Fine Young Cannibals, U2, Annie Lennox, David...

Fine Young Cannibals, U2, Annie Lennox, David Byrne, Billy Idol, Neneh Cherry, Tom Waits, Sinead O’Connor, k.d. lang and Jody Watley are some of the vocal artists recording Cole Porter tunes for “Red Hot and Blue,” a late-night ABC special in December to benefit AIDS research. Each song will be presented in specially commissioned short films by such acclaimed directors as John Sayles, Stephen Frears, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, Jonathan Demme, Diane Keaton and Byrne.

Production has begun on location in Orlando, Fla., on “The Muppets at Walt Disney World,” a special airing May 13 on NBC’s “The Magical World of Disney.” Kermit sets out to rediscover his roots in Florida’s boggy swamps, but the Muppet gang would rather frolic at nearby Disney World.

Muppet master Jim Henson and his creative team, the same people who handcrafted the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the current feature film, will produce Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” as a four-hour NBC miniseries for the 1990-91 season. The visual style of the miniseries, to be presented as four hourlong tales, will be similar to Henson’s acclaimed but short-lived NBC series “The Storyteller” starring John Hurt.

Rick Schroder plays a mysterious stranger who shows up on the doorstep of Vietnam widow Kate Jackson, claiming to be her long-lost son in “The Stranger Within,” a CBS movie now filming in Minneapolis. But Jackson’s boyfriend (Chris Sarandon) suspects that Schroder is not really who he claims to be.