attention to the news area," Sias said in a prepared statement Arledge was named president of ABC News in 1977, when he became the only network executive to head both news and sports divisions.

Replacing Arledge as president of ABC Sports is Dennis Swanson, a former sportscaster, who has been president of ABC's broadcast stations division. Before that, he was a anthem for the African famine movement in 1985. At sales of several million internationally, the recording has become the cornerstone and prime source of funding for the USA for Africa Foundation. Thus far, royalties on the song have raised nearly $40 million of USA for Africa's $44-million nest egg. Sources familiar with the closed-door board meeting said that Jackson urged his fellow board members to revert to "We Are the World" as the theme song for the May 25 coast-to-coast handholding event, in part because Jackson believed the song that he co-wrote with Richie was divinely inspired and the true theme song of the international drive to end world hunger.

Kragen had unveiled Marc Blatte and John Chauncey's "Hands Across America" as the 1986 anthem for America's homeless and mmemm uimuiMium ii Mill. By DENNIS McDOUGAL, Times Staff Writer 'Wi Are the World, which celebrates its first birthday today, re mains the official end-hunger anthem of USA for Africa, even though foundation President Ken Kragen went to great lengths to give his organization a new theme song for 1986. Thanks to superstar Michael Jackson, who co-wrote "We Are the World" with Kragen client Lionel Richie, the "Hands Across America" theme song may have been stillborn. Jackson engineered a successful board-room offensive against unveiling the song and a "Hands Across America" music video on Sunday's Super Bowl half-time NBC telecast. His fellow board members learned of Jackson's disdain for the new song during a trustees meeting of the USA for Africa Foundation last Tuesday in Century City, when the 27-year-old reclusive pop star squelched the airing of the "Hands Across America" song and music video.

The song "We Are the World" was broadcast in its place. 't; 'he truth and the party line is that Michael Jackson and, in fact, most of the board were in agreement that 'We Are the World' should be the official song of USA for Africa," Kragen said Monday. Kragen said that the board voted unanimously to make "We Are the World" the official song of USA for Africa at Jackson's behest. Kragen said that the board also agreed that each separate USA for Africa project, such as Hands Across America, could have its own theme song too, but such theme songs could never supersede "We Are the World." "There was a little bit of a flurry last week," Kragen acknowledged. Of his own enthusiasm for the Hands Across America theme song and video, Kragen said, "Well, I got a little bit ahead of myself." Kragen said that a special board meeting from 1 to 5 p.m.

Saturday effectively ended the board's disharmony on "Hands Across America." Jackson did not attend the Saturday meeting. The Lionel RichieMichael Jackson composition became an issaf VSLj With his new position, Arledge becomes the sixth senior ABC official to leave the network or change jobs since the consummation of its merger with Capital Cities on Jan. 3. In addition, the network's entertainment division went through major executive changes six weeks before the merger. Details of Arledge's job shift were worked out late Friday with John B.

Sias, the new president of the ABC division of Capital Cities-ABC and other corporate executives, a company spokesman said. One network source said that the move was Arledge's decision, the thing halfway through the first act. Overmyer's good idea was using three Victorian lady adventurers as his excuse for trekking off from 1888 into "Terra Incognita," a mysterious realm where the three discover, not nearly soon enough, that they are traveling through time, not i space. DIEGO His oversight was COUNTY failing to substantiate the cleverness of it all with some genuine purpose. When the women finally reach 1955, after what seems like hours of tramping around in a circle on Kent Dorsey's dapple -lighted rotating stage, there's nothing left for them to do but chatter on about Cool Whip (which must have been an PHILLIP DA VIES other "transmission," as they call it, from an even more bizarre future).

They break up their journeying threesome so that Fanny (Lynn Wood) and Alexandra (Rebecca Stanley) can stay forever by their jukebox paradise, while Mary (Jo de Winter) sets out for more peculiar discoveries in the ever-expanding future. Have they changed? Have they educated or enlightened us? Illustrated some hidden truth through numerous spotlighted soliloquies and Overmyer's penchant for meaningless alliterations? No. Even more disappointing, the playwright has not treated well the real Victorian adventurers who inspired his play. There's a subtle put-down that carries through the Please see Page 6 STAGE REVIEW 'DRIVING': A LOOK INSIDE CHILD'S LIFE By DAN SULLIVAN, Times Theater Critic Think back to when you were 5. Every day brought a new question.

Why did the moon follow you home from Gram's house? Was Red Skelton a skeleton? Why did Daddy go to work so much? Would you ever learn to tie your own shoes? The inner life of the 5-year-old is too intense, sometimes, for him or her to bear (let alone his parents). But can it be put on the stage? Playwright Patrick Smith and a good cast bring it off at least part of the time in "Driving Around the House" at South Coast Repertory's Second Stage. Smith's play is a series of snippets from his childhood (circa 1963) in Middletown, Ohio, loosely arranged into a chain of meaning. At the end, young Paddy (Joe Dahlman) knows how to tie his shoes, but doesn't understand why his father (Michael Canavan) can't live at home anymore, or why his grandfather (Tom Rosqui) had to die. The questions don't get easier.

The play's chauffeur, if you will, is Grown-up Paddy (Timothy Don-oghue). He does have some answers, and a good many of the scenes are his understanding from 20 years later of what must have been happening between Mother (Jane Atkins) and Dad at the time his drinking, his girlfriends, her final decision that he simply wasn't grown-up enough to be trusted. These scenes are well -reasoned and well -acted and give the play a spine that it probably needs. It might have been more interesting, however, to view them strictly through young Paddy's eyes, as yet one more mystery he has to figure out. The play's most original scenes focus on Paddy and his 4 -year-old Please see' Page 2 Rebecca Stanley plays Alexandra in Eric Overmyer's "On the Verge" at Cassius Carter Centre Stage.

STAGE REVIEW 'ON THE VERGE' JUST THAT AND NO MORE LARRY BRUCE IS LEAVING KGB-FM FOR A JOB IN L.A. By LIANNE STEVENS SAN DIEGO Eric Overmyer has chosen an appropriate name for his pseudo-Victorian time-travel fantasy, "On The Verge, or The Geography of Yearning." This germinating theater piece is a good idea on the verge of becoming a play. Don't be fooled by the full -out production that opened Saturday at the Cassius Carter Center Stage. The work, directed by Old Globe Executive Producer Craig Noel, is still in its yearning stages, bogged down with a boring excess of word-play cleverness. Consequently, the opening night audience was on the verge of falling asleep, or leaving, or simply giving up trying to make sense of Michael Jackson spearheads USA jor Africa's decision.

hungry at a press conference Jan. 16. The song, which Kragen boosted as a sure-fire hit, was to be the centerpiece of a kickoff commercial for Hands Across America, USA for Africa's domestic anti-poverty project. Hands Across America hopes to raise $100 million by soliciting $10 pledges from 6 million to 10 million Americans who would join hands from New York to Los Angeles on May 25. The commercial, with the new Please see JACKSON, Page 5 and of course it's unfortunate to lose him," Baker said.

"We're all going to have to work a little harder now, especially until we find someone to replace him." Also working a little harder in coming months will be rival rock station XTRA-FM (91X), always eager to take advantage of any momentary weaknesses in its competitors. "Certainly, the loss of Bruce is not going to help them," said 91X chief John T. Lynch. "They do have the many years of being the top rock station here in town, so it could be a long time before they start to suffer. But finding a replacement is a very critical move for them, and if they don't choose the right person, they could very easily fall apart.

"And, of course, in the meantime we're going to continue our already-high levels of spending in the way of promotions and advertising and see if they change anything." Still, KGB's Tom Baker maintains he's not too worried. "KGB will weather the storm," he said. "We have probably the best research department in the city, we have the best research consultant in the business, and the plans and the systems that Larry and Ted initiated are not going away. "To find the best talent to replace Larry and Ted, we will go anywhere we have to. Not only is this a very important move for us to make, but these two positions have got to be among the primo jobs in the country." ft I 3 TURN-ONS AND TURN-OFFS IN CURRENT HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES HOWARD ROSENBERG NBC'S SUPER BOWL RUNNETH OVER 'N' OVER 'N' OVER 'N' By THOMAS K.

ARNOLD SAN DIEGO No one rocks San Diego like KGB, and no one rocks KGB-FM (101.5) like Larry Bruce. But it was announced Monday that program director Bruce is leaving the local album-oriented rock AOR) station in mid-February to take over programming chores at KMET-FM (94.7) in Los Angeles. KMET was once one of the top-rated stations in Los Angeles, but for 10 years now its ratings have steadily eroded. "And the reason they hired me is they were looking for someone to turn the situation around," Bruce said. Local radio observers are predicting KGB will have a tough time retaining its dominant position in the local radio market, a position it first attained shortly after Bruce's arrival here in August, 1980.

Indeed, following music director Ted Edwards' departure this month, KGB will soon be without its two most important programming forces. And even KGB general manager Tom Baker admits that the BruceEdwards team was largely responsible for KGB's success. When Bruce took over five years ago, KGB's Arbitron ratings survey gave the station a 5.2 percentage share of available listeners. Since then, Baker said, the station has consistently surpassed that, with rankings as high as 9.6 enough to make KGB one of the top-rated AOR stations in the country. "Larry is one of the premier program directors in the country, gan couldn't hurt Brokaw's credibility.

And a cozy TV interview couldn't hurt the President either. The orchestrated Brokaw hype and appearance by Reagan added to the phony luster of an event that NBC in trying to justify its Sunday overkill repeatedly billed as "an American celebration." Media celebration is more like it. The point is not merely that Sunday's game failed to match its enormous buildup. Of course, the Chicago Bears' unthrilling 46-10 romp over the New England Patriots was a disappointment. Even a 46-45 squeaker played by pygmies would not have made any difference, though.

World War III could not have lived up to the two-week media crescendo for the Bears and Patriots. And on game day, NBC waved the Super Bowl like Old Glory. "Today we unite in an American celebration," NBC's usually sensible Dick Enberg announced Sunday. American celebration? Who says? The Fourth of July is an American celebration. Thanksgiving is an American celebration.

Americans walking on the moon are a national celebration. Getting our hostages back from Iran is an American celebration. USA for Africa is an American celebration. The birthdays of George Washington, Abe Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. are American celebrations.

But the Super Bowl? That's no American celebration. That's a marketing phenom, an incredibly successful sales job on Americans to convince us that there is something symbolically patriotic and special about a game between two professional football Please see SUPER, Page 8 Ml dsr MggSBftmTMiiii (i IWMaMm iExcellent "'Good Fair iPoor VIDEOCASSETTES "Portrait of an Album." MGMUA. $39.95. This 65-minute video chronicles the making of Frank Sinatra's 1984 "L.A. Is My Lady" album, with the title tune downplayed (used only during the closing credits).

Much time is taken up by voice-overs and interludes in which the Bergmans, Quincy Jones, Phil Ramone and others deliver how-great-thou-art homilies to the chairman. Star glitz is added by the presence of Michael Jackson. For the rest, it's sub-vintage but often persuasive Sinatra, with fine Sam Nestico and Frank Foster -LEONARD FEATHER "Anna Russell: "The First Farewell Concert." VAI. $59.95. Filmed before a rather sedate Baltimore audience in 1984, this ornate memento does not preserve the inspired wit and deliciously vicious whimsy of La Russell at her pristine best.

Some of the topical references, like the superdiva's numerous voices, have rusted. The talk drags a bit, the do-it-yourself demonstration now is a strain and the sing-along folk-song session at the end flirts with archery, but Russell's deathless musico-dramatic analysis of Wagner's "Ring" makes one forgive anything. Well, almost anything.i -MARTIN BERNHEIMER "The Mummy." MCA. $39.95. You can't keep a good man down, whether he's Dracula or Boris Karloff as "The Mummy," an ancient Egyptian accidentally raised from the dead to wreak havoc upon a pair of sappy young lovers (Zita Johann, David Manners).

This 1932 foray into horror at its most romantic is pure camp, but it has the visual splendor that its director, the great, innovative cinematographer Karl Freund, brought to numerous German silent classics. Indeed, "The Mummy" might not seem nearly so silly if it were silentvv -KEVIN THOMAS "Canyon Consort." Open Circle. $39.95. Paul Winter, the eclectic saxophonist who once used humpback Please see HOME TECH, Page 3 Electrifying, wasn't it? I don't know about you, but for me, the highlight of NBC's marathon 6V6-hour Super Bowl Sunday was its coast-to-coast yak between The Lipper and The Gipper. They schmoozed football for eight minutes during a two-hour pregame show.

And "NBC Nightly News" anchorman Tom Brokaw actually looked interested when President Reagan recalled the block he missed as an offensive lineman in his long-ago football days at Eureka College. Oh, no, Ronnie, not the football yarns again? Oh, yes. "It was our ball on our own 35-yard line. We were one point behind. There were 20 seconds to play, but we thought the ref said two minutes.

The suspense just built from there. What did any of this have to do with Super Bowl XX? Everything and nothing. Brokaw's "exclusive" White House interview (Reagan never gave Dan Rather or Peter Jennings the poop on "what cleats felt like under your was NBC's way of drawing attention to its anchorman on an afternoon when its audience was expected to be especially super. Co-starring with Rea INSIDE CALENDAR DANCE: Les Ballets Trockadero reviewed by Donna Perlmutter. Page 8.

RADIO: AMFM Highlights. Page 8. THEATER: National City's Lamb's Players announce a play writing contest. Page 6. TV: Tonight on TV and cable.

Page 7. Lee Margulies reviews "Melba" and CBS special "Babies Having Babies." Page 8. Deborah Foreman is heroine of "My Chauffeur." Michael Wilmington review on Page 2. i Super Bowl overkill- announcers, diagrams and even President Reagan..