BY CLIF GARBODEN

THURSDAY 21

8:00 (25) Football. The Dallas Cowboys versus the Pittsburgh Steelers in pre-season play.

8:30 (2) Play Piano in a Flash. Somebody named Scott "The Piano Guy" Houston purports to show viewers "fun techniques" that will enable them to play piano like a pro. Possibly like a pro wrestler. Could be amusing — just roll that old upright next to the Trinatron and give it a shot. (Until 10:30 p.m.)

FRIDAY 22

7:00 (2) Visions of Italy: Southern Style. Grits and marinara sauce? An aerial tour of the beauties of the toe of the boot — from Reggio Calabria up to those pines of Rome. A video postcard. (Until 7:30 p.m.)

7:30 (5) Football. The Pats versus the Philadelphia Eagles in pre-season play.

8:00 (4) Football. The Vick-less Atlanta Falcons versus the Miami Dolphins in pre-season play.

10:15 (44) Vintage Sinatra. Repeated from last week. Young Old Blue Eyes in classic clips — many from his 1950s TV series. (Until midnight.)

SATURDAY 23

1:00 (25) Baseball. The Sox versus the Seattle Mariners.

4:00 (44) Fawlty Towers Marathon. One of television’s purest and most relentlessly funny sit-coms, with John Cleese front and center as the neurotic and henpecked proprietor of a mismanaged tourist hotel and equally swell characters delivered by Connie Booth, Prunella Scales, and (as the clueless Spanish waiter) Andrew Sachs. Last time ’GBX marathoned these, we watched the entire series. Warning: don’t do that. After a few hours, you become overpowered by Cleese’s incessant yelling. Better to tape and watch in small doses. (Until midnight.)

6:00 (2) American Soundtrack: Rhythm, Love, and Soul. Another old-timers show from the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh. This one features pop icons Jerry Butler, Aretha Franklin, Gloria Gaynor, Mary Wilson, and Lou Rawls doing their most memorable hits. (Until 9 p.m.)

7:30 (5) Baseball. The Little League World Series US championship final from Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Travelers’ advisory: we know from bitter experience that the LLWS fills every hotel room along Interstate 80 from Erie to Stroudsburg.

8:00 (7) NBC 2003 Fall Preview Show. Hype for the new season hosted by Rob Lowe and Alicia Silverstone. (Until 8:30 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Simon and Garfunkel: The Concert in Central Park. Perhaps the second-most-often-aired show on PBS. That Fiesta in the Sky program has to be number one. The legendary 1981 reunion concert from the heart of Manhattan. You’ve seen it, or you’re very young. To be repeated on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. and during every PBS-fundraising period until the end of time. (Until midnight.)

Midnight (2) Austin City Limits. Featuring music from Brooks & Dunn. (Until 1 a.m.)

Midnight (44) Soundstage. Featuring music from Trace Adkins and Travis Tritt. (Until 1 a.m.)

1:00 a.m. (2) His Girl Friday (movie). During this wretched fundraising month, ’GBH is at least filling its overnight with vintage movies — some of them worth seeing again. This 1940 comedy with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell is, by unofficial vote of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies editorial list serve, the best newspaper movie ever made — despite its questionable view of journalistic ethics (fabrication, lawbreaking, intervention). (Until 2:30 a.m.)

SUNDAY 24

4:00 (2) Broadway’s Lost Treasures. Repeated from last week — like just about everything else on Channel 2 this week. Performance clips from Tony Awards shows (between 1967 and 1986) featuring Angela Lansbury, Yul Brynner, Zero Mostel, Joel Grey, and Carol Channing. (Until 6 p.m.)

6:00 (2) Frank Sinatra: Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back. Repeated from last week. The 1973 NBC special that kicked off Frankie’s mid-career self-reinvention (he’d claimed to have retired). When he got back, he still carried a lot of old material — much of which he performs on this special. (Until 7:30 p.m.)

6:30 (5) Baseball. The Little League World Series world-championship (they let teams from other countries compete) game.

7:00 (44) He Touched Me: The Gospel Music of Elvis Presley. The claim that this documentary includes "never-before-seen scenes of the King’s impromptu, offstage gospel performances" ceases to ring true after they’ve shown the film a dozen times. Still, it’s worth catching. (Until 8:30 p.m.)

9:00 (4) Code 11-14 (movie). This TV-movie was meant to air in 2001, but after September 11, CBS figured a suspense thriller set on an airplane was inappropriate fare for a traumatized America. JAG’s David James Elliott stars as a federal agent up in the air with his wife, his son, and a serial killer. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session with Carl Perkins. Dated but entertaining show with Perkins hosting Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Rosanne Cash, Earl Slick, and Eric Clapton. To be repeated on Tuesday at 10 p.m. on Channel 2. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

Midnight (2) Lady of Burlesque (movie). A novelty from 1943. Barbara Stanwyck stars as a stripper turned sleuth when she’s accused of murdering two of her co-stars. Based on a novel by Gypsy Rose Lee herself. (Until 1:30 a.m.)

Midnight (44) Globe Trekker: Somewhere. The show is scheduled but the episode has not been announced. (Until 1 a.m.)

MONDAY 25

7:00 (2) Berga: Soldiers of Another War. A documentary by the late Charles Guggenheim looking at Nazi atrocities visited on American POWs who were classified as Jewish. (Until 9 p.m.)

7:30 (5) Chronicle: Tiger Golf. Peter Mehegan previews the Deutsche Bank Championship, which will take place Labor Day weekend at the new TPC of Boston, and gets some tips from a pro. The Tiger reference means that Tiger Woods is scheduled to play in this tournament. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (5) Football. The Indianapolis Colts versus the Denver Broncos in pre-season play.

8:00 (44) Great Performances: The Art of the Violin. Repeated from last week. A showcase of the world’s most celebrated 20th-century fiddlers. With vintage performance footage featuring Jascha Heifetz, Itzhak Perlman, and Isaac Stern. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 26

7:00 (2) Nova: Life’s Greatest Miracle. Way back before anyone had seen even an ultrasound photo of an unborn baby, scientific photographer Lennart Nilsson made a film that followed development from conception to birth. Recently, and with the help of ultra-modern medical imaging and photo-microscopy technology, the film has been remade. (Until 8:30 p.m.)

9:00 (25) O.C. Another round of passion and intrigue from the Old Country. Falngmn, would-be Old Country National Bowling Team (OCNBT) competitor who left his small, goat-rich village for the Old Country capital of Dolnth in search of his lost love, Singredd, is shocked by the theft of his custom-drilled bowling ball by a band of intruders that neighbors describe as a short man in a green cape accompanied by a basset hound and three elderly women wearing goatskin tunics. Desperate and in despair, Falngmn visits Magdute, a local fortune teller, who predicts that he will find love and/or his bowling ball at the circus. Falngmn treks to the outskirts of Dolnth, where the Radzyminsky Brothers, Borczak & Basinski Circus is encamped, and begins asking around about the missing Singredd. Onufrius, the troupe’s handsome young lion tamer, reacts suspiciously to Falngmn’s inquiries but then claims no knowledge of the missing girl. During that evening’s show, Falngmn sneaks into Onufrius’s quarters, where he finds a framed photograph of the lion tamer surrounded by a short man in a green cape, three middle-aged women in goatskins, a basset puppy, and a female child who looks unmistakably like Singredd. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session with Carl Perkins. Repeated from Sunday at 10 p.m.

WEDNESDAY 27

7:00 (2) Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. The famous interview series exploring archetypes and prototypes and hero motifs and such through the entire human history of mythology, from before Beowulf to Star Wars. (Until 10:40 p.m.)

8:00 (5) Football. The Pats versus the Chicago Bears in pre-season play.

10:40 (2) Nature: John Denver: Let This Be a Voice. Shortly before he died in a private-plane crash in 1997, singer John Denver made this film, which showed him flying around in his private plane enjoying the American scenery. (Until 12:30 a.m.)

1:00 a.m. (44) Great Performances: Berlin Philharmonic Europakonzert: From Palermo. Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Phil play to the crowd by doing Verdi’s Vespri siciliani Overture as an encore. Plus, we get Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, the Brahms Violin Concerto, with Gil Shaham, and Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 (From the New World). Recorded at the historic Teatro Massimo in Sicily. (Until 3 a.m.)

THURSDAY 28

7:30 (5) Chronicle: Tiger Golf. Either a repeat of Monday’s show or a continuation of same. A preview of the Deutsche Bank Championship, which is being held for the first time in Boston. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (5) Laverne and Shirley Together Again. Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall reunite with the usual clips and co-star interviews plus some new L&S skits. (Until 9 p.m.)

8:00 (44) And Thou Shalt Honor: Caring for Our Aging Parents. Repeated from last week. Joe Mantegna confronts the mutual child-parent nightmare of putting people out to pasture gracefully. (Until 11 p.m.)

8:30 (2) Simon and Garfunkel: The Concert in Central Park. Repeated from Saturday at 9 p.m.

10:00 (5) Peter Jennings Reporting: I Have a Dream. Not Peter’s dream, but Martin Luther King’s from 1963 — that’s 40 years ago. This show looks back at the politics and the social issues of the months leading up to King’s historic oration from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. (Until 11 p.m.)

The 525th line. It’s Still August and There’s Not Much on TV, So We Might As Well Beat That Dead Horse Dept.: By now, some of our readers may have memorized last week’s "525th line" item about the words to the Hawaii Five-0 theme song. Or at least downloaded the Sammy Davis Jr. recording of it. Further research reveals that the trivial fact that triggered our discovery of these putrid lyrics — namely that an Irish phone service, Conduit, uses the Five-0 theme to promote its directory-assistance (or "enquiry," as they would say) number — can be verified via the Internet. The number is 11850. The Irish-Hawaiian theme is plastered all over the Old Sod in the form of a surfer billboard campaign — "Call ’em, Danno." Visit www.11850.ie/out_door.jsp. If you have a Nokia cell phone, you can program the Hawaii Five-0 theme in as your ring tone. Better yet, you can download the 11850 radio jingle, at www.11850.ie/about11850.jsp (find the link under the heading "radio"). See. We weren’t making that up. Two disappointments, though: 1) the Conduit Web site has no picture of its cartoon spokesperson, Danno; 2) dialing 11850 on a US touch-tone phone does not play the Hawaii Five-0 theme. The closest we could come to that (second phrase, notes 7-11) was 33468, but who knows who’ll answer if you dial that? Next week: Fun Numbers To Call in Honolulu.