TELEVISION
KCET Changes: KCET-TV Channel 28 is revising its schedule in November, with changes including the discontinuation of Sunday afternoon repeats of "Masterpiece Theatre." Instead, the 2 p.m. slot will be filled with repeats of the channel's "biggest shows," ranging from movies like "Truman" and Ken Burns productions to blockbuster music specials. The space could also be used, a KCET spokesman said, for "thematic" programming, such as a celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. In other changes, KCET is expanding its weekday children's afternoon block that starts at 3 by an hour, to 5:30 p.m., starting Nov. 3. Repeats of "Arthur" will kick off the new schedule, followed by "Wishbone," "Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?," "Kratts' Creatures" and "Bill Nye the Science Guy." The extra kids' hour, which replaces the 3-4 p.m. broadcast of "The Newshour With Jim Lehrer," will bring KCET's total dose of children's programming to 10 1/2 hours per day. "Newshour," meanwhile, will continue to air at 6:30 p.m. . . . Elsewhere on PBS, actor Dom DeLuise has joined the cast of the forthcoming Shari Lewis series, "The Charlie Horse Music Pizza," which premieres on KCET and other PBS stations Jan. 5.
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Portraying Sexuality: Fox's animated hit "King of the Hill" was named best comedy series, while two ABC programs, "NYPD Blue" and "The Practice," shared the drama series honors at the 13th annual Nancy Susan Reynolds Awards Thursday at the Pacific Design Center. Other winners of the awards, which are given by Advocates for Youth and honor "outstanding portrayals of sexuality in the media," included the ABC "Afterschool Special" "Too Soon for Jeff," ABC's daytime drama "One Life to Live," the HBO movie "If These Walls Could Talk," PBS' "Sex and Other Matters of Life and Death" and the syndicated "Montel Williams Show." NBC's "ER," meanwhile, won the special writers' award for "consistent excellence."
MOVIES
No Ticket? Big Problem!: A Marina del Rey man arrested in March for allegedly crashing the Oscars has sued the motion picture academy, a security company and the LAPD for false arrest. Stand-up comedian Scott Kerman, who wrote "No Ticket? No Problem!," a how-to book about getting into entertainment events without tickets, claims in his L.A. Superior Court lawsuit that he was at the awards legitimately and had been issued a press pass by the academy because he was working for a magazine distributed on college campuses. But he claims that when he arrived, a security guard asked him how his book sales were going, and he was immediately arrested by undercover police and security guards. "This was a conspiracy," said Kerman attorney Susan Sullivan. "[The academy was] vindictive and just trying to get back at him for writing that book." Although the academy had not yet been served with the suit, a spokesman said Friday that Kerman's media pass allowed him access only to the outdoor arrivals line, and that "obviously, we feel that we were arresting a trespasser."
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Making the Choice: Actor Robert Downey Jr., who may be headed to prison after another alleged failure at drug treatment, says in the November Playboy that quitting drugs isn't hard, but staying clean afterward is. In an interview conducted shortly before prosecutors announced last week that they had alleged evidence that Downey had violated his probation by again using drugs and alcohol, Downey told Playboy that dozens of fellow Hollywood celebrities have tried to get him to quit drugs. Assessing the stages of his addiction, Downey said: "When I first got turned on to hard drugs as a teenager, I could snort coke and drink all night and still function. As soon as I started smoking heroin instead of smoking coke, everything was different, and I knew it was. . . . I don't discount the fact that addiction or alcoholism is a disease. But I still feel that, at every turn, I was choosing to keep going with it."
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More AFI Plans: The AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival, which opened Thursday night with a record crowd of more than 1,400 at Mann's Chinese Theatre, has announced that next Thursday's closing film at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be "Afterglow," starring Nick Nolte and Julie Christie. Also on closing night the festival will hold its first awards ceremony, with juried prizes for categories including best actor, actress, new director and new writer. In addition, the festival will pay tribute to double Oscar winner Jessica Lange on Monday night at Santa Monica's Laemmle Theaters.
QUICK TAKES
