Should drugs be legalized? That will be...

Should drugs be legalized? That will be the subject of a “National Town Meeting” on ABC Sept. 13. Ted Koppel will host the broadcast, which will begin at 10 p.m., break for local news at 11 and then continue for at least two more hours at 11:30. He will be joined by a dozen advocates for and against the legalization question, and they will field calls from viewers.

Art Carney will be one of the hosts of “Jackie Gleason: The Great One,” a two-hour tribute to the late entertainer that will air on CBS Sept. 17. Others paying their respects will be John Candy, Jane Curtin, Teri Garr, John Larroquette, Burt Reynolds, Audrey Meadows, Red Buttons and Sheila MacRae.

On the soap opera front, Michael E. Knight has rejoined the cast of ABC’s “All My Children” as Tad Martin. He will be seen on the air for the first time Thursday. Knight won Emmys in 1986 and 1987 for his performance as Martin.

The closing concert at the Hollywood Bowl will be broadcast live by KCOP Channel 13 on Sept. 17. The Los Angeles Philharmonic will perform Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks under the baton of assistant conductor David Allen Miller. Alex Trebek will host the TV coverage, aided by Gail Eichenthal of KUSC-FM (91.5), which will simulcast the concert.

Valerie Harper and Gerald McRaney are paired in “The People Across the Lake,” a suspense film for NBC. They play a couple who move from the big city to a small town, only to stumble into a murder case that makes them wonder, in the network’s words, “if their new community is any safer than the city they left behind.”

Kenya is the setting for “Face to Face,” a “Hallmark Hall of Fame” drama that is being produced for CBS. Elizabeth Montgomery stars as a scientist looking for remains of early man; Robert Foxworth plays a miner who wants to dig in the same area. Not to spoil the plot, but as CBS tells it, “Hostility gradually changes to reluctant respect and finally to unexpected love.”

An animated miniseries? Yes, that’s what CBS has in store with “This Is America, Charlie Brown!” It’s a four-hour cartoon in which the Peanuts gang travels back in time to some of the major events in U.S. history, and into the future as well. The first four half-hour installments will air on Fridays at 8 p.m. beginning Oct. 21 with the voyage of the Mayflower.

How many TV dramas have you seen about cops investigating a series of murders involving strippers? ABC has commissioned another--but this time the roles are reversed. In “Ladykillers,” the investigating officer is a woman and the strippers are men. Marilu Henner plays the policewoman and is joined in the cast by Susan Blakely and Lesley-Anne Down.