CBS TO OFFER A SNOOPY LOOK AT HISTORY IN FALL

Good grief! Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy will star in an animated miniseries for CBS.

“Charlie Brown and Snoopy’s History of America” will be broadcast next season, the network said. It will consist of eight half-hour episodes in which the comic strip characters “become involved in landmark events throughout the history of the United States.”

“Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz will write the series, and it will be produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez Productions--the same team that has made more than 30 Charlie Brown specials for CBS since 1965.

COMEDY: Public television, whose top programmers have long lamented the dearth of comedy in its schedule, finally will have a comedy series to present this fall. Produced by Jon S. Denny for KCET Channel 28 in Los Angeles, “Trying Times” will feature six half-hour stories about coping in the ‘80s.

Performers who have been cast for the anthology series include Catherine O’Hara, Candice Bergen, Rosanna Arquette, Tim Matheson, Spalding Gray, David Byrne, Keanu Reeves, Hope Lange, Steven Wright and Ron Silver.

The original scripts were written by Christopher Durang, Beth Henley, Earl Pomerantz, Bernard Slade, Wendy Wasserstein and Spalding Gray.