Power Thing: Mighty Moose

Joshua Brand, who with John Falsey created Northern Exposure, CBS' Monday-night hit, cares deeply about the show's cast members. But he's positively antler-over-hooves about Morty, the pensive moose that wanders through the program's main titles. Brand keeps a pint-size wooden version of Morty on the bookshelf in his Santa Monica office; staring at his mini-Morty, he says, makes him nostalgic and teary-eyed. ''I feel like a parent looking at a photo of my son,'' he confides, pausing in reverie. ''(Morty) had a girlfriend named Minnie, but I don't know what the status of their relationship is now.''