Ed Sullivan Show

On ABC tonight, it's the return of the return of John, Paul, George and Ringo."Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Dr. Quinn's about to have her baby, so of course Mom and Sis arrive to help. Meanwhile, the Army gets orders to move the Indians to another reservation and Sully (Joe Lando) is injured trying to help his friend Cloud Dancing (Larry Sellers). CBS."Ushuaia: The Ultimate Adventure" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- French adventurer Nicholas Hulot performs all sorts of derring-do, including: swimming with a 45-foot whale shark in Australia, hang-gliding in the Alps and walking atop a Manhattan construction site.

LOS ANGELES -- Michael Landon's last movie, a reunion of the gang from "M*A*S*H" and Francis Ford Coppola directing live television dramas were among the major programming moves announced by CBS yesterday.* "Us" is the two-hour movie pilot for a new series that Landon had been working on for CBS before his recent death. It will air during the fall premiere week of Sept. 16, Jeff Sagansky, the president of CBS Entertainment said yesterday at a press conference here.In the film, Landon plays an innocent man convicted of murder, who is released from prison after 18 years.

Los Angeles"At first, I said it can't be done, because the memory of the show is too pure and respected," Mary Tyler Moore said yesterday. "But now I'm all for it."Mary's coming back. So is Lou. So is Archie, Edith and Meathead, too.CBS yesterday rolled out its February "sweeps" ratings strategy: reunions and retrospectives of shows that have earned a spot in our national memory.On Feb. 16, CBS will air the "All In The Family 20th Anniversary Special." On Feb. 17, Carol Burnett will host "The Very Best of The Ed Sullivan Show," and on Feb. 18, the network will offer "Mary Tyler Moore: The 20th Anniversary Show."

NEW YORK -- Alan King, the stand-up comedian who parlayed a Borscht Belt sense of humor, a tummler's cheek and a big appetite for the limelight into a thoroughgoing show business career that lasted more than half a century, died yesterday morning at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. He was 76, and lived in King's Point, N.Y. The cause was lung cancer, said his wife of 57 years, Jeanette. King was an unabashed exemplar of Jewish comedy whose sensibility, delivery -- and accent -- never migrated far from their Brooklyn roots.

LOS ANGELES -- Two comedy mavens will open new clubs in Los Angeles this week -- even though the recent comedy climate has been no laughing matter.After four years of planning, Richard Fields, Catch a Rising Star founder and chief executive officer, will open a comedy-variety club tomorrow in Universal City. He has signed a joint partnership deal with Universal Studios.Fields opened his first club in New York 20 years ago and has several clubs around the country. He also maintains a management agency for comedians.

Clinton E Riggs,86, a Tulsa, Okla., police officer credited with creating the "Yield" traffic sign, died Thursday in Tulsa.He was a state trooper with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, where he apparently thought of creating a sign that would control traffic at an intersection as well as assign liability in a collision, according to the Tulsa Police Department's history book.He developed the keystone-shaped, yellow-and-black sign while attending Northwestern Traffic Institute in 1939, experimenting with it for a decade.

Senor Wences, 103, the master ventriloquist who delighted "Ed Sullivan Show" audiences by bantering in a comic Spanish accent with his puppet-in-a-box Pedro ("S'OK?" "S'awright!") and his falsetto-voiced hand puppet Johnny, died yesterday at his home in New York City.During the Golden Age of television in the 1950s and '60s, the Spanish-born Senor Wences, whose real name was Wenceslao Moreno, bickered and bantered with his puppets while he drank, smoked and juggled.One of his puppets was gravelly voiced Pedro, who consisted only of a head in a box. Pedro was born out of necessity when Senor Wences' ventriloquist's dummy was damaged and only the head was spared.

The big question along the Great White Way: Will Dave or won't Dave begin his new "Late Show With David Letterman" at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York Aug. 30?The answer: It looks like he will.There has been some recent speculation, both in the TV industry and in the press, that CBS' renovation of the 66-year-old theater has been behind schedule. And if the landmark theater isn't ready, how can the show go on?A CBS executive in charge of the renovation said Monday, however, that the network will complete the overhaul of the Ed Sullivan Theater at West 53rd and Broadway in Manhattan by the end of this week and -- despite unexpected construction problems -- it will be ready.

TELEVISION STATIONS actually went off the air at night when Newton Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, declared the medium a "vast wasteland" 35 years ago. Then there were just three networks supplying nearly all the programming, including "Gunsmoke," "Candid Camera" and "The Ed Sullivan Show." Now cable and satellite beam dozens of channels to most American homes.And yet television remains a wasteland, far more vast than it was in the days of Mr. Minow's famous speech.

Mary Kathryn Martinet, who danced in classic Broadway musicals, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Conn. She was 76 and lived in Cos Cob, Conn. Born in Baltimore and raised on Woodlawn Road in Roland Park, she was a graduate of Girls' Latin School, where she won awards for playing tennis, badminton and field hockey. She was the daughter of Eugene Martinet, a singer, vocal teacher and founder of the old Baltimore Civic Opera Company, who appeared in the Broadway operetta Blossom Time.