John Travolta will be doing his stuff...

John Travolta will be doing his stuff again at the 2001 Odyssey when Saturday Night Fever returns (Channel 13 tonight at 8). As Tony Manero, the Brooklyn hardware-store clerk and disco king, Travolta captured the imagination of an entire generation of young people in this vital, irresistible 1977 story of a young man whose horizons broaden when he meets the sophisticated Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney).

Cast the First Stone (NBC tonight at 9), yet another of those “fact-based” TV movies that don’t always ring true, stars Jill Eikenberry as a former Catholic novice who is raped by a hitchhiker but who is fired from her teaching job after she rejects both abortion and adoption to raise her child herself.

David Seltzer’s 1988 Punchline (Channel 13 Monday at 8 p.m.) takes us into the acrid, hostile world of stand-up comedy in which Tom Hanks is brilliant as a struggling comedian, his very real charm stretched thin over a core of ruthlessness; less convincing is Sally Field as a New Jersey housewife with as much ambition as Hanks.

Perfect People (ABC Monday at 9 p.m.), a 1988 TV movie, aims some well-deserved zingers at the cosmetic obsession of a middle-aged couple who opt for plastic surgery and their cast and culture. Perry King and Lauren Hutton star; they’re made up to extreme credibility-defying dowdiness for the “before” sequences.

The provocative but wildly uneven 1981 Taps (Channel 5 Tuesday at 8 p.m.) stars Timothy Hutton as a military academy cadet major, so beguiled by the school’s old windbag commander (George C. Scott) that he leads a defense against the imminent razing of the institution. With Sean Penn and Tom Cruise in pre-stardom supporting roles.

The original MASH (Channel 5 Thursday at 8 p.m.) is back. At once gruesomely gory and utterly hilarious, Robert Altman’s rough, unique and stunning 1970 film is a black comedy on the absurdity of war (and much else). Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould star as doctors drafted into the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War.

A brutal, fast-moving and fairly crass action flick about love, corruption and politics in Atlanta, Sharky’s Machine (Channel 13 Friday at 8 p.m.) stars Burt Reynolds as Sharky, a cop who tangles with vice lord Vittorio Gassman, who’s determined to dictate local politics. The 1981 film is most notable for introducing Rachel Ward, cast as a sultry call girl.

Casablanca (Channel 13 Saturday at 8 p.m.), just about the most popular movie ever, stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.