Detroit clergyman evs up ABC protest
A Detroit reverend is planning to protest the way a local station run by ex-Ch. 2 news director Bill Carey allegedly tried to sting local cops suspected of pilfering Christmas toys for underprivileged kids.
Rev. Horace Sheffield III told The Detroit Free-Press that ABC-affiliate WXYZ/Ch. 7 exhibited “a lack of candor” and tried to entrap the Detroit Police Department. He’s planning a Jan. 15 protest.
WXYZ allegedly dropped a phony Sony PlayStation video game off at the 7th Precinct in Southfield, acting on a tip that cops were taking toys intended for needy children.
But cops at the 7th Precinct donated the $200 PlayStation to an underprivileged boy – who in turn returned it to the police when it didn’t work.
When the cops opened the toy, they found a tracking device and a note from Ch. 7’s news department to call to get the components back.
Carey says that Ch. 7 has now given the boy a real PlayStation system and three game disks but declined further comment when contacted by the Free-Press.
Mr. Roger’s got some new Manhattan digs
“Black Scorpion” producer Roger Corman and his wife, Julie Corman, are set to move into their new $3.5 million Manhattan apartment this week. They will maintain their estate in Santa Monica, Calif. – just doors down from Mel Brooks and wife Anne Bancroft.
While Corman will oversee cable channel SCI FI’s “Black Scorpion” (debuting Jan. 5) – which he bankrolled to the tune of $22 million – Julie is the new chairman of the Graduate Department of NYU’s Film School.
Corman and brother Gene Corman are also hashing out a new game show, “Matching Wits With the Wizofodds,” in which guests can make their sports picks on the Internet (wizofodds.com) with “Wizofodds” Larry Trusley.
This just in . . .
* Congrats to Sheila Jamison, who’s been promoted to manager of public relations at TNT.
* The grassroots group Viewers for Quality Television, which has prodded networks to offer worthwhile series, is disbanding.
Sixteen years after Michigan homemaker Dorothy Collins Swanson‘s lobbying efforts to save the cop drama “Cagney & Lacey” led to the creation of VQT, the money and membership levels needed to keep it alive just aren’t there anymore, she says.
VQT has dropped from about 5,000 members to fewer than 1,000.