Jerry Seinfeld

Genuine silliness is so rare a quality these days that it shouldn't go undervalued, even in a sweet little nothing of a picture like Bee Movie. Jerry Seinfeld's foray into feature animation will delight young kids and leave their elders alternately amused and bemused. I usually resent the way studios pack advance screenings with members of a picture's target audience, but I was thankful to see Bee Movie with a bunch of kids out on a school night. It's one film that gains in entertainment value from the audible enjoyment of the first-graders sitting around you. Bee Movie (DreamWorks)

Brace yourself for the longest Emmy awards telecast in history tomorrow night."The 50th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards Show" will run four hours -- that's almost an hour longer than it ran last year. The extra time will be added at the front end, with the show starting at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., according to executive producer Don Mischer, who says there will also be other big changes in this year's telecast on NBC.The most widely publicized has been the lack of a host. Variety, the industry trade publication, reported that Jerry Seinfeld and several other "four-star" celebrities had been offered the job and declined.

So, do you believe that "Seinfeld" news?No, not the fact that the Four Horsemen of Neuroticness - Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer - are finally riding off into the sunset after this season. That probably should have happened a couple of seasons ago, before the show stopped being really funny.No, I'm talking about the fact that the NBC brass - the same geniuses who sent Letterman packing a few years back - proudly announced that they were ready to pay Jerry Seinfeld $5 million per episode to crank out one more season of shows about nothing.

Backed by a dominant NBC prime-time schedule, WBAL (Channel 11) has wrested the 11 p.m. news crown back from WJZ (Channel 13).Nielsen ratings for the May sweeps, which ended last week, show WBAL's late-evening news with an 11.8 rating, compared to 10.6 for WJZ and 5.3 for WMAR, Channel 2. WBFF's 10 p.m. news (Channel 45) finished with a 5.6 rating. Each ratings point translates to roughly 9,800 viewing households.In February, WJZ rode CBS' Olympics coverage to its first 11 p.m. victory in nearly three years.

It's a long trek, economically at least, from the comedy clubs to a hit TV series.Ask Paul Reiser. "You started at nothing, coming to the city, then you'd work your way up to $5 a night, $20 a weekend, $50 for a gig here and there," Mr. Reiser recalls. "With luck, you could put that together and you'd get enough to pay the rent."About 15 years later, of course, rent money is the least of Mr. Reiser's concerns. "Mad About You," the situation comedy he co-created and stars in, leads off NBC's Thursday night juggernaut; he also found time along the way to write a No. 1 best-selling book ("Couplehood")

A couple of imaginative big-screen movie hits highlight a night that also includes a run of clever plots on NBC's Thursday comedy lineup.* "Where Are They Now?" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- This update special looks at some big news stories of the past decade and pays particular attention to such renowned women as Lorena Bobbitt, Tammy Faye Bakker (now Tammy Faye Messner), Patty Hearst and Leona Helmsley. CBS.* "Mad About You" (8 p.m.-8:30 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- Ira (John Pankow)

Sadly, there's another passing from the world of prime-time television to report.Last month, it was Angela Chase (Claire Danes) and "My So-Called Life" signing off after a brief and troubled run on ABC. Tonight, Dr. Joel Fleischman leaves CBS' "Northern Exposure" after five seasons, as Rob Morrow goes on to a career in feature films.Just as Angela Chase was a breakthrough character -- in her case, by bringing the voice of a girl coming-of-age to television -- so was Fleischman.In the words of an editorial in this week's Baltimore Jewish Times, "Dr. Fleischman seemed to stand Jewishly alone on television: He struggled with the Jewish conundrums provoked by assimilation, and his travails often reflected the crises facing American Jews as a whole . . . Dr. Fleischman was television's most highly developed Jewish character yet."

Summer repeat season kicks into high gear tonight. But there are worse fates than having to endure encores from some of these stellar shows. Or, you can check to see if the Baltimore Orioles can continue their winning ways, as they kick off the second half of their season against Kansas City (7:30, WJZ, Channel 13).* "Mad About You" (8 p.m.-8:30 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- The conclusion of the repeat that began last week -- an extended flashback to the wedding of Paul (Paul Reiser) and Jamie (Helen Hunt)

LOS ANGELES -- Jerry Seinfeld was asked yesterday what he thought about the wave of stand-up comedians getting their own sitcoms."I'm against it," he said. "I think it should be all Shakespearean actors doing sitcoms."But there's nothing new about it. Abbott and Costello did it. Every comedian that's been used in television, they try to create a show around him. So, there's nothing new about it."Seinfeld met with critics here yesterday to promote "Abbott & Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld," a retrospective of clips from the classic comedy team with Seinfeld as host, which will air on NBC in November.

MY GRANDMOTHER, who was no fool, took a strict line on people and events. They fell into two categories: they were either good for the Jews or bad for the Jews.In the simpler times of the 1950s, the bad-for-the-Jews list began with Hitler, always the gold standard, and descended all the way down to the jerk who elbowed his way to the front of the line at the Woodmont Country Club buffet. In between came Roy Cohn, Meyer Lansky and the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.Good for the Jews were Adlai Stevenson, Abba Eban, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Eleanor Roosevelt and Sammy Davis Jr.About the only public personality I remember being a close call, in my grandmother's eyes, was Elizabeth Taylor, when she converted to Judaism to marry Eddie Fisher after stealing him from Debbie Reynolds.

David Copperfield sued for sexual assault A Seattle woman has sued magician David Copperfield, contending he sexually assaulted and threatened her while she was a guest on his private island in the Bahamas. Copperfield's lawyers, Angelo Calfo and Patty Eakes, deny the allegations and say the lawsuit is "extortion for money, plain and simple." No criminal charges have been filed. The Seattle Times describes the woman as a 22-year-old fashion model and former Miss Washington USA contestant.

Arrest warrant issued in Mass. for Bobby Brown An arrest warrant has been issued for Bobby Brown after he failed to appear in a Massachusetts court on a contempt complaint. Norfolk Judge Christina Harms ordered Brown arrested the next time the singer is in Massachusetts. He failed to appear at a June 29 hearing. The Boston Herald reports that Brown has fallen $45,000 behind in child support payments for the two teenage children he had with former girlfriend Kim Ward. A phone message was left for Brown's lawyer in Atlanta.

The reviews are in on Microsoft's newest TV ads, which began airing Thursday night. Taking on Apple's "I'm a Mac. I'm a PC," campaign, in which the PC looks out of touch and clumsy, the Microsoft ads include celebrities such as Eva Longoria Parker and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, plus numerous Microsoft employees and regular people. With the refrain, "I'm a PC," each person adds something about themselves: I'm a PC, and I wear glasses. I'm a PC, and my name is Roger. The upshot: All kinds of human beings use PCs. My favorite is writer Deepak Chopra's, "I'm a PC and a human being.

Genuine silliness is so rare a quality these days that it shouldn't go undervalued, even in a sweet little nothing of a picture like Bee Movie. Jerry Seinfeld's foray into feature animation will delight young kids and leave their elders alternately amused and bemused. I usually resent the way studios pack advance screenings with members of a picture's target audience, but I was thankful to see Bee Movie with a bunch of kids out on a school night. It's one film that gains in entertainment value from the audible enjoyment of the first-graders sitting around you. Bee Movie (DreamWorks)

MARTIN NODELL, 91 Illustrator Martin Nodell, an illustrator who helped invent two iconic characters - the comic book superhero Green Lantern and baker's hero the Pillsbury Doughboy - died Saturday at a hospice near Waukesha, Wis. He was one of the few surviving artists from the Golden Age of comic books. It was a subway ride in Manhattan that inspired Green Lantern. En route to his Brooklyn home in 1940, Mr. Nodell noticed a trainman waving a lantern along the darkened tracks. He coupled the imagery with a magic ring - akin to Wagner's Ring Cycle, which also inspired The Lord of the Rings - and the hero was born.

Finally: Proof that Jerry Seinfeld is not all about nothing. Turns out he's about practicing hard and working the room and sweating the details and making it look a hundred times easier than it really is. Nothing, you'll recall, was the mantra of Seinfeld's eponymous NBC sitcom, a nine-year celebration of the off-kilter that was, in the oft-repeated words of its creator, all about nothing. But nothing was so funny. And Seinfeld - the comic and the series - made it look effortless. Nothing, it appeared, was easy.

DO YOU need a good laugh? We mean a big laugh. Not a mild chuckle or a little tee-hee, but a full-out, gut-busting, knee-slapping, side-splitting, tears-in-your-eyes, complete-loss-of-all-bodily-functions laugh. If that's what you really need, then check out the new Improv Comedy Club that opened its doors at the Power Plant Live! in Baltimore just two weeks ago. It joins four other comedy clubs in the Baltimore area and a sister club in Washington. What sets the Improv apart from the other clubs in town is the level of talent of the comics.

Brace yourself for the longest Emmy awards telecast in history tomorrow night."The 50th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards Show" will run four hours -- that's almost an hour longer than it ran last year. The extra time will be added at the front end, with the show starting at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., according to executive producer Don Mischer, who says there will also be other big changes in this year's telecast on NBC.The most widely publicized has been the lack of a host. Variety, the industry trade publication, reported that Jerry Seinfeld and several other "four-star" celebrities had been offered the job and declined.

Backed by a dominant NBC prime-time schedule, WBAL (Channel 11) has wrested the 11 p.m. news crown back from WJZ (Channel 13).Nielsen ratings for the May sweeps, which ended last week, show WBAL's late-evening news with an 11.8 rating, compared to 10.6 for WJZ and 5.3 for WMAR, Channel 2. WBFF's 10 p.m. news (Channel 45) finished with a 5.6 rating. Each ratings point translates to roughly 9,800 viewing households.In February, WJZ rode CBS' Olympics coverage to its first 11 p.m. victory in nearly three years.

So, do you believe that "Seinfeld" news?No, not the fact that the Four Horsemen of Neuroticness - Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer - are finally riding off into the sunset after this season. That probably should have happened a couple of seasons ago, before the show stopped being really funny.No, I'm talking about the fact that the NBC brass - the same geniuses who sent Letterman packing a few years back - proudly announced that they were ready to pay Jerry Seinfeld $5 million per episode to crank out one more season of shows about nothing.