KCET Breaks With History to Fund ‘Chicano!’ Series : Television: Public station’s 11 1/2-hour telethon Sunday is believed to be the first such effort by a PBS station in support of a single production.

For 11 1/2 hours beginning at noon Sunday, KCET-TV Channel 28 is doing something it has never done in more than three decades of existence: airing a telethon to raise money for a specific national production instead of for itself.

Quite likely, a comparable event has not been held by any other major PBS station, other than Iowa Public Television and area commercial stations holding a joint fund-raiser for flood victims in 1993. PBS officials, however, were unable to recall one held on behalf of a particular TV program.

Featuring a marathon of programming on Latino culture along with live and taped guest appearances by leading Latino political and entertainment figures, the KCET telethon is designed to raise money for “Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement,” a four-part series expected to air on PBS during the 1996-97 season.

The telethon, presented in conjunction with the National Latino Communications Center here, will also serve as KCET’s kickoff celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15).

A highlight of the daylong event will be the premiere of “Songs of the Homeland,” a program about the evolving story of tejano music set against the backdrop of Mexican American history in South Texas. The documentary, airing at noon, was produced and directed by Hector Galan of Galan Productions Inc. in Austin, Tex.

Meanwhile, the $2.1-million “Chicano !,” a co-production of Latino Communications and Galan Productions in association with KCET, is close to completion but thus far has no money for the educational and community outreach materials that the producers want to distribute with it. The project has been on the drawing boards for about five years.

“We have committed ourselves to doing everything we possibly can to generate support,” said Stephen Kulczycki, KCET’s senior vice president for programming and its station manager. “We made some headway on production [but] we want to make sure there is a written legacy for what this series is [about] for people who study [the subject].”

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Major contributors to “Chicano!” are the Ford Foundation, $700,000; the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, $478,000; the MacArthur Foundation, $350,000; PBS, $300,000, and the Rockefeller Foundation, $250,000.

Kulczycki said he came up with the idea for the telethon “after being kind of frustrated about how difficult it has been to raise corporate and foundation money” for the series.

“We can’t do this for every series, we can’t do it for every project, but I can’t think of anything we worked on for four years-plus that needed it more,” Kulczycki noted.

Kulczycki declined to say how much he would like to raise for “Chicano!” Sunday or whether the show would repeat. However, Jose Luis Ruiz, executive producer of “Chicano!” and executive director of Latino Communications, said they would be happy “if we could do anything over $50,000.”

Ruiz said the ultimate goal for outreach materials is $700,000. “But you have to understand the spirit of what KCET is doing,” he said. “That’s what we really appreciate--giving us this opportunity, turning over their air time.”

Other highlights Sunday include the “American Playhouse” production of “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez” (1:30 p.m.), starring Edward James Olmos; the “Great Performances” production of the opera “El Gato Montes” (4 p.m.), featuring Placido Domingo; and Linda Ronstadt’s “Canciones de Mi Padre” (7:30 p.m.).

Although Sunday is the day of the Emmys and KCET faced some initial problems in drawing guests, more than a dozen are committed to appearing live, including Olmos, director Greg Nava (“Mi Familia”), Rep. Esteban Torres (D-La Puente) and Linda Griego, executive director of Rebuild L.A. Appearing on tape will be Freddie Fender, the singer-songwriter who narrates “Songs of the Homeland,” and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros and Transportation Secretary Federico Pena.