Of Human Interest: News-lite

TV NOSTALGIA

CBS's ratings success with a recent Carol Burnett reunion special has given the other networks ideas. NBC already has a reunion special on the "The Cosby Show" ready to go for May sweeps, New York Daily News reports.

"The Cosby Show" was a massive hit on Thursdays for NBC from 1984-92. The paper reports that Cosby contacted the show's producer -- Carsey-Werner-Mandalbach -- not long after the Carol Burnett special knocked it out of the park for CBS, finishing as the No. 1 show for the week.

"Bill always felt it was a landmark series that had a lot of important themes that related to family and how parents should communicate with children," said producer Tom Werner. "So hopefully the special will have some content value above and beyond just the normal clip show."

The newspaper reported that plans call for taping the "Cosby" reunion show in April in New York, but Werner isn't sure how many of the original cast will be involved. "We're certainly talking to them all," he said.

NBC also plans to run a two-hour "L.A. Law" movie during the May sweeps, hoping to score killer ratings so they can set advertising rates as high as possible. Networks put their best feet forward during sweeps to get ratings that drive the ad rates.

CBS also is trying to get the cast of "M*A*S*H" together for a reunion special, and ABC has a "Happy Days" reunion in the works.

Columbia Tri-Star Domestic TV president Steve Mosko said the industry "saw this coming" when the movie version of the TV hit "Charlie's Angels" was one of the biggest box-office hits of 2000, the News reports. "People are still hungry for some of these shows that a lot of us grew up with," he said.

(Thanks to UPI Hollywood Reporter Pat Nason)

COLOR MY WORLD, ER, UNIVERSE

What color is your universe? Turquoise, say astronomers at this week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington.

Turquoise is actually the overall average of all of the universe's color. "The color is quite close to the standard shade of pale turquoise, although it's a few percent greener," said Karl Glazebrook, an assistant professor of astronomy at Johns Hopkins University.

The discovery is the byproduct of an attempt to use the light from more than 200,000 galaxies to test theories of star formation. The researchers took light collected from the Australian 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and combined the data into an array of visual colors.

"This would be what we'd get if we took all the light in the universe and passed it through a prism to break the light into its component wavelengths and produce a rainbow," said Ivan Baldry, also of Johns Hopkins.

"From one perspective, it's surprising that it turns out to be greenish, because there are no green stars," said Glazebrook. "But it's the large numbers of old red stars and young blue stars in the universe that gives us the green."

Yellow and blue give green in mixed pigments, but red and blue yield green in mixed light. The overall color of the universe will probably become redder as its stars age, the researchers said.

(Thanks to UPI Science News Writer Jim Kling)

REASONS TO CELEBRATE THIS WEEKEND:

FRIDAY: Today through Jan.17 is Cuckoo Dancing Week, honoring the memory of Laurel and Hardy, whose theme song was "The Dancing Cuckoos."

International Thank You Days begin today and run through Jan. 18. It's a time to thank someone from your past or present who did something nice for you.

Morocco celebrates its Independence Day today.

And this is National Unity Day in Nepal, commemorating King Prithvinarayan Shah (1723-1775), founder of the present house of rulers of Nepal and creator of the unified Nepal of today.

SATURDAY: This is National Handwriting Day, observed on the anniversary of the birth, in 1737, of John Hancock.

And Tanzania celebrates Zanzibar Revolution Day today.

SUNDAY: Today through Jan. 19 is International Printing Week. (Web site: iaphc.org)

It's also National Home Office Safety and Security Week.

This is Stephen Foster Memorial Day, by presidential proclamation. Foster died on this date in 1864.

Norway celebrates Tyvendedagen, or "20th Day" -- the traditional end of the Christmas season -- today.

This is Old New Year's Eve in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Under the old Julian calendar, today would indeed be New Year's Eve.

And it's Liberation Day in Togo.

MONDAY: Today through Jan. 19 is Man Watchers Week. (Web site: manwatchers.com)

This is National Clean-Off-Your-Desk Day. It's also National Thank God It's Monday Day.

Japan celebrates Coming-Of-Age Day today.

And it's Army Day in Uzbekistan.

(Thanks to Chase's 2002 Calendar of Events)

BY THE WAY...

How long has the U.S. government been telling us that cigarettes may be hazardous to one's health?

Since on this date in 1964, when U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a report to that effect.