RADIO

Limbaugh Says He’s Going Deaf

Syndicated radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh told his listeners Monday that, for all practically purposes, he is deaf. But he hopes to continue on the job.

Over the last three months, he said, he’s lost 100% of his hearing in his left ear and 80% in the right. Signs of the condition began on May 29; a complete diagnosis is still underway.

“I cannot communicate with people,” Limbaugh told his audience. “I can occasionally talk to people one on one, if their voice frequency happens to fit in the range that I can still hear. But I cannot hear radio. I cannot hear television. I cannot hear music.”

Limbaugh’s weekday show is carried on 600 stations, including KFI-AM (640) in Los Angeles. In July, he signed a new contract with the Premiere Radio Network keeping him on the air through 2009.

Limbaugh says he plans to honor the contract, with the help of sophisticated technology. He’s already taking prescribed medication to retain what hearing remains. The network, too, said it’s standing firm and plans no changes in Limbaugh’s format.

Lessons in Comedy From the Pros

Attention, class: Steve Martin is giving lessons in classic comedy in a new radio show that premiered Saturday on Minnesota Public Radio.

Martin will host the majority of shows in the 39-week season of “Comedy College,” analyzing classic sketches from comedians such as Bob Newhart, Lenny Bruce and Bill Cosby.

The half-hour show is airing on Saturdays on Minnesota Public Radio and the Internet at https://www.comedycollege.net. Pasadena-based KPCC-FM (89.3), which is operated by Minnesota Public Radio, has not decided whether it will air the series.

TELEVISION

Season’s First Casualty: CBS Does In ‘Danny’

“Danny,” a new comedy starring Daniel Stern, has become the first cancellation of the 2001-02 TV season, with CBS dropping the series after just two telecasts.

The network will replace the show this Friday with a rerun of its Monday night sitcom “Yes, Dear” but has not set any scheduling plans beyond that.

Originally titled “American Wreck,” “Danny” followed “The Ellen Show,” but both shows have struggled on Friday nights. CBS was hoping to use the twice-delayed Emmy Awards, which Ellen DeGeneres was scheduled to host, as a platform to promote the new comedies.

Football and the News: Coverage Varied

News appetite during the U.S. strikes against Afghanistan on Sunday varied from city to city, as some TV networks stuck to regularly scheduled programming and others went with wall-to-wall news.

An overwhelming number of the 200 Viacom-owned CBS affiliates chose football over dispatches from the Middle East, according to the network’s executive vice president of communications, Gil Schwartz.

CBS viewers in New York, L.A. and Philadelphia received nonstop coverage from Dan Rather. But in Boston, Miami and Detroit, a crawl was set up across the bottom of the CBS football broadcast informing viewers that Rather could be seen on the local UPN station--also owned by Viacom

Though Fox stuck to its football games, it cut to news reports before each game and during halftimes. ABC scrapped its entertainment and sports programming for network news. NBC stayed with network news until 4:30 p.m., at which point it went back to sports.

MOVIES

Filmmakers Meet With the Military

Talk about role reversal: U.S. government intelligence agents solicited terrorist scenarios from Hollywood filmmakers and writers.

An ad hoc group convened at USC last week at the request of the U.S. Army, Variety reported Monday. The group has already met twice with the Pentagon via teleconference.

Those in attendance included screenwriter Steven E. DeSouza (“Die Hard”), TV writer David Engelbach (“MacGyver”) and directors David Fincher (“Fight Club”), Spike Jonze (“Being John Malkovich”) and Randal Kleiser (“Grease”).

In 1999, the Army awarded USC a five-year contract to create the Institute for Creative Technologies, with a mandate to enlist the talents of the entertainment industry to advance the state of virtual-reality training for soldiers.

ICT creative director James Korris confirmed that the filmmaker meetings were ongoing but declined to elaborate about its specific recommendations.

THEATER

‘Reefer’ Takes Hits in Off-Broadway Bow

The L.A. hit “Reefer Madness” has taken a bad trip moving to off-Broadway, according to reviews of the New York production.

“So catch-all that it suffocates on its own bloatedness,” said Ben Brantley of the New York Times.

Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press agreed: “This dumb, chaotic little spoof is so strenuously unfunny that, instead of producing a theatrical high, has the opposite effect--deep-dish depression.”

Though Newsday’s Gordon Cox credited the production with “bubblegum energy,” Donald Lyons of the New York Post had no patience for the show, which is based on a 1936 propaganda film. “[It] is so bad, it might serve as a warning for satirical musicals, just as the film has for anti-drug movies,” he said.

QUICK TAKES

Mariah Carey, recuperating from a recent emotional and physical breakdown, will participate in her first online chat to support her movie “Glitter” on the MSN network at 5 p.m. today ) at https://https://chat.msn.com/mariahcarey.msnw.... The Christian pop group Dc Talk has postponed its fall tour, which was to have included an appearance at the Greek Theatre on Friday.