Tv Show

Grant Broadcasting System, embroiled in a federal bankruptcy case that has drawn wide attention in the television industry, is near an agreement with Viacom International that would allow it to shed about 10% of the $36 million it owes the TV program distributor, sources said Wednesday.

Cable TV host Leslie Dutton reassured Hawthorne Councilwoman Ginny Lambert that she need not be embarrassed about having to sit on a phone book. "When Gloria Allred was on the show, we had to bring out a whole stack of books" to pile on the attorney's chair, Dutton said. "She is really tiny." By serving on the panel for "Full Disclosure: The News Behind the News," Duttons' guests--four ostracized politicians--joined the distinguished company of outspoken women throughout L.A.

In the late 1950s and early '60s, rock 'n' roll was really "happening," 30-year-old Carlsbad resident Domenic Priore said just the other day. "It was simple, innocent, upbeat and made for dancing. "And you can't really do any better than that." Priore's trying to bring some of the joyful sounds (and sights) of first-wave rockers back in the spotlight. He's producing a weekly television dance show modeled after such long-ago teen tube favorites as "Shindig" and "Hullabaloo."

Which television twosome gives you furious ideological clashes between a militant far right-winger and a brutally fanatical centrist? The co-hosts of "Crossfire." This is the durable weeknight series that CNN stubbornly insists is a "face-off" of dueling philosophies from opposite poles of the political spectrum. It isn't. One co-host signs off by saying, "From the right, I'm. . . ." Believe it. The other says, "From the left, I'm. . . ." Forget it.

Their stage is a simple platform with a hand-painted sign that identifies "The Illegal Interns," a public-access cable show that has been televised for the last three years. It airs for two hours on Tuesday afternoons. Flavio Morales and Richard Estrada bounce one-liners and running jokes off each other between videos of local poets, musicians and public-service warnings on the dangers of smoking drawn by local high school students.

The Illegal Interns, hosts of a cable television show featuring Eastside artists, musicians, comedians and poets, will present a festival Saturday at the Aztlan Cultural Foundation. "The Stage Is Yours IV," from 6 p.m. to midnight, is one of a series of events to promote local artists, said Flavio Morales, one of the Illegal Interns.

A giant catapult that hurled a 450-pound piano on the TV show "Northern Exposure" is in commission once again: It will fling old personal computers at a summer festival. Organizers of Da Vinci Days, which celebrates the future in arts, science and technology, paid $2,000 for the big machine, which can hurl items as far as 100 yards. The event is scheduled for July 19-21 in Corvallis, home of a Hewlett-Packard complex. Why old computers?

Brown & Williamson executives urged the company to buy a nicotine patch maker so it could profit from its customers' attempts to quit smoking, CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" reported. The show said it learned of the proposal from documents from British American Tobacco PLC, the London parent of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. B&W is the nation's third-largest tobacco company. At least one executive warned against buying a patch maker.

KOCE-TV's weekly "Jim Cooper's Orange County" public affairs program is assured of a 24-segment series in 1987-88, thanks to $106,000 in new pledges from private donors, the station announced Monday. Cooper, whose program has aired since 1972 and is KOCE's only regular local series, said the first new segment will be broadcast Oct. 2. Topics planned for the new season include the "slow-growth" movement, transportation and child care, he said.

Two hiring officials from employers that rank among the largest in Ventura County will offer advice to job-seekers next week during a cable television show called "Creative Solutions for the Unemployed." "Ventura Today," a program that airs on three local cable stations, will run Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings. The show features a half-hour panel discussion on how the unemployed can best prepare themselves for the job hunt.