Addams Family

If you're a fat actor, "Homicide: Life on the Street" is the television program for you. The same goes for actors who are gap-toothed, beaky, acne-scarred or skanky in a hundred other ways that would exclude them from the vast majority of shows produced in Hollywood. In that regard, "Homicide" is the Statue of Liberty of TV programs. Give me your blemished, your pockmarked, your hairless heads yearning to be seen on network television. Another pretty face is the last thing the casting office at "Homicide" wants, unless it belongs to an actor good enough to overcome pleasing looks.

If you're not a basketball fan (the NCAA men's semifinals) or ice-skating fan, the pickings look pretty slim tonight. Let's see what we can dredge up."About Us: The Dignity of Children" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- Oprah Winfrey is your host, as kids throughout the country talk about what it's like being a kid. Some adults, including Oprah, offer their thoughts, too. ABC."The Cotton Incorporated Ultimate Four" (8 p.m.-11 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- Wow, prime-time ice skating, what a surprise!

Finally, an election that means something.The stakes are high: four solid hours of election-night TV on Nickelodeon.And the choice is clear: "The Addams Family" or "The Munsters." Gomez or Herman? Morticia or Lily?" 'The Munsters' was actually a friendlier family show," insists Butch Patrick, who played Eddie, the youngest member -- and only werewolf -- of the family that took up residence at 1313 Mockingbird Lane on CBS from 1964 to 1966. "People come up to me and mention that they liked the show as kids, whereas 'The Addams Family' had more of a darker side, the humor was a little more macabre."

Tonight's highlight: an intriguing look at politics, American style, on PBS."Melrose Place" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- In an episode postponed by last week's World Series game, you'll meet three new characters tonight: Greg Evigan, as a rehab clinic owner; Kelly Rutherford, as a mystery woman and David Charvet, as somebody's son. Fox."Her Costly Affair" (9 p.m.-11 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- Bonnie Bedelia is a university professor who decides to have a fling with one of her graduate students.

One of the greatest science fiction films of all time (and a pretty good horror movie, too) airs on Sci-Fi tonight. Check it out but be forewarned, it's pretty intense."

Let me be blunt:Call your local cable company right now and tell them to get on the stick and add the new TV Land channel to their lineup.Why? Because it's the only way you'll be able to reacquaint yourself with everyone from "Mannix" to "That Girl" to "Hogan's Heroes" to the gang on "Hill Street Blues."Tomorrow night, Nickelodeon is pre-empting its regular Nick-at-Nite programming to air the TV Land kickoff from 8 p.m. until 5: 30 a.m. the next day. Tune in and find out what you'll be missing unless the cable companies here wake up and smell the coffee (none of them has yet added the channel to their lineups)

Do you really want to pay $29.95 for the O. J. interview? I mean, what is he going to say? I'm guessing a variation of, "I didn't do it." Far better to watch NBC tonight and hear the O. J. Simpson jurors say what they were thinking. Now, that should be interesting.* "Rock 'N' Roll Skating Championships" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- Tired of all those figure skaters gliding over the ice to the music of a bunch of dead composers? This may be your lucky night: Oksana Baiul is going to skip the ballet for once and skate to Aerosmith.

The college game or the pros? Another dilemma looms for basketball fans, as the NCAA Tournament continues on CBS, while Michael Jordan makes his first home-court appearance since coming out of retirement in an NBA telecast on cable.* "NCAA Tournament" (7:30 p.m.-12:35 a.m., Channel 13) -- Tonight's double-header concluding the regional semifinals offers Wake Forest and Oklahoma in the East, followed by Virginia and Kansas from the Midwest. CBS.* "VR.5" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., Channel 45) -- Continuing the development of this new spring series, Sydney (Lori Singer)

"The Addams Family," of two years ago, wasn't so much a movie as a series of dreary skits which set up the occasional static recreation of great moments from the oeuvre of the brilliant New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams, who originated the macabre deadpan as a comic mode. It was OK if your taste in entertainment ran to dioramas.Of course it made a lot of money because, via an even drearier mid-1960s TV series, it was hardwired into the collective unconscious of the Big Generation spawned by the four years of artificial abstinence in World War II. It was like taking candy from a baby boomer.

On one of the walls of Walt Ritchie's office in an old Philadelphia mansion is a poster of "The Addams Family." Morticia, Gomez, Lurch, Uncle Fester . . . the whole gang. Mr. Ritchie didn't put it there. His predecessor did. Sort of came with the job. Truth is, Mr. Ritchie never saw the once-popular TV series, "not even the reruns."In fact, Mr. Ritchie hadn't yet touched his first Lincoln Log when "The Addams Family" was on in the mid-1960s."I watched 'The Munsters,' " he says.The poster isn't hanging in Mr. Ritchie's office just for kicks or to hide a hole.