Confronting AIDS With an Arsenal of Education : Cable review: Bravo mixes moving documentaries, music, comedy and frank programming in its monthlong telethon to raise funds for care-givers.

Until Magic Johnson’s high-profile announcement that he was HIV-infected, AIDS seemed to be drifting onto the sidelines as an issue. Out of sight, out of mind. . . . Suddenly, many of us are acknowledging that what we don’t know can indeed hurt us.

This belated urgency for AIDS education is met with some remarkable programming on the Bravo cable channel’s third annual AIDS telethon, “Unfinished Stories 1991.” Beginning Sunday at 2 p.m. to coincide with World AIDS Day, and running each Sunday thereafter at 6 p.m., the monthlong fund-raiser includes eye-opening, high-impact comedy, dance and music specials, documentaries and movies. Money raised goes to AIDS care-giving organizations.

The straight talk will either raise your ire, sadden you or come as a relief, depending on your point of view; the entertainment will probably keep you coming back for more. Boredom is unlikely.

You don’t get Bravo? Check with your cable company. Sammons Communications of Glendale and Avenue TV in Ventura are among the many cable companies nationally that don’t ordinarily carry Bravo, but will include its AIDS programming in their December schedules.

This first Sunday, viewers can see the Peabody and Ace Award-winning “The Los Altos Story,” a documentary about a community hit with AIDS; “Suzi’s Story,” an incredibly moving real-life drama that took cameras into the home of the Lovegrove family as Suzi Lovegrove struggled with her AIDS infection; the 60-second “Moment Without Television,” the industry’s contribution to this year’s “A Day Without Art” dramatization of the impact of AIDS, and “Tarnished Angels,” the 1958 movie that starred Rock Hudson as a newspaperman caught up in the life of a barnstorming pilot.

There are also these highlights: “Talkin’ About AIDS,” an outstanding, frank and, yes, fun educational show directed at teens, plus the uncut version of the apocalyptic, Cole Porter-themed, music-video special, “Red Hot + Blue,” which previously aired in truncated form on ABC. Six music videos--by Tom Waits, Jimmy Sommerville, Salif Keita, the Jungle Brothers, Les Negresses Vertes and Aztec Camera--not shown on that special--have been restored, as have several AIDS informational segments.

“Talkin’ About AIDS” (Sunday at 4:15 p.m.), a fast-paced, attractive and intelligent collage of music, comedy, dramatizations, first-person accounts and animation for teens, is not only informative, but also hip enough to keep viewers hooked long enough to learn something.

From the hilarious, how-to segment--a ventriloquist and his, uh, dummy, demonstrate condom use--and the terrifically articulate title song by rap group Self Defence, to the sobering, first-person accounts from three people with the HIV infection--two of whom died after the show was filmed--and the pointed look at how the media glamorizes sex, this Canadian Atlantis Films production is AIDS education with teeth.

Those who prefer a “just say no to sex” message for teen-agers won’t be pleased; abstinence is referred to as the only sure protection against infection, but most of the show is aimed at teens who are already sexually active or on the verge of becoming so.

Watching several young people take stock on camera after getting the word, however, seems to argue for full disclosure.