L Frank Baum

ABC got another strong performance from "Monday Night Football" last week, but it wasn't enough this time to unseat NBC from its position atop the Nielsen prime-time ratings. Figures released Tuesday showed NBC out front with an average 12.4 rating for the week (each point represents 931,000 homes), compared to 11.6 for ABC and 11.4 for CBS. NBC was strongest on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, overcoming a weak Sunday lineup that ran third. NBC was also third on Monday with its movie about L.

A real estate agent in Portland, Ore., has gotten hold of a literary property: The childhood home of children's book author Beverly Cleary. The 1910 bungalow was listed this month at $362,000. Cleary is 96 and in an assisted living facility that celebrates her work -- Ramona is everywhere. Her family moved to Portland from rural Oregon when Cleary was 6. She published her first novel, "Henry Huggins," in 1950. The middle-reader book included a minor character, a bratty little sister named Ramona.

The Wizard of Oz -- Three-Disc Collector's Edition (Warner Home Video, $50) THIS new three-disc set of the beloved 1939 musical fantasy does feature several of the extras that appeared on the special two-disc set released a few years back with documentaries, tributes, home movies, outtakes and deleted sequences. But thankfully this handsomely packaged collector's edition is packed with new goodies, notably a digitally restored version of the movie as well as several early silent "Oz" films.

Ray Bradbury, the writer whose expansive flights of fantasy and vividly rendered space-scapes have provided the world with one of the most enduring speculative blueprints for the future, has died. He was 91. Bradbury died Tuesday night in Los Angeles, his agent Michael Congdon confirmed. His family said in a statement that he had suffered from a long illness. Author of more than 27 novels and story collections - most famously "The Martian Chronicles," "Fahrenheit 451," "Dandelion Wine" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes" - and more than 600 short stories, Bradbury has frequently been credited with elevating the often-maligned reputation of science fiction.

We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz. Only NBC's yellow brick road leads to the wizard of ooze. Its story about the author of the children's book that inspired that 1939 movie classic, "The Wizard of Oz," is long on mush and short on magic. Airing at 9 tonight on Channels 4, 36 and 39, "The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story" finds John Ritter playing Baum as a one-dimensional bo-bo of such unfaltering goodness that he makes Mr. Rogers look like the Marquis de Sade.

How appropriate: While the 1939 film classic "The Wizard of Oz" celebrates its 50th year, the man who wrote the book on which it's based is about to get his due. John Ritter will portray L. Frank Baum, author of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and its many, much-loved sequels, in "The Dreamer of Oz," an NBC-TV movie for Easter airing. Due to shoot in mid-December, it will detail Baum's stuggle to get his famed book in print.

The yellow brick road has never been so slippery. But Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion will have no trouble negotiating the surface when they put on their ice skates. In this twist on the classic L. Frank Baum story of a young girl's journey over the rainbow, "The Wizard of Oz on Ice" is a $9-million production touring in 32 countries on a two-year tour.

Renowned for its seaside setting, its architecture and its legendary guests, the 108-year-old Hotel del Coronado- sold Thursday to Travelers Group of New York- has witnessed history in the making. A few highlights from its storied past: * The Victorian palace, known simply as the "Del" by locals or "the castle" by employees, has hosted 14 presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.