Tube Notes

By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service

Tonight's Must-See

"The Lion King" (1994), 7 p.m., ABC. One of the greatest animated films ever gets another run tonight under ABC's "Wonderful World of Disney" banner. On one level "Lion King" has typical cartoon silliness. Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, and Ernie Sabella provide voices for the comic characters. At the core, however, are rich emotions. The portraits of African landscapes are gorgeous; the tunes (songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, background music by Hans Zimmer) are beautiful. A lion cub, groomed to be king, is tricked by his evil uncle (Jeremy Irons). Think of it as "Bambi" meets "Hamlet."

Of Note

"Edward Scissorhands" (1990), 6 p.m., FX. With his current Oscar nomination (for "Pirates of the Caribbean"), Johnny Depp is starting to be appreciated as a gifted actor. Now step back and catch one of his best movies. The story — a young loner has scissors instead of hands — is odd. But director Tim Burton turns it into a stylish film with fine work from Depp and Winona Ryder.

"The Tracy Morgan Show," 7 p.m., NBC. The network has been shuffling episodes lately. It now plans the one in which Tracy scrambles to get his kids tickets to a Snoop Dogg concert.

"Whoopi," 7:30 p.m., NBC. In a rerun, Mavis turns temporarily mellow when the president says he loves her singing.

"Hack," 8 p.m., CBS. Here's a deeply serious episode. Mike tries to help his suicidal cousin, a veteran of the war in Iraq.

"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," 9 p.m., NBC. Here is a rerun of the show's 100th episode. It typifies "SVU," with the grotesque extremes of its cruelty and gore. Things start with a subway maiming then get worse. Jacqueline Bisset guest-stars.

"Monk," 9 p.m., ABC. Monk investigates a baseball player.

"Saturday Night Live," 10:30 p.m., NBC. Megan Mullally of "Will & Grace" hosts with Clay Aiken as the musical guest.