NEW YORK -- Police in LaPorte, Ind., are crediting an episode of an NBC series for the arrest last week of an alleged child molester, and the networks hope some of the programs lined up for this season will have similar results.
Detective Capt. Roger Farley of the LaPorte police said the suspect was arrested after a 9-year-old boy a few weeks back saw the rerun of an episode of 'Diff'rent Strokes' that dealt with child molesting.
'The boy didn't know he was doing anything wrong,' Farley said.
But after watching the show, the child realized that the sexual activity that had been occuring for a year in the suspect's basement and the shower rooms of the LaPorte YMCA was not normal, Farley said. The alleged victim told his mother what had happened to him and she told police.
When the two-part episode, 'The BicE:le Man,' first ran on NBC last February, actor Gordon Jump said he took the role as the child molester because 'if you could help someone avoid a terrible experience like child molestation, that's the best opportunity an actor ever gets.
'The main thing young people have to fear is ignorance,' he said.
Next month NBC will open its movie season with the premiere of 'Adam,' a two-hour production based on the true story of the disappearance -- and eventual murder -- of a small boy.
Following the movie, NBC will present a 'roll call' of currently missing children, airing their pictures nationally in hopes they may be identified.
'ABC Theater' will air sometime this season 'Something About Amelia,' a movie about incest starring Ted Danson as a father who is sexually abusing his 13-year-old daughter. In conjunction with the showing of the made-for-TV movie,the network said it will try to set up some kind of hotline service to provide counseling through local community centers.
Executive producer Leonard Goldberg said the idea behind making 'Amelia' was to 'reach a huge audience and expose the subject with positive treatment.'
CBS last season dealt with child molesting in its two-hour movie, 'Prime Suspect,' and child pornography in the highly rated movie, 'Fallen Angels,' starring Melinda Dillon and Richard Maser.
Last April, CBS aired 'In Defense of Kids,' starring Blythe Danner and Sam Waterston in the story of Carol Brill, a San Francisco woman who is a crusader for children's rights.
The networks have been working with various groups fighting child abuse as well as experts on the subject to produce these programs.
In both 'Amelia' and 'BicE:le,' it was decided that the actors chosen to play the abusers' roles should be likable individuals. Danson is best known for his role as the charming bartender in NBC's 'Cheers,' and Jump was the gentle Arthur Carlson character in CBS' 'WKRP in Cincinnati.'
'BicE:le' executive producer Howard Leeds said Jump was selected 'because aside from being a marvelous actor, he has a special quality of gentleness, one of the characteristics of child abusers -- unlike what you would expect a child molester to be.'
In the episode of 'Diff'rent Strokes' that led to last week's arrest in Indiana, star Gary (Arnold) Coleman and his pal Shavar (Dudley) Ross are befriended by a local merchant (Jump), who turns out to be a child molester.
The merchant is overly nice and showers them with goodies to gain their trust before suggesting 'games' to play.
'Diff'rent Strokes,' also has dealt with the subject of teenage drinking, sex and drug abuse, the latter in an episode featuring first lady Nancy Reagan as a guest star. CBS Tuesday night presents 'Full House,' the pilot for situation comedy based on 'Author, Author,' the Israel Horowitz' movie that starred Al Pacino.
Dennis Dugan stars as a playwright trying to support a townhouse in Greenwich Village which is filled with his own son by a previous marriage, and his estranged wife's four children by her previous marriages.
The movie is worth watching for the New York scenes alone and Dugan's acting is extremely attractive. So are the efforts of Ken Moss, who plays a heartless Broadway producer, and youngsters Eric Gierry, Ari Meyer, Shelby Balik, Scott Nemes and Danny Ponce.
Who knows why this 20th Century Fox pilot was not picked up by the networks this season -- especially considering some of the programs that were.
For example, take a quick peek at the premiere of ABC's 'Just Our Luck,' also airing at 8 p.m. EDT.
Williams next will be seen on TV in February as Stanley Kowalski in the ABC Television Theater special three-hour production of Tennessee Williams' 'A Streetcar Named Desire,' with Ann-Margret as Blanche DuBois and Beverly D'Angelo as Stella.
'These were two good movies that happened to be on TV,' said Williams, whose reputation has been built by his performances in such theatrical movies as 'Prince of the City,' 'Hair' and 'The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper.'
A native of Rowayton, Conn., and an ancestor of Robert Treat Paine, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Williams attended the Kent School for Boys and the Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania.
He was a high school football player when he decided to become an actor. It was French director Serge Bourguignon's movie 'Sundays and Cybele' that did it.
'I guess it was my first awareness that movies could be films. I mean, I saw 'Ben Hur' when I was a kid. That was a movie. I saw this and I thought, this is a film. It was about real people, not just things that are bigger than life.'
In Paris last year, Williams got a call from Bourguigonon, who had read in a French magazine that 'Sundays' had inspired the American actor. The two got together for lunch.
Although he does much of his work in Hollywood, Williams plans to continue living on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where he's been for 11 years.
'It's not that I have anything against the West Coast, I just like living near New England. I like the winters.'
