Baseball, Movies, Concerts to Help Celebrate Fourth

Television will help America celebrate its 221st birthday today with a firecracker lineup of star-spangled concerts and parades, patriotic movies, baseball games, a tribute to a great American actor and a visit to another planet.

News: CNN will provide extensive coverage of today’s landing on Mars of the unmanned spacecraft Pathfinder, beginning at 7 a.m. The probe is scheduled to beam live pictures of the planet’s surface back to Earth. CNN will also air the special “Journey to the Red Planet” at 10:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m.

KLCS-TV Channel 58 teams up with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to provide 6 1/2 hours of live coverage of the landing on “Mission Mars: A Celebration of Space,” beginning at noon. The Discovery Channel will have reports throughout the day and a summation at 11 p.m.

Specials: KTLA-TV Channel 5 will present a dazzling fireworks display when it broadcasts the “Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular,” which explodes over New York’s East River at 9 p.m. Tom Arnold will host.

The History Channel examines the issue of slavery and how it politically influenced and bedeviled one of the Founding Fathers in the two-hour documentary “Thomas Jefferson: A View From the Mountain,” 8 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Florence Henderson should be in fine voice for the holiday concert for “A Capitol Fourth,” at 9 p.m. on KCET-TV Channel 28. The extravaganza from Washington features a 40th anniversary celebration of the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim musical “West Side Story.” Kenny Rogers, Deana Carter, Jon Secada, Maria Conchita Alonso and James Galway are among the performers. Erich Kunzel conducts the National Symphony Orchestra.

Jack Perkins and Mary Richardson will be on the banks of the Charles River in Boston to host the traditional concert “Pops Goes the Fourth,” at 4:30 p.m. on A&E.; The show will feature the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, led by Keith Lockhart.

Patrick Duffy emcees CBS’ “What’s Right With America,” at 8 p.m. on Channel 2. The docudrama celebrates America’s rights and freedoms.

MSNBC’s “America on the Fourth” takes viewers to live Independence Day celebrations around the country. John Gibson will host the show from Roswell, N.M., where UFO believers and skeptics will gather as Gibson retells the strange events that occurred there 50 years ago. Festivities include an alien costume contest.

CNBC presents “Financial Independence Day,” a daylong series of business programs featuring advice from leading financial planners on investing wisely, starting a small business, buying real estate and retirement planning, at 8 a.m.

Tim Conway hosts “The Beef: Neighborhood Beefs,” at noon on the Family Channel. The investigative comedy focuses on strained relationships between neighbors.

Movies: American Movie Classics salutes the late Jimmy Stewart with a daylong film festival, starting at 3 a.m. Included in this tribute are the gritty westerns “Broken Arrow” at 4:45 a.m., “Winchester ‘73” at 10 a.m. and “The Far Country” at 1:30 p.m.

“Operation TNT” plans a 19-hour attack of war films starting at 5 a.m. with “Midway,” starring Henry Fonda and an all-star cast; also included are “Kelly’s Heroes,” with Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas, at 9 a.m.; “MacArthur” has Gregory Peck in the title role at 7 p.m.; and the 1967 box-office hit “The Dirty Dozen,” starring Lee Marvin, at 11:30 p.m.

Marathons: Beginning at 7 a.m., E! Entertainment Television broadcasts 16 back-to-back episodes of its “Uncut” series hosted by Eleanor Mondale. Among the actors profiled are Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, Woody Harrelson and John Travolta.

FX dons its Bat cowl for the Fourth to pursue the villains who made Batman and Robin’s life in Gotham City a holy nightmare on the “FX Star-Spangled Batman Marathon,” 7 a.m. The show features episodes from the camp Adam West ‘60s series.

The History Channel’s “Great Ships Marathon” sets sail at 9 p.m. with seafaring stories about “The Clippers,” “Ocean Liners,” “Tugboats” and “The Dreadnoughts.”

The nation’s natural treasures are spotlighted for eight hours on the Learning Channel’s “Wonders of America,” at 9 a.m. Majestic views of Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon are included.

Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto live it up in more than 12 hours of animated favorites on “Disney’s Fab Five 4th,” 10 a.m. on Disney Channel.

Parades: KOCE-TV Channel 50 rides along with Grand Marshal Dawn Wells (“Gilligan’s Island”) in the “Huntington Beach Fourth of July Parade,” at 10 a.m.

Sports: ESPN presents a holiday baseball triple-header when the Pittsburgh Pirates play the St. Louis Cardinals at noon, followed by the New York Yankees vs. the Toronto Blue Jays at 4 p.m. and ending with the Seattle Mariners at the Angels at 7 p.m. The Dodgers visit the San Diego Padres at 6 p.m. on Channel 5.

NBC begins a big weekend of tennis at Wimbledon with the men’s singles semifinals scheduled at 11 a.m.

In women’s basketball, the Houston Comets play host to the New York Liberty in WNBA action at 6 p.m. on Lifetime.