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

COMEDY

Following in Twain’s Footsteps: Richard Pryor will be the first recipient of a new Kennedy Center prize created to honor American humorists who “so entertain us--with honesty, surrealism, silliness and sheer joy.” The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize, named after “one of the world’s greatest exponents of humor,” will be presented to Pryor on Oct. 20 as the culmination of a three-day Celebration of American Humor, featuring lectures, symposiums and master classes at the prestigious Washington performing arts center. The Twain award ceremony--scheduled to include appearances by Chevy Chase, Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Damon Wayans and Robin Williams, will be taped by cable’s Comedy Central for showing in early 1999. Kennedy Center President Lawrence J. Wilker said Pryor was chosen as the prize’s first annual recipient because “as a stand-up comic, writer and actor, he struck a chord and a nerve with America, forcing it to look at large social questions of race and the more tragicomic aspects of the human condition.” Pryor, 57, has slowed his performance schedule since being found to have multiple sclerosis in 1986.

TV & VIDEO

‘Roseanne’ Ratings: “The Roseanne Show,” the new talk show hosted by Roseanne, had a respectable outing in its premiere on Monday. The program, which airs weekdays at 10 a.m. on KNBC-TV Channel 4, attracted 11% of the available local audience, coming in second in the time period behind “The Price Is Right” on KCBS-TV Channel 2, and tying with “Sally Jessy Raphael” on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and “I Love Lucy”-”Andy Griffith” on KTTV-TV Channel 11. “The Roseanne Show” also had a larger viewership than “The View” on KABC-TV Channel 7.

*

Pre-Pubescent Spade: “Just Shoot Me” star David Spade is developing a prime-time NBC cartoon loosely based on his dysfunctional childhood. The comedy, tentatively titled “Peewee,” is targeted for a January 2000 premiere and would be NBC’s first original prime-time animated series since 1964’s “Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo.” Spade plans to provide the voice for the main character and his ne’er-do-well father.

*

Is Nothing Sacred?: NBC promises to answer the question “Is wrestling fake?” with the Nov. 1 special “Exposed! Pro Wrestling’s Greatest Secrets.” Taped at Los Angeles’ famed Olympic Auditorium, the hourlong show will feature eight pro grapplers “disguised behind colorful masks” to protect their identities. It is executive-produced by Bruce Nash, the creator of Fox’s “Breaking the Magician’s Code” specials.

*

24-Hour ‘Cold War’: Time Warner Home Video will release all 24 episodes of “Cold War,” a series that CNN calls its “most important production” in the cable news network’s history, on Oct. 6, long before most of the hourlong episodes have been shown on television. “Cold War,” to be released as an eight-tape video set (with a suggested price of $120), premieres on CNN on Sept. 27, with the final episode to air April 4. Kenneth Branagh narrates the series, which is culled from more than 1 million feet of film footage and the observations of more than 500 eyewitnesses to the historical conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.

*

Examining ‘Pursuit of Sleaze’: TV writer-producer Lionel Chetwynd (“Kissinger & Nixon”) is at work on a series of three “National Desk” PBS specials focusing on “the coarsening of life in America.” The public affairs programs were planned long before the release of the Starr report, but in a case of fortuitous timing, Chetwynd on Monday interviewed House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), a central figure in talk about possible presidential impeachment proceedings. The three specials, including one called “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sleaze: Media and Politics,” are scheduled to air early next year.

DANCE

The Fosses, by Another Name: The L.A. Dance Foundation’s annual awards honoring choreography in motion pictures, TV, music videos and commercials will take place Oct. 18 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre with a new name: the American Choreography Awards. Tickets to the awards, previously known as the Fosses (as in choreographer Bob Fosse), will be available to the public for the first time. Nominees include “Bring In ‘Da Noise” star Savion Glover (for his special “Savion Glover’s Nu York,” which aired on ABC), modern dancer-choreographer Daniel Ezralow (for CBS’ “To Life! America Celebrates Israel’s 50th”), and choreographer Travis Payne (for both the video to Brian Setzer’s “Jump Jive an’ Wail” and for the Gap’s “Khakis Swing” commercial).

QUICK TAKES

Two-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep gets her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during 11:30 a.m. ceremonies today at 7018 Hollywood Blvd. Streep’s latest movie, “One True Thing,” opens Friday. . . . John Mauceri, principal conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra for eight seasons, will conduct his 150th Bowl concert on Friday. Mauceri, the leader in Bowl appearances (Michael Tilson Thomas conducted 62 concerts there; Zubin Mehta conducted 51), has now been seen in action by more than 2 million Bowl patrons. Saturday’s concert is a tribute to Warner Bros. film music. . . . Cable’s TBS has acquired rerun rights to “Seinfeld” starting in 2002. It’s also bought “Home Improvement,” “Friends” and “Drew Carey” for future runs. . . . BET Movies is planning a slate of cable movies “by and about African Americans” featuring actors including Morgan Freeman, Alfre Woodard, Loretta Devine, CCH Pounder and Melvin Van Peebles. Both feature-length films and documentaries are planned. BET Movies’ first original feature, “Funny Valentines,” is slated for early 1999.