TV Museum Launches Web Programming

NEW YORK (AP) â€” With the click of your mouse, you see and hear Julia Child exclaim how she encourages people ``just to have a good time in the kitchen.'' <br><br>Ted Danson sums up for you the

Tuesday, June 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” With the click of your mouse, you see and hear Julia Child exclaim how she encourages people ``just to have a good time in the kitchen.''

Ted Danson sums up for you the work-and-play climate of his beloved sitcom ``Cheers'': ``Anyone who showed any vulnerability, we would leap on them like a pack of wolves.''

Veteran actress Tyne Daly, now co-starring on ``Judging Amy,'' confides from your computer screen: ``I learn from everybody.''

Those are three of the TV and radio participants in ``Perspectives,'' a new collection of personal musings on the mass media. This exclusive Internet programming, meant to showcase the Internet as the newest mass medium, is a co-venture of RealNetworks, Inc., and the Museum of Television & Radio. It launches Tuesday.

The ``Perspectives'' interviews also include humorist Steve Allen, documentarian Ken Burns, director John Frankenheimer, newsman Dan Rather, sitcom star Ray Romano, reporter Mike Wallace and producer David L. Wolper. At least 10 more interviews will premiere later this summer.

Available on the Web sites of both RealNetworks (www.RealGuide.com) and the Museum of Television & Radio (www.MTR.org), the specially prepared interviews are among the first Internet acquisitions to join the museum's permanent collection of more than 100,000 TV and radio programs.

Museum president Robert Batscha explained Monday, ``We approached 20 people with distinguished careers in television and radio and asked them two things: to offer a perspective on their own work, and to reflect on the media in general.''

``Perspectives'' is viewable as streaming video with the RealPlayer software, which can be downloaded at the RealNetworks Web site.

Meanwhile, the museum, with branches in Manhattan and Los Angeles, is exploring how best to archive Internet content for global Web access.

``We're in the kinescope era of the Internet,'' said Batscha, referring to the early years of television â€” a period only haphazardly preserved by TV's pioneers. ``We felt that we needed to start collecting Internet programming now, and not wait several decades.''