Today’s News, Tomorrow’s Television : Quaid, Hurt enter the world of sitcoms and Rick Schroder roams the Old West again

SERIES

Randy Quaid, now in theaters in “Quick Change” and “Days of Thunder,” has been signed to play the title role in “The Principal,” an ABC sitcom scheduled to air during the 1990-91 season. Quaid, whose father will be portrayed by veteran Jonathan Winters, will play an educator who brings unconventional methods and noble intentions to an unsuspecting junior high school.

Mary Beth Hurt has joined the cast of NBC’s new fall sitcom “Working It Out,” about the relationship of two divorcees played by Jane Curtin and Stephen Collins. Hurt will portray Gail, the best friend and next-door neighbor of Curtin.

Character actor Avery Schreiber has been cast as Grandpa Quirk on Hanna-Barbera’s new morning kids’ program “Wake, Rattle & Roll.” The live-action and animated series, premiering on KTTV Sept. 17, also stars Terri Ivens, Ebonie Smith, host R.J. Williams and Decks, an animatronic robot.

The syndicated series “My Secret Identity” has been renewed for a third season by MCA TV. The weekly comedy, starring Jerry O’Connell as a teen-ager who accidentally acquires super powers, will premiere the week of Oct. 1.

The muscle-bound stars of the syndicated action game show “American Gladiators” will sign autographs for their fans at Universal Studios Hollywood every Saturday through the rest of the summer. From noon to 2 p.m., Gemini, Nitro, Laser, Titan, Zap, Lace, Blaze or Gold will be on hand in full gladiator regalia.

The Disney Channel’s dramatic series “Avonlea” will return for a second season beginning Sept. 10. The heartwarming saga stars young actress Sarah Polley as the precocious daughter of a wealthy merchant who has sent her to live with her deceased mother’s peculiar relatives on Prince Edward Island.

MOVIES

Rick Schroder and Wilford Brimley are in production in Canada on “Blood River,” a CBS movie written by horror filmmaker John Carpenter. The drama, set in the Old West, stars Schroder (“Lonesome Dove”) as a young drifter fleeing from murder charges who hooks up with Brimley, a cantankerous old trapper who turns out to be a lawman.

Principal photography for “Chernobyl: The Final Warning” has finished shooting in the Soviet Union. The TNT movie about the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, scheduled to debut in February, stars Jon Voight as a medical team leader, Jason Robards as Dr. Armand Hammer and Sammi Davis as a fireman’s pregnant wife.

Peter Scolari, Darrin McGavin, Catherine Mary Stewart, Cleavon Little and Moses Gunn have been signed to star in “Perfect Harmony,” a 1991 Disney Channel movie about a white prep school student and a black orphan in the Deep South whose mutual love of music allows them to tear down racial barriers in their small town.

NEWS SPECIALS

“Mike Wallace, Then and Now, A CBS News Special” will chronicle some of the top stories and interviews that Wallace has reported on in his 40-year career in television news, leading up to his current assignment on “60 Minutes.” The special is scheduled to air Sept. 26 on CBS.

John Chancellor will be the principal host of a special block of A&E; programs, beginning Sept. 12, devoted to examining the key events in the 1960 presidential campaigns of John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. “Campaign ‘60” will sweep the Democratic and Republican conventions, the famous television debates and Election Night 1960.

SPORTS

ABC Sports has signed licensing agreements to market clothing using the brand names “ABC Sports,” “ABC’s Wide World of Sports” and “ABC’s Monday Night Football.”