TODAY’S NEWS, TOMORROW’S TELEVISION : Huck and Tom grow up on Disney; KCAL airs family reunions; and Higgins gets a new job with the Hogans

SERIES

John Hillerman, best known for his role as Higgins on the CBS series “Magnum, P.I.,” has joined the cast of “The Hogan Family.” When the CBS series makes its fall debut, Hillerman will appear as Lloyd Hogan, the father of Josh Taylor and Sandy Duncan’s characters.

Tips from fans of Fox’s crime series “America’s Most Wanted” led to the arrest of two suspects last month. Los Angeles schoolteacher Don Ray More, who was charged with molesting his fifth- and sixth-grade students, was apprehended in Ventura. And Crip gang member Sederick “Koolaid” Scott, convicted of kidnaping and aggravated assault, was arrested in Long Beach.

“Reunion,” a new weekly half-hour syndicated series that reunites families and friends, will premiere locally Sept. 24 on KCAL. In addition to staging real-life reunions, the series will broadcast appeals for help to find missing persons and feature humorous reunions with celebrities and sports figures.

A&E; will televise the North American premiere of the investigative documumtary series “World in Action” on Oct. 4. The program, a sort of R60 Minutes” in England, features subjects such as Moammar Kadafi’s military buildup in Libya, neo-Nazi groups in the Soviet Union and American pit bulls’ invasion of Britain.

MOVIES

Production begins this month in Toronto on “The Thai Babilonia Story,” an NBC movie about the world champion figure skater whose dreams of an Olympic medal were dashed when her partner, Randy Gardner, suffered an injury. Babilonia and Gardner are creative consultants and will perform some of their skating routines for the movie.

Amanda Pays is talked into marrying John Glover by her scheming lover, Corbin Bernsen, in the psychological thriller “Dead on the Money,” set to air Dec. 10 on TNT.

“Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn,” an original Disney Channel movie debuting in October, takes up with Sawyer and Finn as adults. The two young men, played by Raphael Sbarge and Mitchell Anderson, return to Hannibal, Mo., to investigate a murder in which their old friend Jim is the prime subject. Megan Follows, Paul Winfield, Ned Beatty and William Windom co-star.

TNT starts shooting the Western “Conagher” this month, a two-hour screen adaptation of the Louis LUAmour novel. Sam Elliot and his real-life wife, Katharine Ross, portray a husband and wife with two children who trek West in pursuit of a dream: a cattle ranch.

SPECIALS

Robert Urich will host the “Second Annual Valvoline National Driving Test,” a one-hour interactive entertainment special on CBS that places viewers in the driver’s seat while testing their knowledge of traffic rules and car safety. The Aug. 28 special co-stars Lyle Alzado, Danny Glover, Mel Harris, Perry King, Rue McClanahan, Joan Rivers and William Shatner.

The pilot episode of “Edge,” a new arts and culture magazine program for PBS and the BBC, will premiere Aug. 27 on PBS. The series, hosted by CBS News correspondent Robert Krulwich, is an irreverent look at American art and popular culture. If the pilot is successffl, the show will be turned into a series of 10 one-hour programs.

MTV has announced that the rock group Motley Crue will perform and Living Colour, Flavor Flav and Wilson Phillips will present awards for the seventh annual broadcast of “The 1990 MTV Video Music Awards.” The awards ceremony will be broadcast live on Sept. 6 from the Universal Amphitheatre in Universal City.