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CBS couldnt show now what it did then, thanks to Janet Jackson. With this Commercials topic, though, the biggest moments to look for are less incendiary. Watch for Apples famous 1984 computer ad, still remembered as an iconic ad a generation later. Jim Nantz and Daisy Fuentes (l.) host.

SERIES n 9:00 p.m. (USA) Monk. Steven Weber makes the most of the screen time he gets on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip but he gets even more time in this Monk rerun playing a shock jock whom Monk suspects of killing his wife. Its a reunion of former

Wings co-stars, though in this case its up in the air who is the wind beneath whose wings. n 10:00 (SHO) Masters of Horror. This installment, Dream Cruise, is the final one in the second-season batch of Horror. MOVIES n 10:30 a.m. (COM) Ground-

hog Day. With Comedy Central showing this 1993 movie three times in a row at 10:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. its certainly honoring todays Groundhog Day the right way. Itd be great, though, if each showing presented a different ending. Bill Murray stars. n 8:00 (AMC) Volcano. Anne

Heche, now starring in Men in Trees and quickly becoming a prime-time TV star, struggled with Tommy Lee Jones to make this film seem slightly less ridiculous. They failed, but you have to lava the way they acted the idiotic plot points without cracking a smile. David Bianculli

T U B E TA L K

Rehab stay sweeps Tara into limelight

ara Conner never could have imagined her tipsy tiara would lead to this being little more than a TV sweeps stunt. How perfect, though, that her release from rehab after being given a second chance by Miss USA owner Donald Trump happened so close to the

TABLOID QUEEN Tara Conner on The Insider with Pat OBrien, below.

start of the February sweeps, when TV shows attempt to boost ratings with big-name interviews. Even better, she was out in time to get spiffed up and have interviews taped, packaged and heavily promoted before Feb. 1. And there she was, less than two weeks after being sprung from a Pennsylvania treatment center, answering a barrage of personal questions from Matt Lauer on Today that were exponentially more difficult than anything she faced in the Miss USA pageant. She let the world know she was an alcoholic, a drug user and manipulative, and dropped the bomb that somewhere in her past was some kind of abuse. And later, she was on again in taped interviews with Pat OBrien of The Insider and Mark Steines of Entertainment Tonight. Did you do cocaine, Pat OBrien asked Conner in one splashy promo for The Insider, in which a voice-over mentioned public humiliation. The irony, of course, is that OBrien, the star of a series of hilarious and humiliating phone messages to a girlfriend later made public, was there peppering Conner about her party-hardy ways. Do you know anyone who feels sorry for this girl? Jodi Applegate asked on Good Day

RICHARD HUFF

SUITING UP Julie Chang (l., center) with Tina Knowles (3rd from r.) and the Nets Dancers NO BIG DEAL Host Howie Mandel and Vicki Montzingo

worn off, shell turn over the crown to the next winner. Without her foibles, she would have faded away like the overwhelming majority of pageant winners untouched by scandal. She and we might not be so lucky. Just a couple of weeks after the next pageant is over, the May sweeps begin.

Random observations
n Heres something to note: Those missing-children spots WABC/Ch. 7 airs every day, several times a day, actually work. During 2006, the station featured 260 children in the spots, 95 of whom were recovered, 11 in the local area. Ch. 7 is the only station in the country doing this. The program is entering its 10th year, and is averaging a 69% recovery rate. n Julie Chang is hanging with the New Jersey Nets dancers again. In whats probably her fourth visit there, Chang yesterday spent time at the Nets prac-

New York yesterday. No, said Lucy Noland. Noland is right. Other than the bouncers at the clubs where she drank underage, mind you few knew Conner before she was pardoned and packed off to rehab. Since then, all of us even the

Daily News have been feeding on her celebrity, what little of it ever existed, that is. Before she crashed, her Miss USA platform of breast cancer awareness generated no buzz. So now what happens? Conner has spilled her guts, and in April, long after this ratings glow has

tice facility, where the dancers modeled outfits designed by Beyonc and her mother, Tina. The piece will air next week on CW11 Morning News. n Today Ch. 7s Bill Evans, WPIX/Ch. 11s Dr. Steve Salvatore and WNBC/Ch. 4s Darlene Rodriguez and Rob Morrison will be among local TV staffers who will have area students tail them at work as part of Junior Achievements Job Shadow program. Speaking of Ch. 4, this morning the on-air crew of Today in New York will wear all red to support the American Heart Associations National Wear Red Day campaign to raise awareness for heart disease in women.

nydailynews.com DAILY NEWS Friday, February 2, 2007

They said it
n Tell me a little bit about yourself, Deal or No Deal host Howie Mandel said this week to contestant Vicki Montzingo, who boasted about being the shows first little person player. rhuff@nydailynews.com