Never in 40 years of acting has Bob Elkins received so much attention.

"No, not like this!" says the Covington resident, who will appear Sunday in his second national TV show in two weeks.

He plays German Admiral Gunther Lutgens in re-creation scenes on James Cameron's Expedition: Bismarck (8 p.m. Sunday, Discovery). He was a dad in ABC's Pennsylvania Miners' Story Nov. 24.

HOLIDAY TV TODAY

6 p.m. Special Delivery (2000) An adoption courier (Andy Dick) loses a holiday baby. FAM. 7 p.m. Proud Family "Seven Days of Kwanzaa." DISN. 7:30 p.m. Lizzie McGuire Lizzie designs a rock 'n' roll Christmas parade float. DISN. (Repeats at 9:50 p.m.). 8 p.m. Purdue University Christmas Show Holiday music. Channel 14. 8 p.m. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (2001) A boy fears Santa may ruin his parents' (Connie Sellecca, Corbin Bernsen) marriage. PAX. 8 p.m. The Santa Clause (1994) An adman (Tim Allen) takes over for Santa. DISN. (Repeats at 10:20 p.m.). 8 p.m. Year Without Santa Santa takes the day off. FAM. 8 p.m. Light Up the Holidays Holiday light displays. HGTV. 9 p.m. Olive the Other Reindeer A dog helps deliver presents. Channel 64. 10 p.m. Extreme Christmas Outlandish holiday displays. HGTV.

"I just feel very fortunate," says the actor, who filmed the part in August aboard the U.S.S. North Carolina in Wilmington, N.C.

The Titanic director was not around. Mr. Cameron was supervising filming remains of the "unsinkable" World War II battleship on the North Atlantic floor.

The two-hour Bismarck documentary is Mr. Cameron's first movie since his Oscar-winning Titanic five years ago.

"The things that I love are filmmaking, diving, science, technology and history," Mr. Cameron told TV critics in July. "And I manage to try to incorporate those things in the film projects I've done."

Scientists located remains of the Bismarck nearly 16,000 feet (three miles) below the ocean surface in 1989. Mr. Cameron says the film shows how a single torpedo hit a rudder, bending it 90 degrees into the central propeller and crippling the ship in May 1941.

"It's actually wedged like an axe blade into the central propeller," he says. "It was a shot in a million . . . This cloth-covered biplane hauling a single torpedo managed to fell this mighty ship."

He describes Expedition: Bismarck as a "fantastic story of the ironies and the tragedies" that could make a feature film.

"In the wake of the Titanic movie, I think it would be well advised not to do another motion picture about a sinking ship maybe for a little while," Mr. Cameron says.

Cat house: Well, somebody had to do it. Former Channel 12 reporter George Ciccarone spent part of this year at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel filming Cathouse (11:20 p.m. Sunday, HBO).

He first pitched the show to Fox, but ended up doing the one-hour documentary about prostitutes' conversations with customers for HBO's America Undercover.

He has a great time slot, immediately following The Sopranos season finale (9-10:20 p.m.). "I couldn't believe it. It's great," he says from his Las Vegas home-office.

This is the second network show this year from Mr. Ciccarone, who has worked for A Current Affair, Good Morning America Sunday, Hard Copy and Fox Sports Net since leaving Channel 12 in 1988. By George Productions also did When Animals Invade Your Home for Fox in April.

He is making two shows for Animal Planet and hopes Cathouse will generate more work.

"I'm trying to get my business going, and do enough of these, so I could move back to Cincinnati and do them from there," he says.

More local news: Morgan Watt, a 1998 Fairfield High School graduate, is featured prominently on Surviving West Point Saturday (8 p.m., National Geographic Channel).

Constance Elizabeth Brenneman, a 1998 Oak Hills High School graduate, plays "Tammy," a woman busted for marijuana possession on The Practice (10 p.m. Sunday, Channels 9, 2). She moved to Los Angeles in July, after graduating from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Glory days: A Fox Sports Net crew from Beyond the Glory was in town this week taping interviews for a profile of former University of Cincinnati basketball star Nick Van Exel, now with the Dallas Mavericks. It will air in the spring. Beyond the Glory plans to profile Bengals running back Corey Dillon next year.

E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com