FOX Launching Saturday Lineup

Fox Broadcasting Co., in its bid to become the fourth network, is launching a Saturday prime-time night; the network already has a Sunday lineup. Insiders say Fox plans to introduce a Friday movie schedule early next year, and that programming for Monday through Thursday will follow at the rate of at least one night per year.

On July 11 at 8 P.M. (ET), Fox will show a two-hour version of Werewolf, a “horror” series aiming for genuine chills. In it, a college student, played by John J. York, tries to cope with his howl-at-the-moon tendencies, while wolf-pack leader Chuck Connors delights in terrorizing his victims. On July 18 at 8, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter kicks off with a one-hour version. This comedy thriller follows a teenage spy, played by Jonathan Ward, and his not-in-on-the-espionage mother, Eleanor Donahue, one-time child star of Father Knows Best.

The full Saturday lineup will be seen on July 25. A sitcom version of Down and Out in Beverly Hills makes its debut at 8, followed by Beans Baxter at 8:30 and Werewolf at 9.

Janos Lives!

Horror fans who have been bitten by Fox's new series Werewolf might have noticed a familiar name: Janos Skorzeny, the villainous fishing-boat captain turned werewolf played by Chuck Connors. Say, wasn't there a vampire named Janos Skorzeny (played by Barry Atwater) in the 1972 TV-movie The Night Stalker? Indeed, there was. "This is no coincidence," says Werewolf co–executive producer John Ashley. "Frank Lupo, who created our show, and I were both fans of Kolchak: The Night Stalker [the ABC series that grew out of the TV-movie]. This is a tip of the hat to that show."

The way we weren't

In the two-hour premiere of Werewolf, airing this Saturday (July 11) on the Fox network, Raphael Sbarge guest stars as a victim of lycanthropy who passes the curse along to his best friend (series star John J. York). The part of the script Sbarge loved best, he says, was the transformation scene itself. So he was disappointed to learn that a stuntman had been hired to do all the howling and rampaging in full fur. When shooting began, however, Sbarge felt like he had dodged a silver bullet — his unfortunate stand-in had to spend a sweltering 105-degree day fully in costume. The actor notes that the show's special effects cost around a half-million dollars — and include mechanical eyes, teeth, and jaws. But not air conditioning.

Cheers & Jeers

Jeers to Fox Broadcasting for killing off the Chuck Connors character on Werewolf. Playing the head of a werewolf family with ferocious glee, Connors was the best part of an otherwise silly program. Insiders say that Fox wanted the show's heavy to be a younger man, so Connors was given the silver bullet. Blame the loss on TV's obsession with pulling in a younger audience.