ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

POP/ROCK

Roth and Hagar: Unlikely Partners

One of rock ‘n’ roll’s oddest soap operas is taking a new twist: David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, two of the former lead singers of Van Halen, are going to tour together now that the hugely popular rock band has run aground.

The event is billed as “Song for Song: The Heavyweight Champs of Rock and Roll,” a reference to Hagar’s pugilist past and to Roth’s enthusiasm for martial arts. Roth, 47, and Hagar, 54, plan to hit the road in May for a tour of the United States. Locally, the duo will appear at the Universal Amphitheatre on June 24. No date for ticket sales has been announced.

The seeds for the tour were planted by Roth in 1996, just after Hagar left the band. Though Hagar rebuffed him at the time, Roth revived the idea a few months ago, despite having referred, over the years, to the singer who replaced him in Van Halen as “a mediocre talent,” “a complete failure” and “a mindless little bridge-troll drone.”

TELEVISION

Grammer to Give Voice to Rodent on TNN

The TNN cable channel has picked up six episodes of “Gary the Rat,” an animated series that Kelsey Grammer helped produce for the Web site Mediatrip.com, and will run them in prime time next year in conjunction with reruns of the old Nickelodeon cartoon “The Ren & Stimpy Show.” Grammer supplies the voice of Gary, a New York attorney who doesn’t simply act like a rat--he turns into one.

The network said it also has other adult animated series in development, including one from Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee about a superhero whose cover is working as a stripper and another from the producers of “Rugrats” about the friendship between two immigrants, a Russian and a Mexican, living in Hollywood.

Meantime, TNN is planning to unveil two original series this summer: “Oblivious,” described as a game show that uses hidden cameras (so the contestants don’t know they are contestants), and “Slamball,” a new team sport played on trampolines.

MOVIES

‘Saving the Silents’ DVDs Due in 2004

Rarely seen silent films will get a new lease on life from the National Film Preservation Foundation, thanks to a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to produce three “Saving the Silents” DVDs to be released in 2004.

Although the specific contents of the three anthologies have not yet been chosen, they are expected to include rare features, newsreels, documentaries, animation, one-reelers, serial episodes and exhibitor reels. Each DVD will run up to three hours and will include new musical accompaniments and scholarly notes.

To complete the project, the foundation is beginning a campaign to raise matching funds.

QUICK TAKES

Actor Benjamin Bratt, who dated Julia Roberts for nearly four years, married his “Pinero” co-star Talisa Soto in San Francisco last Saturday.... Placido Domingo is developing a movie based on the life of the composer Giacomo Puccini (“La Boheme,” “Madame Butterfly”) in which he would star. His wife, Marta, has written the story and a search is on to find a screenwriter for the project.... Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum has launched a new Web site (www.nortonsimon.org), featuring a catalog of nearly 1,000 works.