TELEVISIONCould It Be Magic?: Chevy’s gone, but...

TELEVISION

Could It Be Magic?: Chevy’s gone, but there’s still Jay, Dave and Arsenio. And pretty soon there might be Magic. Magic Johnson will interview country singer Garth Brooks, actress Whoopi Goldberg and basketball star Shaquille O’Neal for a special Fox will broadcast next month. “It might be a recurring special if Magic has a good time doing it,” Fox programming chief Sandy Grushow said Friday. Fox wanted to do a Barbara Walters type of interview special with someone like Johnson as host, Grushow said.

Miniseries, Mini People: Fox’s Children’s Network will offer a miniseries as part of its Saturday morning lineup. “The Tick,” based on Ben Edlund’s cult hit comic book, will be a six-part animated series about a giant blue 400-pound arachnid doing his best to take a bite out of crime. It will premiere in March. . . . Also coming for kids on Fox will be an animated version of “Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?” The series, based on PBS’ live-action game show and the popular computer game, will join the Fox Saturday morning lineup on Feb. 5.

Grandpa Al: Al Lewis says he can’t bear to see himself on the screen. Lewis, who earned fame as Grandpa on “The Munsters” and as Officer Leo Schnauser in “Car 54, Where are You?,” says he never watched either TV show. “I’ve done about 400 TV episodes, and I never saw a single one of them,” the actor, now 83, says in the Jan. 22 TV Guide. Lewis says he will attend the premiere of the movie version of “Car 54,” in which he returns to the Schnauser role, but he won’t be there for long. “The moment you start the picture, I’m gone,” said Lewis, who gives a simple explanation for his boycotts: “I just don’t want to see me.”

POP

Playing Vietnam: Bryan Adams said it didn’t take much to get Ho Chi Minh City rocking. “It’s entertainment. They want it. They’re starved for it,” Adams, a Canadian, said after his concert Sunday. “You can tell by the reaction of the audience.” The concert was the first by a major Western entertainer since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. At first, the audience clapped politely. But by night’s end, Adams had them on their feet. Some even gyrated. “I like it; I like it very much,” said student Truong Huong Trung, 20, who was singing and dancing in the aisle. The ticket prices of $15 to $35 amounted to several weeks’ pay for average Vietnamese workers.

I Thank My MTV: John Mellencamp says MTV did him a favor by censoring portions of his new video, “When Jesus Left Birmingham.” The cable TV music video station put computer-generated video blocks over images it considered inappropriate, such as characters in blackface and whiteface and people using needles. Mellencamp publicist Jody Miller said the video was meant to highlight a deteriorating society and show the temptations that children face. But the singer said the MTV changes might actually be for the better. “Their standards and practices edict has brought more attention to the very issue I’m talking about in the song and the video anyway,” Mellencamp said.

Fender-Bender: The Fullerton Museum Center will extend its hours Wednesday through Monday in response to the popularity of its exhibit on guitar pioneer Leo Fender. The center will be open noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; noon to 10 p.m. Friday through Sunday; and noon to 6 p.m. Monday. “Five Decades of Fender: The Sound Heard Around the World” has broken the center’s daily attendance record.

That’s the Ticket: Don’t mess with fans of country singer Vince Gill. In North Carolina, Tina Wolfe is so determined to be first in line to buy tickets for a Gill concert that she’s already camping outside the Asheville Civic Center box office--even though seats don’t go on sale until Feb. 12. The concert is March 24. Through sleet and snow and below-zero cold, the Asheville woman and relatives have camped in a van outside the arena’s front doors since Tuesday. Friends bring food and drink. Said Wolfe: “I promised Mama front-row seats.”