Thursday, December 2, 1993 STAR NEWS D1 YWToday Hes amazing, the things he can do. Its like hes a method actor. Jane Leaves (Frasier') on her canine co-star, Moose, who plays Eddie the dog, in Entertainment Weekly Staff photo by MICHAEL HAERtNG JUSTIN AND JACOB JONES put a set of washable markers to the test at their parents home in Altadena. Some ideas on what iYOT to buv the little ones By DaneB Morton Stmt Writer HOLIDAY CLASSIC: CBS brightens the YuJetide season with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the perennial Christmas special that never fails to entertain. (8 p.m., KCBS-TV Channel 2) NEW SHOW: Second Chances," which gets the two-hour senes premiere treatment from CBS tonight, is a surprisingly compelling, involving show from the creators of HomefronL" Connie Sellecca stars.
(9 KCBS-TV Channel 2) SOCK IT TO THEM: Ruth Buzz i. Arte Johnson and Jo Anne Worley are among the Laugh In" veterans on hands for tonight's NBC film-clip special Rowan Martin Laugh In: Past Christmas Present." Still funny after all these years. (10 p.m., KNBC Channel 4) earlier low-tech noiseless version I played as a child. Each time he'd fire at his enemy the new version of this game, it announced. Ready.
Letter. Number. Fire." with the noise of a missile launching and hitting or missing its target Each time I heard it it set my fingers in a pounce Oh, if only I could get Barbie set in the sights erf Electronic Talking Battleship. Ready. Letter.
Bimbo. Fire. Dawn Scribners personal nadir erf noise-making toys was a foot-high fire engine. "The fire truck had a siren with three settings. three different sounds, said the Sierra Madre mother of two boys aged 2 and 4.
"You had to put it together yourself and it never went together right. When he pressed the button, the siren just kept on going." Her solution? "Any toy can be reduced to its lowest common denominator by telling the kid that it's run out of batteries and they just dont make that kind erf batter anymore. she said. The other category of toys that parents are loath to see emerging from the Christmas paper is mess makers. The definition of what makes a Turn to BAD TOYS D6 who sends a 6-year-old a drum set or a rocketlaunching kit that results a major household repair.
Our research shows these are just the beginning of the potential disasters in gift giving. The Thomas the Talking Tank Engine clock," sighed Maria Robles of Altadena. Her 6-yearold daughter Jasmine has one erf these, which at every hour announces what you should be doing. 'Seven oclock, time to rise and shine, is what it says. Even on a Sunday.
Last year was a high water mark for my children in the obnoxious toy department My 3-year-old received Teen Talk Barbie," a happy little chatterbox who said four airhead phrases, including- I love to party with friends." and Let go to the mall These sentences rapidly became a part of my daughters repertoire, making them twice as annoying coming out erf her little mouth. It horrified me to see her eves take on a vapid twinkle as she spouted teen-age babble. What was I thinking when I grabbed her by the shoulders to exclaim. "Part) is not a verb!" Really, does she care? Simultaneously, my 7-v ear-old son received Electronic Talking Battleship." I had fond memories of this game from an Celeste McNeal still remembers the Christmas when someone gave her then 4 year-old daughter a wood burning set. I was a wreck," said the Azusa resident whose daughter is now an adult.
I thought I needed to stand over her every minute." Christmases come and Christmases go, but some toys live forever. Or maybe they just seem to. Almost every- parent can tell a horror story or 12 about the toy some well meaning relative inflicted on the family at Christmas time. So today, we offer a sort erf reverse buying guide for those who have never had children, or hose usual common sense ill desert them when they contemplate buying something for a child this year. These are TOYS TO AVOID.
Parents will immediately understand why these are capital letters. Non-parents should stay tuned, and theyll find out soon enough. The classics, of course, are the cruel uncle JO ANNE WORLEY, from left, Henry Gibson, Alan Sues, Ruth Buzzi and Arte Johnson star in Rowan Martins Laugh-In: Past Christmas Present Give Second Chances a chance From Air Pogo to castle sets winning toys for all ages are partly ready to be folded into the royal abode; (413) 584-3073. TEDDY'S PARTY GAMES: US Games Systems, $350, ages 4 up, A tow -key card game, its cards show pieces erf eight different Teddy Bears, each made whole by collecting and positioning four cards; (800) 544 2637. SIDEWALK CMALK-O-GRAFMC: Bandai America, under $20, ages 4-up.
Kneeling on the knee pads, a child manipulates a senes of circles, bent-sausage shapes and ovals using the sets big multicolored chalks; (310) 926-0947. Great American Trading Co $35, ages 5-up. This is a game of similarity. The factors are talTshort roundedsquare, Turn to GOOO TOYS Dt heart, a green fish, etc. Reach in, take out play and put back; (800) 4264777.
DOUSIE FUN WAGON: Todays Kids, $40. ages 15. As a wagon with three bright-colored panels that dick in, the vehicle provides a way to haul tovs; a holding well flips into a seat (800) 2568697. ROCXM KSCR HORSE: Today's Kids, $80, ages 1 12-5. A realistic palomino-colored horse bounces and rides on a sturdy blue base; (800)258-8697.
ASX POGO: Hypergee, $89.95, ages 3-9. Air Pogo hangs from a tree branch or other overhead support From there, it performs the familiar pogo stick action; (800) 880-7646. TKZ CASTLE: Northern Light Enteiprises, $39.95, ages 35. Build your own castle out of these large corrugated cardboard pieces that ach holiday season. Parents Choice, a nonprofit consumer guide, looks for toys that are safe, exciting, imaginative and a good value.
Its selections are made by parents, teachers and other experts on children. All toys, selected from all sources, are tested by individual children and groups of children over a six-week period. Parents and children have veto power. 'Hiere are three to five winning toys for each age group: ages I to 3 Heres a list of the toys the testers liked best 1993 Parents Choice Awards: KSE MSSE: Discover Toys. $16.98, ages I 1-up.
A sturdy felt box with a peek-a-boo hole contains a white rabbit a rattle, a red satin Where have we gone in the post-Anita Hill era? Several months back CBS tried to sell fans of the dearly departed "Knots Landing on Angel Falls, a primetime I soap starring James Brolin and Peggy Lipton locked in a i deadening duel of expression- less actors. The thinking went If you I loved Knots Landing at 10 m. on Thursdays, youll love Angel Falls" at 10 m. on Thursdays. Yeah, right I The debut episode featured Lipton's catatonic character accidentally hurling a lemon meringue pie in the air.
The dessert splattered on the floor, the series made a similar mess. Less than a month following its August debut Angel Falls ascended to TV heaven. Tonight, CBS tries again to capture some of "Knots audience with Second Chances. Now, this is more like it The hourlong series will settle into the old Knots" time slot following this evenings two-hour premiere at 9. Second Chances Joins Sisters" and Picket Fences" as members of a select club deftly written TV dramas about adults and relationships.
Thats it No car chases, no reenactments, no based-on-a-true-story docudrama drivel Connie Sellecca (in a solid performance that will be astonishing to viewers who thought her TV career had been relegated to hand holding with Men and By Kathleen Parker husband John Tesh in infomercials) stars as Dianne Benedict a prosecutor in the quaint and fictional small town of Santa Rita, Calif. Dianne is married to Bruce (Erich Anderson of whos a jerk and well let's not get into too many details because the fun of tonight's two-hour premiere lies in the plot twists. Suffice to say, the show-opens with a shot erf an unidentified corpse. The punch line isnt delivered for two hours. Sure, youll probably guess who the stiff is by about 10-30 p.m., but by then, the characters of Santa Rita will have charmed you into staying until the end anyway.
The credit here goes to creators Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick, ho wrote and produced for "Knots Landing" during its glory years and Later dreamed up Homefront." Theyve crafted yet another batch of characters who are firnny and real. Second Chances" deserves a first look. Agency. Details in the case are skimpy, and of course, no erne is talking. So one is left to speculate.
Here we have a grown woman in the post-Anita Hill era claiming her bosses made" her have sex. Is this possible? How exactly does this work? At no tune was a weapon mentioned, so we have to assume this was strictly a verbal throat sort of thing. If you dont do it, were going to fire you." Whereupon. Gunther might have said, Right get a life." She then could have walked out the door, approached a higher-ranking manager, told him story and filed a lawsuit You dont have to Do It to claim sexual harassment Under the Supreme Court's new ruling on sexual harassment, you dont even have to suffer" as in have a nervous breakdown or demonstrate that your work quality Terete PARKER Can an employer force an employee to have sex with someone against her will? A. At gunpoint maybe.
At knifepoint, probably. But under threat of losing her job? Come ore Who needs a job that badly? Who wants that job in particuhr? These are the kinds of questions reasonable people might ask, but which apparently escaped consideration by a California engineer ho is suing her boss. Veronica Gunther. 35, claims in a lawsuit filed this month that her bosses at International Business Machines Corp. forced" her to have sex with a Pentagon official Dr.
Gary Denman to ensure the companys receipt erf millions of government dollars. In an act of desperation" on August 1992, Gunther said she had sex ith the lYntagon official Lo and behold, the very next day, a series erf talks began between Dr. Denman and IBM executives." When the Pentagon's Technology Reinvestment program announced its annual awards in October, IBM was included in several projects receiving a total of $29 5 million, according to The New York Tunes. Gunther has named IBM and two of the companys managers, Ray Blonn and Nancy Green, as defendants. She claims both managers threatened to fire her If she did not maintain a sexual relationship with Denman, who is director erf the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects For more TV news end listings, seo D7 end D3 I 3 A A I.
