Wind Dancer Productions

ABC on Monday announced a major, multiyear deal with Wind Dancer Productions, the company behind "Home Improvement," which will allow the hit comedy series to continue for at least three more years and enable its producers to create two more comedies for the network. Under terms of the agreement, "Home Improvement," starring Tim Allen as the host of a tool-oriented cable show, will continue past its current second season through the 1995-1996 season, said Robert A.

As if ABC didn't have enough problems, the producers of its most popular entertainment series, "Home Improvement," are furious over the network's decision to temporarily bench their other prime-time show, the Dan Aykroyd comedy "Soul Man."

With the "Dream Team" juggernaut of Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and David Geffen making their first big splash in television instead of the film business under the Capital Cities/ABC deal announced Monday, executives better known for TV are likewise crossing over to movies. The walls that once strictly divided "TV people" from "film people" fell a long time ago.

A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles freed Walt Disney Co. to renew "Home Improvement" on ABC for two more seasons, denying a request for an injunction to stop the deal by the producers of the top-rated comedy. Wind Dancer Production Group, the Burbank company controlled by producer Matt Williams, the creator of the show, sued Disney in late February, claiming that Walt Disney Television extended a "sweetheart deal" to ABC because the two units are owned by the same studio.

A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles freed Walt Disney Co. to renew "Home Improvement" on ABC for two more seasons, denying a request for an injunction to stop the deal by the producers of the top-rated comedy. Wind Dancer Production Group, the Burbank company controlled by producer Matt Williams, the creator of the show, sued Disney in late February, claiming that Walt Disney Television extended a "sweetheart deal" to ABC because the two units are owned by the same studio.

Is it a trend? Just this month, there have been two announcements that movie/TV companies are putting big bucks into developing plays and playwrights. Now there is still more news from that quarter. This week's developments won't be as immediately beneficial to the Los Angeles theater scene as the $340,000 DreamWorks SKG is giving to the Mark Taper Forum, or the purchase of the Coronet Theatre by Dee Gee Entertainment (in part so that Playwrights' Kitchen Ensemble can develop plays there).

As if ABC didn't have enough problems, the producers of its most popular entertainment series, "Home Improvement," are furious over the network's decision to temporarily bench their other prime-time show, the Dan Aykroyd comedy "Soul Man."

In an action with broad implications for self-dealing by Hollywood studios, the producers of "Home Improvement" are suing Walt Disney Co. over negotiations to renew the ABC series. Wind Dancer Production Group--the Burbank firm headed by producer Matt Williams, which created and produces the popular Tim Allen comedy--contends in a suit filed Monday that production partner Walt Disney Television isn't representing its interests because ABC and Disney are part of the same parent company.

It's the Tool Time girl meets T-Rex. Disney began selling reruns of the hit ABC sitcom "Home Improvement" to local stations two weeks ago, and already the show has become the "Jurassic Park" of syndication. Although sold to only 10 TV stations so far, "Home Improvement" is shaping up as one of the biggest successes in syndication. Based on initial sales, Disney executives expect that "Home Improvement" could gross well over $2.5 million per episode.

In an action with broad implications for self-dealing by Hollywood studios, the producers of "Home Improvement" are suing Walt Disney Co. over negotiations to renew the ABC series. Wind Dancer Production Group--the Burbank firm headed by producer Matt Williams, which created and produces the popular Tim Allen comedy--contends in a suit filed Monday that production partner Walt Disney Television isn't representing its interests because ABC and Disney are part of the same parent company.

Is it a trend? Just this month, there have been two announcements that movie/TV companies are putting big bucks into developing plays and playwrights. Now there is still more news from that quarter. This week's developments won't be as immediately beneficial to the Los Angeles theater scene as the $340,000 DreamWorks SKG is giving to the Mark Taper Forum, or the purchase of the Coronet Theatre by Dee Gee Entertainment (in part so that Playwrights' Kitchen Ensemble can develop plays there).

With the "Dream Team" juggernaut of Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and David Geffen making their first big splash in television instead of the film business under the Capital Cities/ABC deal announced Monday, executives better known for TV are likewise crossing over to movies. The walls that once strictly divided "TV people" from "film people" fell a long time ago.

ABC on Monday announced a major, multiyear deal with Wind Dancer Productions, the company behind "Home Improvement," which will allow the hit comedy series to continue for at least three more years and enable its producers to create two more comedies for the network. Under terms of the agreement, "Home Improvement," starring Tim Allen as the host of a tool-oriented cable show, will continue past its current second season through the 1995-1996 season, said Robert A.

They say you can't go home again. But try telling that to David McFadzean, who comes back again and again, if only to take an inventory of where and how it all began. The executive producer and co-creator of the hit TV show "Home Improvement" returned to his roots only last month for the opening of his world premiere adaptation of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

Never a big enough hit to control its destiny, but never a ratings bomb either, the NBC sitcom "NewsRadio" made an annual ritual of strange, devil-may-care endings. Their motto: Live this episode as if it were your last, for some day, maybe tomorrow, you're sure to be right. Last year, there was the Titanic episode, with the show's set transformed into a sinking ship; the year before the gang at the New York City all-news radio station was orbited into a science-fiction future.