Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

TV & RADIO

On Second Thought: The History Channel has canceled plans for a series of programs profiling American corporations such as AT&T;, DuPont and General Motors that were to have been funded and controlled by the companies themselves. The growing cable network cited “recent concerns expressed which suggested the appearance of lack of objectivity surrounding this work-in-progress” as its reason for abandoning “The Spirit of Enterprise” series. Advertising Age had published news of the series last week, prompting a flurry of criticism over the network’s unusual relationship with the corporations involved.

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LaPaglia Tapped for ‘Murder One’: “He’s the man,” said producer Steven Bochco of actor Anthony LaPaglia, referring to his next “Murder One” leading actor. Bochco said Friday that he had cast LaPaglia, whose last TV character was basketball coach Jim Valvano in the CBS movie “Never Give Up: The Jimmy V. Story,” to replace Daniel Benzali as a “big-shot” defense lawyer for the ABC series’ second season. “He’s great, and he’s turned down an awful lot of television stuff,” Bochco said of LaPaglia, who appears this fall with Courteney Cox and Aidan Quinn in the big screen movie “Commandments.” “He’s a wonderful actor, he’s the right age, and he has all the qualities you’d want. . . . He’s smart, he has warmth and humor, and he’s sexy.” Besides, Bochco joked, “he’s the only one who would do it.”

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Calling All Bids: Today is the last day to bid on more than 100 celebrity-donated items including a tour of Madonna’s Hollywood Hills villa, a “Mission: Impossible” crew jacket autographed by Tom Cruise, a walk-on part on CBS’ “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and a visit to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. The offerings are part of a live radio auction organized by KIIS-FM (102.7) in conjunction with tonight’s “KIIS and Unite IV” concert at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. Proceeds from both the concert and auction will go to Cities in Schools, the nation’s largest program to keep kids in school. Pledges and bids can be made through 10 p.m. tonight by calling (800) 520-1027 or online at https://www.kiisfm.com

MOVIES

Marketing at the Market: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame Musical Discovery Adventure,” a free traveling festival offering two live shows of Walt Disney animation and music every hour, will stop at the Century City Shopping Center & Marketplace next Friday through Saturday during regular mall hours. Are big crowds expected? Well, 8,000 additional complimentary parking spaces will be available near the mall. The “Hunchback” tour, which has visited 20 cities across the country, will then proceed to the Oaks Shopping Center in Thousand Oaks on June 19 and 20, just before the June 21 opening of the animated “Hunchback of Notre Dame” movie.

ART

LACMA Show Canceled: “Hidden in Plain Sight: Illusion in Art From Jasper Johns to Virtual Reality,” a major exhibition that had been in process for more than two years at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and was scheduled to open there Oct. 27, has been canceled because of insufficient funding. “I loved the project. It was just the kind of exhibition we should be doing,” LACMA President Andrea L. Rich said. But the show had been approved by trustees on the condition that outside funds could be raised. As the budget grew to about $500,000, sponsors weren’t available, she said. Rich also blamed “a lack of shared perspective” between the show’s organizers, senior curator emeritus Maurice Tuchman and co-curator Virginia Rutledge. She declined to elaborate but said that the decision “does not indicate anything negative at all between Maurice and the museum.” Tuchman, who retired from LACMA in 1994 but has continued as a guest curator, was effectively demoted under previous leadership. He sued the museum’s support group and he was reinstated as part of a settlement. The loss of his exhibition reflects a massive reorganization of the museum’s programs and resources, Rich said. No other shows have been canceled but several have been postponed.

QUICK TAKES

Eighty-eight-year-old vibraphonist Lionel Hampton will join the Washington High School of the Arts Jazz Band in a rare public concert on Sunday at 3 p.m. at Washington Preparatory High School, 10860 S. Denker Ave. Students from Jefferson, Dorsey, Locke and Crenshaw high schools will also participate. Tickets are $5-$25. . . . An L.A. Municipal Court judge ruled Friday that rapper Tupac Shakur, who was scheduled to begin a 120-day jail sentence, could remain free on bail while he appeals a conviction for probation violations. In April, the same judge found that Shakur had violated his probation on two separate misdemeanor battery cases by being arrested and convicted on sex abuse charges in New York and by failing to do court-ordered Caltrans work. . . . Prosecutors have issued a $60,000 arrest warrant for former Milli Vanilli member Robert Pilatus, who walked out of a North Hollywood rehabilitation facility earlier this week. In April, a judge ordered Pilatus to undergo six months of live-in treatment at the facility as part of his sentence for three violent attacks. . . . Paul McCartney was accompanied by Queen Elizabeth II on Friday for the official opening of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, set up by the former Beatle in a building that once housed the school attended by McCartney and George Harrison as teenagers.