NBA Plans an All-Star Menu for Fans

The National Basketball Assn. takes center stage on television this weekend with a hoop full of events leading up to Sunday’s 47th All-Star game in Cleveland.

The festivities kick off Friday at 7 p.m. with TNT’s “NBA All-Star Friday,” in which Ernie Johnson Jr. previews the weekend activities leading up to the game. The 1996 documentary “NBA at 50,” hosted by Denzel Washington, follows at 8 p.m.

Then on Saturday at 9 a.m., NBC, TNT, Nickelodeon, BET and Telemundo will simultaneously telecast the “1997 NBA TeamUp Celebration,” honoring four students who have had a positive impact on their communities. The special features 1996 Olympic gold medalist Dominique Dawes, LL Cool J and Brandy.

TNT’s “NBA All-Star Saturday Night,” Saturday at 4 p.m., features pro basketball stars competing in the annual rookie game and the million-dollar shot, shootout and slam dunk competitions.

NBC’s live coverage of the NBA All-Star Game itself begins Sunday at 3 p.m. on Channel 4. Top vote-getters Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon will lead their respective conferences, aided by the likes of Grant Hill, Gary Payton, Scottie Pippen and the Lakers’ Eddie Jones.

Elsewhere this weekend:

Thursday

Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal, who played husband and wife in the 1996 film “Flirting With Disaster,” reunite as the parents of Nora (Tea Leoni) in “The Naked Truth,” at 9:30 p.m. on NBC (Channel 4).

Friday

Melissa Joan Hart of ABC’s hit comedy “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” will try to work a little magic on the network’s struggling comedy “Clueless,” at 9:30 p.m. on ABC (Channel 7). This installment was directed by Henry Winkler.

Joan Chen (“The Last Emperor”), Eric Stoltz (“Mask”) and Tate Donovan visit NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Street,” at 10 p.m. on Channel 4.

“W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices,” airing at 9 p.m. on KCET-TV Channel 28, chronicles the life of scholar and political leader William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963). The special examines the struggle for African American integration; the Pan African Congress and Harlem Renaissance; social reform during the Depression; and the peace movement.

PBS’ gay-themed newsmagazine “In the Life,” airing at 11 p.m. on Channel 28, explores gay culture and expression in the South and the emergence of the growing market for lesbian and gay fiction by African American writers.

Comedian Chris Rock, former “Saturday Night Live” regular and the voice of Little Penny on those TV commercials, kicks off his new HBO late-night talk show, “The Chris Rock Show,” early Saturday at 12:30 a.m. Former O.J. Simpson attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. and TAFKAP--the Artist Formerly Known as Prince--are Rock’s premiere guests. The series, which is produced out of New York, is set for a five-week stint. Robert Morton, late of “Late Night With David Letterman,” is the consulting producer.

Saturday

“Tina Turner’s Wildest Dreams Concert,” at 8 p.m. on Showtime, was filmed in Amsterdam during her first international tour in three years and features songs from her latest album as well as her hits such as “Proud Mary” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”

“Saturday Night Live,” at 11:30 p.m. on NBC (Channel 4), features guest host Neve Campbell of Fox’s “Party of Five” and the hit film “Scream,” and musical guest David Bowie.

Sunday

“Nick News Special Edition: Stories From the Dream,” at 8:30 p.m. on Nickelodeon, features interviews with Linda Brown (plaintiff in the landmark 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education desegregation case) and Darnell Martin, the first African American woman to direct a major studio feature film, “I Like It Like That.”

Lifetime’s “Intimate Portrait” series, which airs at 10 p.m., profiles Queen Latifah, the popular rapper and star of Fox’s comedy series “Living Single.”

On the movie front, Lindsay Wagner and Perry King star in “Their Second Chance,” at 8 p.m. on Lifetime, playing a couple who are reunited by the daughter (Tracy Griffith) they gave up for adoption years earlier.

Melissa Gilbert, Joely Fisher and Brian McNamara star in ABC’s “Seduction in a Small Town,” at 9 p.m. on Channel 7. The film focuses on a family whose lives are torn apart when a stranger arrives in town and begins spreading lies about them.

Jeanne Tripplehorn and Arliss Howard star in the latest “Hallmark Hall of Fame” presentation, “William Faulkner’s Old Man,” at 9 p.m. on CBS (Channel 2). Oscar-winning Horton Foote (“To Kill a Mockingbird”) adapted this Faulkner story about two lost souls who rediscover life and love.

PBS’ “Masterpiece Theatre” presents the first half of a new four-hour “Prime Suspect” thriller, at 9 p.m. on Channel 28. Helen Mirren returns in her Emmy Award-winning role as the tough-minded detective Jane Tennison. This time around, she’s transferred from London to Manchester, where she and her team go after a drug dealer (Steve Mackintosh). She also makes the unfortunate error of falling in love with her married superior. The conclusion airs next Sunday.

This weekend’s documentaries include the Discovery Channel’s “Three Minutes to Impact,” at 9 p.m., which explores the impact that meteors have had on our planet and what could happen in the future.

The Canadian documentary “The Envelope, Please,” at 5 p.m. on Bravo, offers a look behind the scenes at the intrigue and politics at the Academy Awards.

Roger Mudd narrates the History Channel’s “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” at 10 p.m., a chronicle of the struggle for control of Chicago’s North Side between George “Bugs” Moran and Al Capone, which culminated in a bloody ambush in a garage on Feb. 14, 1929.

The lineup of guests for weekend public-affairs programs will continue to run Saturdays in Calendar.