THEY GOT GAME
As if Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Survivor, Greed, Twenty One, and Winning Lines haven't exhausted the U.S. quiz-show-contestant supply, former Pee-wee Paul Reubens hosts the syndicated You Don't Know Jack, based on the CD-ROM (fall).... Comedy Central mines the valuable British game-show world for Don't Forget Your Toothbrush, to which the audience brings luggage in hopes of being whisked away to wacky locales (June).... VH1's Pop-Up Quiz may have the simplest concept of all: No host, no contestants, just random on-screen questions and answers (Jan. 29).
--Brian M. Raftery (Additional reporting by Lynette Rice and Bruce Fretts)
GEPPETTO A musical Pinocchio from Disney
"The first thing people are going to say is 'Wow, I didn't know that Drew Carey (above) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus could sing so well.'" Thus predicts exec producer Mike Karz, hawking the ABC sweeps flick Geppetto, which is both Disney's first original musical for TV and a fresh look at Pinocchio (Seth Adkins). Karz says casting the sitcom vets as musical leads allowed for some much-needed relief on the "intense" six-week shoot: "They were a blast. Drew is a comic genius, and Julia matched his wit line for line." And the kid's schnozz will tell us if he's lying. (Spring)
GROWING UP BRADY The bunch returns in a small-screen memoir from big bro Greg
Watching his book, Growing Up Brady, come to life, says Barry Williams, "was a surreal experience." A coexec producer of the NBC movie, Williams (above, left) portrays himself as an adult while Adam Brody (The Silencing) plays him in his Greg Brady days. Rebeccah Bush and Daniel Hugh Kelly (right) stand in for Carol and Mike Brady. Meanwhile, Mike Lookinland cameos as a cameraman--his real-life profession--and his son, Scott, stands in for him as Bobby. "It's uncanny," Williams says of the resemblance between Lookinland and son (above, right). "Scott couldn't be closer if DNA were tattooed on his forehead." (Spring)
GRAPEVINE A sex-and-the-single-gal comedy
Will she or won't she? Meddle, that is. Kristy Swanson--a.k.a. the first Buffy the Vampire Slayer--plays a single gal in CBS' mid-season comedy Grapevine, who "thinks she has a gift of making people fall in love." The show banks on the not so novel gimmick of letting characters speak directly to the camera. "It was strange," says Swanson. "Should I act like I'm being interviewed by Barbara Walters?" (March)
HEPBURN It Girl Jennifer Love Hewitt as Audrey
Jennifer Love Hewitt's ABC biopic of Audrey Hepburn has the potential to become the year's guilty pleasure, but her rep as the "Girl on TV" remains intact--and not just with the guys from LFO. "It's the first set I've been on where there were screaming fans," says Bruce Dinsmore (P.T. Barnum), who costars as Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's director, Blake Edwards (above).
'Election' smarty-pants Reese Witherspoon is a bratty baby sister
