Candid Camera

Honoring Mrs. Parks The overwhelming vote in favor of awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Rosa Parks is long overdue. For nearly 50 years, Mrs. Parks has been an activist in the fight for equal rights and justice for all Americans. In receiving the honor, the woman often called the "mother of the civil rights movement" will join an eclectic group of medal recipients. Among them: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of 250 million Orthodox Christians; evangelist Billy Graham; band leader Fred Waring; and artist Andrew Wyeth.

A handyman was arrested yesterday by Baltimore County police after he was allegedly recorded on videotape stealing three gold coins worth close to $1,000 from the home of a Riderwood man who had hired him for a refurbishing job.The homeowner, Raymond Steward, said he hired the handyman and several other people early last month to work on parts of his newly purchased home.The job of the handyman, identified by police as 40-year-old Gilbert C. Kessler, was stripping old, upstairs oak balusters.

WASHINGTON -- Imagine the damage Rep. Jose Serrano could do if he had an agent.Character parts? He can play those. Serious drama? No problem. Comedy? Just give him the script. This New York Democrat, who has done just one TV cameo, still thrives on his political job but is simply bored with C-SPAN. He wants prime time."To this day, people stop me in the hallways and say, 'Hey man, I saw you on "Law & Order." When are you going back on that show?' " says Serrano. "We who are in Congress think the whole world knows us. But everybody watches the TV shows.

Happy 66th, Liz.The celebration for Elizabeth Taylor goes on all day and all night on TCM, with plenty of outstanding titles along the way. (And they're being shown in essentially chronological order.) First, from 1944, it's 12-year-old Elizabeth in "National Velvet" (6 a.m.-8: 05 a.m.). In the evening, the selections include "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958) at 8 p.m., followed by her Oscar-winning turn in "Butterfield 8" (1960) at 10 p.m. and "Suddenly Last Summer" (1959) at midnight.At a glance"Candid Camera" (8: 30 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13)

It's a night of folks just like you and me on CBS (at least until 10 o'clock, when Don Johnson takes over)."Candid Camera Across America" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Peter Funt, son of "Candid Camera" originator Allen Funt, follows in his dad's footsteps by taking his hidden camera across America, traveling 30,000 miles and visiting 16 states to prove ordinary people can still be awfully funny when they don't realize they're on camera. CBS."Sabrina, The Teenage Witch" (9 p.m.-9: 30 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2)

''Smile, you're on Candid Camera'' -- Howard County traffic warning.Americans are angry at Milosevic for starting wars and atrocities which Belgrade demonstrators are mad at him for stopping.Cheer up. Baltimore is only 22nd worst of 50 cities in the Roadway Congestion Index.The Os took the Key out of YanKey.Pub Date: 12/11/96

Smile, you're on Candid Camera."Candid Camera's 50th Anniversary" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- A healthy mixture of new and old is served up as Peter Funt, Alan's son, toasts the golden celebration of his father's brainchild, catching people in the act of being themselves. Highlights include Buster Keaton eating soup (hilariously, believe me) and a 15-year-old Richard Lewis. Will they include the bit where a service station attendant popped the hood on a car, only to find no engine there?

The newest MTV series, "Buzzkill," is prefaced by a viewer advisory, like the same network's "Beavis and Butt-head." The conspiratorial and playful tone is the same; only the words are different."

They grunted. They groaned. They snarled. They snorted. One gent even whipped his cane back over his shoulder as if to whack the head off anyone who got near him.The group from the Allen Senior Citizens Center in South Baltimore was learning how to scare off muggers by looking threatening, by practicing that snarl that says, "Don't mess with me," in a mirror at the Martial Art of Karate school on Airport Park Road in Glen Burnie."

I WAS enjoying dinner in a nice restaurant with an old friend and his very pregnant wife when suddenly the conversation took an ominous turn."We're videotaping the birth of our child," my friend said proudly.I waited for his wife to reach over and crack him on the skull with the pepper grinder and say, "Over my dead body, sport."Instead, she flashed an eerie Stepford Wives-like smile and chirped: "Yes, it'll be so exciting!"So it's come to this, I thought. My social life has declined to such a level that I am actually keeping company in a cheap Mexican joint with a madman and his equally unstable wife.