‘Molly Dodd,’ Other TV Favorites Return Via Cable

Molly Dodd will be back after all. So will Rin Tin Tin and a group of veteran comic actors headed by Norm Crosby and Norman Fell--courtesy of cable TV.

Cable flexed its programming muscles with a spate of announcements last week at the television industry’s semi-annual gathering of out-of-town TV-beat reporters at the Registry Hotel in Universal City. The highlights:

“The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” which was canceled last spring after a two-season run on NBC, will be given new life on Lifetime.

The series, which stars Blair Brown as a divorcee and was nominated last week for three Emmy Awards, will be seen in reruns on the cable channel in January, to be followed by 13 original episodes in the spring. Lifetime also has an option to order an additional 26 installments.

The CBN Family Channel is reviving “Rin Tin Tin,” the canine series that ran on ABC from 1954-59. “Rin Tin Tin K-9 Cop,” a co-production of CBN and Herbert B. Leonard Productions, will make the new hero, played by a descendant of the dog in the original series, a member of the canine corps in a big-city police force.

The producers of “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” meanwhile, are following up with “The Boys,” an ensemble comedy series for Showtime that debuts Sept. 10. Set in a New York City men’s club, it will star Norm Crosby, Jackie Gayle, Norman Fell, Michael Lerner and Lionel Stander.

Prime-time animation will return to television in December when Nickelodeon introduces “Tattertown,” produced by veteran animator Ralph Bakshi (“Fritz the Cat”). The pay service has ordered 39 half-hour episodes.

The largest pay service, HBO, will showcase a collection of original drama specials. They are “Tidy Endings,” written by and starring Harvey Fierstein in his first major film role (slated for Aug. 14); “Lip Service,” the first television production from David Mamet and Michael Hausman, in a satirical examination of early morning television with Griffin Dunne in a starring role; “Dead Man,” starring Danny Glover, in a story about Death Row inmates directed by Richard Pearce; and “The Christmas Wife,” a seasonal romantic drama starring Jason Robards and Julie Harris.

Also upcoming on HBO are three new family productions: “Madeline,” an animated musical version of the children’s book by Ludwig Bemelmans; “Pen-Pals,” a visit with four children from around the world, and “Family News Challenge,” a year-end special from Scholastic Productions, which will test viewers’ knowledge of the events, people and stories of 1988.

The American Movie Classics cable service will launch its first regularly scheduled series in September, “The Making of a Classic,” hosted by Bob Dorian. The documentary series will report on the making of famous Hollywood films, beginning with “Gunga Din” and continuing with such movies as “All About Eve,” “Suspicion,” “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” “Fort Apache,” “Gentleman’s Agreement” and “Morning Glory.”

The Cinemax pay service will launch a new music series featuring never-before-seen performance footage of several legendary musicians from the 1960s, beginning in September with a show profiling Otis Redding. Other profiles will include John Lennon (in October), Jimi Hendrix (November) and The Doors’ Jim Morrison (December).