TODAY’S NEWS, TOMORROW’S TELEVISION : MTV will debut a hip, rock trivia game and Hanna-Barbera has a couple of new toons

SERIES

MTV has announced the July 2 debut of its new rock-and-roll game show, “MTV’s Turn It Up.” Taped inside a gritty nightclub with a live “house band,” the show will test contestants’ knowledge of hard-core rock trivia and gossip as they play their way through three brain-numbing, and often eardrum-shattering, rounds of plays.

“You’re On the Air With Dr. Ruth,” a new call-in show for adults hosted by reigning sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, will premiere on Lifetime July 6 at midnight. The half-hour show, featuring celebrity and expert guests, will address adult sexuality and relationships.

Mike Ritter of Rock Creek, Ohio, the man who lost his pants going after a fly ball in a softball game, won the $100,000 grand prize in the recent season finale of ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” There were 14 contestants from the program’s weekly $10,000 winners.

MINISERIES

“The Godfather Wars,” based on a series of articles by New York Newsday reporter Tom Renner, is a four-hour miniseries being planned by NBC for the 1990-91 season. The TV drama explores the complex personal relationships and power struggles inside one of New York’s organized-crime families during the 1970s and early 1980s.

Stuart Woods’ best-selling novel “Grass Roots” served as the inspiration for a four-hour political thriller that NBC is now casting. The story follows Will Lee, a well-respected lawyer and politician about to undertake a campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate. His life begins to unravel when he is forced to defend a young white man for the brutal murder of a beautiful black activist.

MOVIES

On July 4 beginning at midnight, KCOP will run a string of uninterrupted and unedited classic movies to celebrate Independence Day. The movies iclude “On the Waterfront,” “The Alamo,” “The Music Man,” “A Star is Born,” “Bonnie & Clyde,” “West Side Story” and “Red River.”

Lifetime’s first world premiere movie, “Memories of Murder,” is set to debut July 31. The mystery-thriller stars Nancy Allen as a wife and mother suffering from amnesia who must protect her family from the actress Vanity, a vengeful woman who blames Allen for the loss of her lover.

When Veronica Hamel is raped by prominent attorney Judd Hirsch, her nightmare is just beginning in “She Said No,” an NBC movie beginning production this month for the 1990-91 TV season. After Hirsch is acquitted of the criminal charge on a technicality, he shocks Hamel and prosecuting attorney Lee Grant by representing himself in a multimillion-dollar slander suit against Hamel, forcing her to face him again under cross-examination.

Two more movies NBC has planned for 1990-91: “Aftermath: the Fate of Flight 1501,” starring Lee Remick, is a fictional drama about the wife of a commercial airline pilot who attempts to clear her husband’s name of the charge of “pilot error” by reconstructing the events leading up to his fatal crash. And Dana Delany of “China Beach” headlines “Angels Without Wings,” based on a true story about a Cape Cod family whose quiet life is shattered when a double tragedy leaves four orphan boys on their doorstep.

CARTOONS

Tom Cruise, who recently urged Earth Day celebrants in Washington to help save the planet, has dropped out as television’s Capt. Planet because he is too busy. But “Capt. Planet and the Planeteers,” Ted Turner’s cartoon eco-series, will press on. Production continues on the 26-episode, $7.8 million project to alert kids to dangers to the environment. The show’s producers are searching for Cruise’s replacement.

Hanna-Barbera has announced casts for two new syndicated cartoons to premiere this fall. “Monster Tails,” about famous monster pets, features the voices of Jonathan Winters, Tim Curry, Frank Welker, Charlie Adler, Pat Musick and Dick Gautier. In “Fender Bender 500,” classic Hanna-Barbera characters race around the globe, with voices by Shadoe Stevens, Greg Burson, Don Messick, Allan Melvin, Jean Vander Pyl and Paul Winchell.

“Wake, Rattle & Roll,” Hanna-Barbera’s innovative new half-hour TV show combining live-action, animatronics and animation, will premiere Sept. 17 in national syndication.

BOOKS

“Audubon Perspectives: Fight for Survival,” the new companion book to the Audubon Television Specials airing this summer on PBS, is expected to hit bookstores this month. The book provides an in-depth look at animal conservation and investigates such hot political issues as oil development in Alaska’s wildlife refuges and the private logging of ancients forests that grow on public lands.