Emmy-Winner ‘Teen Talk’ Still Homeless : Television: Being honored as best children’s series in L.A. last weekend hasn’t yet helped the public affairs show find a station willing to put it back on the air.

Joseph Feinstein won his second Emmy in a row last weekend for producing the best children’s TV series in the Los Angeles area, but it wasn’t a cause for celebration. “Teen Talk” was canceled last summer by KCAL Channel 9 and he has not been able to find a home for it elsewhere.

“This show attempted to explain and give meaning to why teen-agers are taking drugs, why they hurt each other, why they feel alienated, and it drives me crazy that we can’t be on the air when there are so many stupid programs still on,” said Feinstein, who also hosted the series. “Kids need some kind of ombudsman for helping them clarify what problems they have, and now they have no one. ‘The Simpsons’ are their spokesmen now.”

Feinstein, a practicing psychotherapist and a Los Angeles high school teacher and counselor for 32 years, has spent the last nine months shopping the show at the other three independent VHF stations in Los Angeles, but has found no takers. He also tried to sell it to a syndicator and to PBS, but failed there as well.

“Teen Talk” debuted on Channel 9 in 1981--back when the station was owned by RKO and was called KHJ. It received six Emmy nominations during its nine-year run, winning four. The show featured Feinstein sitting on a set with several teen-agers talking about such issues as pregnancy, rape, divorce, suicide, gangs and drugs.

When Disney bought Channel 9 in December, 1988, Feinstein said he jumped for joy at the prospects of a secure future for the show because of Disney reputation’s for producing children’s programming. But a month after the show won its third Emmy, Disney canceled it.

“It is not only ironic that Disney doesn’t want us, but it’s also unreal,” Feinstein said. “I thought that when you match a quality children’s show with Disney, that would be a hit. But it was a miss.”

“Teen Talk” was one of four public-affairs shows that KCAL canned last summer, along with “Youth and the Issues,” “Frankly Female” and “Off Hand.” Programming director Matt Cooperstein said that the station decided to produce all of its shows in-house rather than paying others to do them, and had decided “to go with some new shows and new ideas.”

At the time, Cooperstein told The Times that the station would bring on another show aimed at teen-agers and teen issues that would be “more pervasive” than either “Teen Talk” or “Youth and the Issues.” To date, the station has yet to produce any regular series about or for teen-agers, although in an interview this week, Cooperstein said that the station is developing a teen-oriented show called “Rap.”

Since canceling the four public-affairs shows last year, KCAL has produced three new ones: “Our Planet,” a show about the local environment, “Straight Answers,” a show on local government, and “Cross Check,” a point/counterpoint program on a variety of issues.

Presently, there is only one public affairs series for children on any VHF station in Los Angeles: KCOP Channel 13’s “L.A. Kids,” which deals primarily with grade-school children and does not generally tackle weighty issues. “L.A. Kids” was the only other show nominated for an Emmy in this category the past two years.

“Of the two best shows for youngsters on L.A. television, one of them, ‘L.A. Kids,’ airs at 6 a.m. on Sundays, and the other one has not been on the air for nine months,” Feinstein said. “It’s ridiculous. We will pay for our neglect of our young people in more prisons, more defacing of public property. We’ll pay for it with a much more ignorant adult population in the coming years, in the kinds of voting decisions these people make. In my opinion, this is a very important program. You can’t silence these kids. They will just express themselves in a much more hostile way if you don’t give their feelings and opinions a good airing.”