Madonna produces a game show

TUBE TALK Madonna is finally getting her own game show. NBC has shot a pilot for her long-in-development ”Truth or Dare,” based less on her 1991 concert documentary than on the adult parlor game. From the network that is having the contestants on tonight’s ”Fear Factor” confront their fears of public nudity, a risqué, Madonna-produced game show doesn’t seem much of a stretch. NBC is also planning to revive the original contestant-humiliating game show, ”Let’s Make a Deal.” Expect both game shows to premiere this summer….

Whoopi Goldberg will be slightly less ubiquitous when ”Hollywood Squares” returns for a fifth season this fall without her; she’s bowing out of both the center square and the producer’s chair. According to the Hollywood Reporter, syndicator King World wanted her to take a pay cut from the reported $10 million a year she’d been earning from the show. Host Tom Bergeron may not be staying around much longer either, as he’s considered one of the leading candidates to replace the soon-to-depart Bryant Gumbel on CBS’ ”The Early Show.”…

seems one step closer to its final answer. The game show that once ran on ABC four times a week will not have even one slot on the weekly schedule this fall. Rather, an ABC spokesperson says, ”Millionaire” will return to the ”special event” status it had when it launched three years ago, meaning that it will air only occasionally. The show is also expected to drop the practice of using celebrity contestants and return to using civilians, so that viewers can once again watch ”real people change their lives” in a matter of minutes, the spokesperson said….

In an effort to forestall a threatened lawsuit, ”The Simpsons” executive producer James L. Brooks apologized to the city of Rio de Janeiro for depicting the Brazilian resort city as teeming with rats, street criminals, and monkeys in a recent ”Simpsons” episode. ”What really hurt was the idea of the monkeys, the image that Rio de Janeiro was a jungle,” said a spokesman for the city’s tourism board, which said last week it was considering filing a defamation suit against the show. On Friday, Brooks responded in a statement, saying, ”We apologize to the lovely city and people of Rio de Janeiro.” He added, ”If that doesn’t settle the issue, Homer Simpson offers to take on the President of Brazil on Fox Celebrity Boxing.”

Mia Farrow may have done some of her best work for Woody Allen, but won’t let Turner Classic Movies use clips of her performances in his films to pay tribute to her ex, who sparked a bitter split from her 10 years ago when he had an affair with her daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, whom he eventually married. TCM is compiling ”Woody Allen: A Life in Film,” a documentary to air May 4, but Farrow wouldn’t grant permission to use clips of her performances in Allen’s ”Alice,” ”The Purple Rose of Cairo,” and ”Hannah and Her Sisters.” Farrow starred in 13 movies for Allen, and a Farrow-free retrospective of his work seems as unthinkable as a Diane Keaton-free one.