Looking for Hits, and Hold the Turkeys

Television executives will be digesting more than turkey this Thanksgiving. With the November ratings sweeps coming to an end Wednesday, followed by the usual assortment of repeats and holiday specials in December, the networks start gearing up for a midseason wave of programming changes in January. NBC is canceling “The John Larroquette Show” and replacing it on Jan. 8 with a new comedy starring Jason Bateman, “Chicago Sons,” at 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays. CBS has already confirmed revising its Wednesday lineup by airing the news program “Coast to Coast” leading into the Larry Hagman drama “Orleans,” while “JAG”--which ran last year on NBC--lands on CBS Fridays. ABC, with several moves to consider, is extremely enthusiastic about “The Practice,” a drama about Boston lawyers from “Chicago Hope” and onetime “L.A. Law” producer David E. Kelley. Meanwhile, the network’s biggest midseason entry, a sitcom with Arsenio Hall, won’t be available until March. Fox’s backups include Pauly Shore and Judge Reinhold comedies as well as “King of the Hill,” an animated series co-created by “Beavis and Butt-head’s” Mike Judge. Most of those shows will be held until after Fox televises the Super Bowl on Jan. 26--just a few days, incidentally, before the February sweeps begin.

Ain’t Nuthin’ but a Feud Thang

In a move seemingly calculated to steal some of the thunder from Tuesday’s release of “Aftermath,” Dr. Dre’s first project since leaving Death Row Records, his former label is releasing its double disc “Greatest Hits” the same day. Dre produced the majority of Death Row’s biggest hits, from Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “Doggystyle” to Tupac Shakur’s last huge single, “California Love.” But Dre, with the exception of a brief mention and a few muddled photos, is barely acknowledged in the “Greatest Hits” CD booklet. Bad blood? Oh yeah. Last March, when Dre left the label he co-founded with entrepreneur Marion “Suge” Knight, it wasn’t on great terms. Dre, in various interviews, has said that he was growing in new creative directions and that he was surrounded by strangers at Death Row; Knight claimed that he let Dre go without any problems, but boasted that the superstar producer left the company empty-handed. And the late Tupac Shakur, in his final interview, claimed that he pushed Dre off the label because he refused to testify in Snoop Doggy Dogg’s murder trial. Either way, Dre left, and Death Row has been mudslinging ever since. Included between the various Dre-produced hits on “Death Row’s Greatest Hits” is Ice Cube’s 1991 ultra-diss, “No Vaseline,” and J-Flex’s mocking “Who Been There, Who Done That?”--a play on “Been There, Done That,” a cut on Dre’s album and the mantra he’s been repeating since abandoning Death Row’s gangsta rap. The Ice Cube track wasn’t even recorded for Death Row, but the track was surely included because of its incendiary dismissal of Dre and the rest of his former N.W.A. cohorts. (Cube and Dre have even reconciled.) “Who Been There . . . “ is even more scathing when Flex complains of not being properly paid or credited for songs he wrote with Dre, including “Keep Their Heads Ringin’,” “Natural Born Killaz” and “California Love.” Dre, musically at least, has made no mention of beefs with his previous partners. Are those songs fighting words? SoundScan’s sales charts will be the arbitrator for this pay-per-beat matchup.

It’s a Ruff World After All

Turning a potential public-relations problem into a plus, Disney is using “101 Dalmatians” to spread the word about the dangers of puppy mills. The movie opens Wednesday, and humane groups say it has already prompted some unscrupulous breeders to step up production, boosting fears that many of the puppies could end up in shelters. The organizations launched a massive fax and mailing campaign, and rather than bristle at the consciousness-raising, Disney is distributing leaflets and online information about responsible pet ownership. On its Web site (https://www.101.com), children can adopt “cyberdogs” of their own. “People regard a high-profile film as an opportunity to publicize issues that normally don’t get much recognition . . . and we’re thrilled to provide it to them,” said Terry Curtin, senior vice president of publicity for Disney. “Unscrupulous breeding of ‘designer dogs’ traces back to the 1950s and has worsened since 1987. None of the 35 stories written these past three weeks would have surfaced if ‘101 Dalmatians’ hadn’t come out.” Charges that puppies were poorly treated on the set were dismissed at the time of production, Curtin adds: “There was a representative of the American Humane Assn. present; many of the stunts were computer-generated; no dogs were bred specifically for the film--and all of the animals were spoken for.”

--Compiled by Times Staff Writers and Contributors