Cry Baby
Perhaps it's time to stop calling the Fox network ''new'' now that
one of its series has been around long enough for a star to make
noises about leaving. The show is 21 Jump Street, which began its run
in 1987; the star is 26-year- old Johnny Depp, who has been
pursuing a movie career (he'll appear in Tim Burton's Edward
Scissorhands) and saying that Jump Street's cast is getting a little
old to play undercover cops in school. The word from Peter Roth,
president of Stephen J. Cannell Productions, which makes the show:
''We have enjoyed a long and mutually beneficial relationship with
Johnny, we have a contract, and we have every expectation that he'll
return next season.''
Talk of the Tundra
CBS, which didn't have much luck with Island Son this season, has
decided viewers may be more interested in an Alaskan doctor than a
Hawaiian doctor. The network reportedly has ordered eight episodes of
Northern Exposure, an hour-long drama about an urban practitioner who
relocates to a little town up north, for broadcast this summer.
They're It
ABC's four-hour miniseries It, based on a Stephen King horror
novel, now has a cast: Richard Thomas, John Ritter, Tim Reid, Dennis
Christopher, and Harry Anderson. ''ABC was adamant about having
TV-star names, people with very high TVQs (popularity ratings),'' says
director Tommy Lee Wallace (Fright Night Part 2), who begins shooting
this month. ''Given that, I'm very confident.They're all associated
with middle-of-the-road family entertainment, so people who'd
ordinarily say, 'Stephen King? Forget it!' may be captured.'' The
monstrous title role, Wallace says, will be played by ''a
1,000-pound lumbering object,'' and the scares will be ''as graphic as
it's possible to get on TV.''
Turt Kwon Do
The latest flowering of Turtle-mania: U.S. Martial Arts Centers in
the Washington area are advertising Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
karate classes for all ages. A teacher at one school says the lessons
are standard: ''No masks, no shells.''
Family Trip
Third-place CBS has snatched a series from first-place NBC: The
Hogan Family, which will jump networks for its sixth season next
fall. It has happened before with marginally rated shows (last year,
ABC picked up The Father Dowling Mysteries after NBC canceled it),
but Hogan won its time period (Mondays at 8:30) all season. Although
NBC issued a terse statement saying Hogan (starring Sandy Duncan) was ''never a ratings blockbuster,'' the show ranked 35th this
season, higher than the NBC mainstays ALF, Midnight Caller, and 227.
CBS is likely to air Hogan at 8 on a new night, possibly as a
companion piece to another comedy about a single father from Hogan's
producers.
Elvis Sighting
ABC's half-hour drama Elvis is still contending for a spot on
ABC's fall schedule, despite its abrupt disappearance from the
airwaves in March after disappointing ratings for its first six
episodes. Eight new Elvis segments will air this summer, and viewer
response to those may determine the show's fate.
