Come spend One Day at the University of Cincinnati. You can do it in an hour.

        Producer Jim Friedman, who won a bookshelf full of Emmys in the late 1980s for his local TV specials, returns to Channel 9 today with the first in a series of local day-in-the-life programs.

        One Day (8-9 p.m., Channel 9) chronicles 24 hours at UC, as captured by 12 videographers on May 31. It's a wonderful hour, what “local programming” should be. (Not just newscasts.)

        As usual, Mr. Friedman takes viewers into everyday places that we seldom see, and introduces us to fascinating people in our hometown (to use Channel 9's favorite word these days). The film profiles more than a dozen students, faculty members and coaches.

        My personal favorite is mathematics professor Larry Gilligan, who demonstrates to students that it's possible to remove his vest without taking off his suit coat.

        “They think it's neat to see something they didn't think could have happened,” says Mr. Gilligan, who teaches in the College of Applied Science. “We refer to it as non-intuitive mathematics. They refer to it as fun.”

        Channel 9 also spends One Day with:

        • Dr. Connie Ragiel at the College of Nursing and Health free clinic in Over-the-Rhine, which sees about 600 patients a month. She proudly points out that she serves the urban poor without expecting money, appointments, cleanliness or even sobriety.

        • Dr. Lathan Camblin, the education associate professor who dresses up as an old man to lecture about death and dying.

        • Dr. Suzanne Masterson, the management professor whose students must design devices that could prevent an egg from breaking when dropped from two stories up. The catch: students can only use a box of straws and one yard of tape. (Is she cracked?)

        • Jasmin Walker, a music theater major, who huffs her way through a tap dance lesson not knowing what kind of career awaits after graduation.

        “Sometimes you'll be a star. Sometimes you won't,” she says.

        Channel 9's crews also spent time with a couple of student artists, two ROTC members, the News Record student newspaper staff and the Christo's Angels girls softball team coached by law professor Christo Lassiter.

        It's refreshing to see an entire program devoted to UC, with only minimal attention paid to the varsity sports programs that dominate UC's coverage. Day One spends more time with the softball team than the combined face time for basketball coach Bob Huggins and football coach Rick Minter — though seeing softball in a Halloween week show really dates the five-month-old video. (The show includes audio from WKRQ-FM's Brian Douglas that morning, as CBS' Survivor was premiering.)

        Finding UC stories wasn't a problem, with an assist from Greg Hand, UC vice president for public relations (who gets a production credit on the show). Channel 9 actually tracked 23 people for stories, recording 47 hours of video.

        Trimming One Day to an hour was tough for Mr. Friedman, who won several Emmys for his similar First Day special on Channel 9 in 1988. He plans seven One Day specials in the next two years.

        His rough cut of the film ran 70 minutes, instead of 48 (without commercials). “More than any show that I'd ever done, more ended up on the cutting room floor,” Mr. Friedman says.

        Those folks are seen in the closing minutes — the ballroom dancing class, a robotics competition team, and a chemistry professor who does explosions in class.

        Narrator Clyde Gray apologizes by saying: “There were more stories we wish we could tell — stories of heroes and inventors, ceremonies and dance.”

        Not lost in the editing room are the pretty pictures of sunrises and sunsets, accompanied by a piano score by local composer Wes Boatman. Some of the best parts have no voices, no talking heads.

        Spend One Day at UC. You won't regret it.

        Extra help: Mr. Friedman needs extras, ages 25-60, for wedding and graduation scenes being shot Tuesday in Hyde Park for Our Father, a Channel 9 movie to air in January. Interested volunteers should call his Blind Squirrels production office, 533-4340.

        Around the dial: Enquirer politics examine candidates' TV commercials on another Adwatch 2000 (7:30 p.m. today, Channel 48).

        The Great Campaign of 1960 looks back at the Kennedy-Nixon race (10 p.m., Channels 46, 54, 16).

        The History Channel devotes six hours to The History of Britain (9-11 p.m. today through Wednesday), based on the upcoming two-volume book, A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World by Simon Schama.

        George W. Bush visits The Tonight Show (11:35 p.m., Channels 5, 22).

How to be good during grief
KIESEWETTER: 'Normal' a 'Roseanne' clone, minus the laughs
Channel 9 spends 'One Day' at UC
Pig Parade: Pigaletto
Tragedy makes writer turn inward
Get to It
Exercise while you work
Body fights building muscle
FIT BITS
Plan meals to help manage weight loss
Protein shakes can help increase number of meals