The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 41

The Sacramento Bee Final Saturday January 30 1988 B9 Real-life tragedies seem to haunt A warm return to the BROADCASTING By George Williams Lennon revival: A landmark radio series Lost Lennon produced through an exclusive arrangement with the estate of ohn Lennon is being carried in Sacramento on KY-LO-FM 1 055) at 8 pm Sundays This Sunday KYLO will carry the second one-hour program in the series which is scheduled to run at least through the rest of this year The first program was aired last Sunday The series is hosted by former disc jockey Elliot Mintz a longtime confidante of John Lennon and Yoko Ono A 1 2-year-old views The Wonder By Andee Beck Mcl'latchy News Service castle roared out of control In the 1960s a touring company in Cape Town South Africa was unloading scenery from a crane when a passer-by inquired what the show was As soon as a stagehand replied a spear fell from the packing and ran the stranger through The trouble may be traced to the scenes in the play Apparently says the English actor Richard Huggett author of a book on the subject Shakespeare gave his actors a genuine curse to say It took effect immediately Huggett writes in Curse of At the first performance in 1606 before King James I the boy who was to play Lady Macbeth came down with a fever and the author himself had to take the part at the last minute And attempt to please the king who was both a Scot and a published expert on witchcraft sorely misfired The play was immediately banned for five years Page recovering: Radio newsman Larry Page who suffered a major heart attack earlier' this month is much improved and recovering at his home said KRAK news director Pat Davis -Davis said Page 53 is recovering so well that no bypass surgery is planned I WAS WALKING along Freeport Boulevard last Saturday listening to my Aiwa portable tuned to the weekly broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera on KXPR (FM-91) I was determined to hear the live presentation of Giuseppe to the end What happened next eventually prompted the switchboard to be buried by an avalanche of phone calls At the intermission before the final act the Met's announcer Peter Allen and his guests were talking opera trivia: Were there any heroes in the history of opera who were not tenors? And so on I found myself getting edgy as the talk went on and on Obviously they were stretching The final act to was delayed they said There were some vague references to an but no details Finally Allen announced that the rest of had been canceled But he was unable to explain why except for the hazy Later Saturday the news came out As the crowd waited for the final act to begin a singing coach 82-year-old Bantcho Bantchevsky apparently jumped to his death from the top balcony of the Metropolitan Opera House onto the main floor 80 feet below The medical examiner later ruled the death a suicide The seats in the area where Bantchevsky fell were empty and no other injuries were reported among the 4000 people attending the performance in New York City Had the curse struck again? Theater tradition has it that in any form be it Verdi's opera one of the nine film versions or the stage play as Shakespeare wrote it is cursed Fred Savage stars as Kevin Arnold in sitcom Wonder which debuts Sunday after the Super Bowl Super Bowl captions: For the fourth consecutive year the National Captioning Institute will caption the television broadcast of the Super Bowl game (3 pm Sunday on Channel 13) for hearing-impaired viewers In addition the institute will caption the pregame show (1 pm) and the post-game analysis For more information about the captioning service call the toll-free number (800) 533-WORD Here conies the count: The Count Basie Band will perform in Sacramento Feb 12 sponsored by radio station KKSA-AM (1030) The Basie band is conducted by Frank Foster and features vocalist Carmen Bradford The concert is scheduled to begin at 8 pm Tickets -at $750 are available at BASS outlets THE OPENING credits roll The Byrds sing everything turn turn turn" We see footage from Vietnam Riots Black power Space walks The suburbs It is the first episode of a new ABC series Wonder Years" a half-hour show getting its sneak preview at 7 30 Sunday on Channel 13 after the Super Bowl I keep thinking: Oh yeah this reminds me of of that Rob Reiner movie that came out a couple years ago about the boys growing up in an all-American setting Richard Drey-fuss was the writer looking back and narrating and what was it called? What was it called1 no use trying to remember now 1 am swept up in Wonder and its flashback to liHiH Kevin Arnold our fictional narrator was 12 then He is the youngest in a household that was like every other suburban household in the The teenage sister is going on the pill Kevin big brother Wayne is a thick-bellied bully Kevin's best friend Paul is allergic to everything Wayne used to say Paul was even allergic to his own snot ayne was really a funny guv Kevin on the other hand is sharp and appealing But he's nervous He is one day away from his junior high si hool years Nerdy Paul nervously asks Kevin what he's going to wear on his first dav at Robert Kennedy Junior High hav no idea" Kevin remarks with a roll of his eyes but the adult Kevin vonfides in his audience I had been planning ms wardrobe for about six weeks And I keep thinking what is the name of that movie1 But I can't think of the name of the movie or practically anything else because the half hour show is moving moving I am laughing I am feeling hat it felt like to be a youth in lhfiS to watch the network news footage of THE METROPOLITAN has been plagued ever since the current production was unveiled in 1982 It was created by the English director Sir Peter Hall who had come down with a terrible case of shingles the last time tried to stage the play Apparently unimpressed by the curse he had allowed the Met to talk him into directing operatic version even though he considered the opera intermittently Sir approach which included a nude dancer and a Lady Macbeth who rolled about in apparent sexual ecstasy as she sang of the hopes for her husband was not a hit Most of his ideas as well as his name were removed for this revival But it was plagued later by a dominolike succession of cancellations from baritone Renato Burson who was to play Macbeth soprano Eva Marion who was to sing the Lady and Giuseppe Sinopo-li who was to conduct These theatrical disasters were overshadowed at the recent matinee by Bantchevsky's fall broadcast from the Met one hour earlier than usual at 10 am will feature Frederica von Stade as Melisande and Anthony Rolfe Johnson in his Met debut as Pelleas in Claude only completed opera et James Levine will conduct the Vietnam War out of the corner of my eye while my much realer life was presenting more pressing problems of blackheads and boyfriends The adult Kevin Arnold has an eye for the images that grabbed him by the gut in those turbulent pubescent pink fishnet stockings and go-go boots The 19-year-old neighbor whose really terrific Ca-mino didn't run but the guy was always out there working on it sweating over it because he was cool Yes yes it is then at the end that the title of the oh-so-similar movie comes to me It was By Wonder Years" has that very wispy wonderful essence of nostalgia for a profound period in American life You have to have been a boy to appreciate Wonder Years" although it is told from a perspective You don't have to have come of age the suburbs or have seen By Me" either You just have to have grown up onder really is that good The worst of it? You won't likely see the next episode until sometime in March ABC has no place on its schedule not with 1 00 hours of the Olympics about to take over prime time starting Feb 13 But don't let that stop you from tuning in this Sunday's premature premiere Productions of are accident-prone Scenery falls Macbeths and Macduffs cut each other in the duels Lady Macbeths sleepwalk off the stage Death accidents fear and bad notices seem to stalk even the most humble touring companies when they do According to a story from Reuters Lillian Baylis the beloved director of the Old Vic London died of a heart attack during rehearsal for a 1 937 there That was the same show in which Laurence Olivier playing Macbeth was nearly killed by a falling weight When John Gielgud took on the play in 1942 his King Duncan and two of his witches died one right on stage A Bermuda performance in the 1950s nearly roasted its audience when the flames around Honors to KXOA: The news team of KXOA-FM (K108) and KXOA-AM (1470) has been honored with three broadcast journalism awards from the Northern California Radio-TV News Directors Association They include: Best news writing Ken Hunt Pete Dufour and Pat Reising Best news reporting Hunt for a feature on the students of a Foothill High School science class who are learning to splice genes Best use of sound Hunt for a report on high-tech whistler Milton Briggs who uses a synthesizer to create a new form of music The awards will be presented at the association convention in Concord tonight The news staff of K108-FM and KXOA-AM has won 80 journalism honors since 1982 Bee wire services contributed to this column (Advertisement) TV HIGHLIGHTS 8:00 PM (B DOLLY with Glen Campbell Adv Study says TV depicts sex without education lizabeth Mehren os Angeles limes 361-2051 'JMTASJ 485-1931 America said obviously see no need to balance their overly romanticized and unrealistic portrayals of sex with messages about responsibility Top Quality Escorted Tours Since 1979 Harrahs PS TRIPS KINO Mwa Wd TAHOE Ooiiytic Sol 14 Troi Owb I I Member i Ovfc I Mewbrxl'3 50 50 Stf'wt I 4 Cotft S3 Feed Non tmMiAf Men ft fcwv i) Kml imAMf Mn HIH ntf (Mnfiunfnlg KA4 CUSTOM 1" ALUMINUM MINI BLINDS OUR 1988 TOUR CALENDAR "GOOD TIMES TO IS NOW AVAILABLE Jo get your FBU copy coll today! LILY TOMLIN star fMf fo SIGNS Of NTf iGf-NT lift uNiVf Curran Theatre SP Sal Feb 20 $56 NFW YORK American television viewers are bombarded with an average of 27 scent's per hour on both dav time and prime-time programming deputing discussing or suggesting sexual be-hav mr according to a study released Tuesday by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc The study conducted for Planned Parenthood by Louis Harris and As--ornates claimed that the three major television networks will broadcast 65 out) references to sexual behavior during prime-time and daytime entertainment programs in the 1987-89 season Based on the average number of hours Americans watch television the study projected the typical viewer will observe 1 1000 references to sex this season But the barrage of sexual mes-viges is accompanied by no" references to sex education sexually transmitted diseases birth control or abortion to "counterbalance the sexual content in TV programming" Louis Harris and Associates President Humphrey Taylor said Of the projected 14000 instances of sexual messages seen by typical viewers about 165" are balanced by such information the study said "Clearly the American television networks are doing us their viewers a tremendous disservice" Faye Wattleton president of Planned Parenthood F'ederation of 75 18! OFF NBC AND ABC immediately took issue with the report Rick Gitter NBC's vice president for broadcast standards East Coast called the Planned Parenthood finding of no public-service announcements on contraceptives or birth control untrue" He said his network ran a Planned Parenthood spot Ujust last week" on Cosby Show" and received unusually large number of complaints from viewers who considered it inappropriate" Gitter added don't understand how they support any causal link between television depictions and actual behavior" He said his network "attempts to infuse in all its sexual references At ABC Alfred Schneider vice president for policy and standards responded to the Planned Parent hood study by saying "We always show the consequences of the ac tions of teenagers on television Great care is taken in this area es pecially as AIDS has become a seri ous concern" While stressing that Planned Parenthood was calling for and balance not Wattleton said that believe that primetime and daytime television often promotes the attitude that sex has no consequences" 7 DAY MEXICO CRUISE (VtxKttng feb I or Tropic of iwluvj from i A ou de 8v5 dhi ou pluv DEATH VALLEY TOURS We make each blind to your exact measurements This chart will help you find the price of your blinds regardless of color Because we own the factory we are able to build a blind with a lifetime guarantee and deliver it to you less expensively and more quickly than you think possible $Dayt-Mor 1670 6 0oys Mar 73-78 Swh i Ctolr guided tu at 6 volley Mona Lake CoNa Ghoti Town tame moot Ooy pp dbl SS2S vngia Day SSOS dbi Sb30 We offer you: THE BEST OF FLORIDA 8 Days March 10-17 1 3 DAY Kennedy Spot Cental St Agotine 3 night Oov'ano ItocK 3 doyx i (KOI plvi Cypiat mwth met J1J4S db $1545 tingle o4oie A 7 meal Fastest Delivery Lowest Prices Lifetime Guarantee rAlso available: FASHIONS FOR DAYTIME PLAYTIME AND AFTER 5 FINAL CLEARANCE FOR FALL 78" 82" $4495 90" 82" $6495 102" 82" $8495 Vertical Special Flat Vinyl in Ivory Custom Vertical Blinds at 50-80 Off in 3 Days Custom Pleated Shades at 60 Off in 3 Days Custom Wood Mini Blinds at 75 Off in 3 Days Ready-To-Go Vinyl Mini Blinds In Stock Grass String Cloth in 3 Days Special Order Wallpaper at 40 Off Coordinating Fabrics at 25 Off Suggested Retail Price 3 DAY BUNDS 10 OFF Hours at all stores: Tues-Sat 10 AM to 6 PM We are closed Sun and Mon Order Tues Pick-up Fri all non-sale items with this coupon onlyl Good through Feb 29 1 988 DELIVERY Order Wed Pick-up Sat Order Thurs Pick-up Tues Order Fri Pick-up Wed Order Sat Pick-up Thurs Prices reflect factory direct discount WE ARE- YOU CAN FIND US AT: SAVE 40 to 75 CD CO 3 DJXtf SACRAMENT0 STOCKTON ROSEVILLE Dolau'e rAn(av 4fOrt A Raley's Center 4569 Mack Rd RANCHO CORDOVA 10923 Olson Dr' (209)952-8801 (916)786-7311 (916)638-8001 5arvM (916)429-6095 ON DRESSES ENSEMBLES SWEATERS ACTIVEWEAR ($25 RACK!) 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