By Claudia Wallis

Despite 25 years on the air and 7,070 shows in his pouch, Captain Kangaroo still keeps the kids hopping. "Ask George Burns when he's going to retire," laughs Bob Keeshan, 53, TV's one and always Captain. "When he retires, maybe then I'll think about it." Keeshan celebrated the show's silver anniversary last week in New York along with his family, his cast and some former guest stars. Naturally no Kangaroo court would be complete without the Captain's steadfast companion for a quarter-century, Hugh ("Lumpy") Brannum, better known as Mr. Green Jeans. Like Keeshan or, for that matter, George Burns, Brannum has no intention of hanging up his overalls. "It's been a banner year," he crowed. "Not only did we tape our 7,000th show and complete our 25th season, but I signed another five-year contract in March, just two months after I turned 70."

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"Sirica's a feisty little guy, a former boxer," says Actor Martin Balsam, 60. "If you wanted to cast a judge, you would never cast him." But you might very well cast Balsam, who will portray the Watergate justice in a TV-movie based on John Sirica's 1979 memoir To Set the Record Straight. After judiciously reviewing Balsam's credentials--as a juror in 12 Angry Men (1957) and a Washington Post editor in All the President's Men (1976)--and meeting in his chambers with the actor, Maximum John, 76, ruled him "a very good selection, in my opinion." The film, says Sirica, will reveal "why I made the decisions I did, my instincts, the sleepless nights." But he is quick to set the record straight about those sleepless nights. Unlike earlier Watergate DocuDramas, he says, "there won't be a whole lot of that sexy business. I'm too old for that."

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New York's wildlife enthusiasts were delighted to spot a rare specimen of Regia britannicus in their city last week. Britain's Prince Philip, 59, conservationist husband of Queen Elizabeth, nested in Manhattan just long enough to preside at a $400-a-person dinner benefiting the New York Zoological Society, lecture on wildlife preservation to 2,700 invited guests at Lincoln Center and adroitly dodge questions. At a press conference where he was descended upon by local newshawks (clearly an unendangered species), he stuck to the matter at hand. Asked for his view of the Iran-Iraq war, his Royal Highness replied: "Bad news for the animals."

"The sound of a million dollars, it's like music," says Artist Jasper Johns. "Nothing sounds as clear as the figure given for this one." This one was Johns' 1958 painting Three Flags, purchased last week by New York's Whitney Museum for that round, melodious million. Never has a cash register rung quite so loud for a work by a living artist, not even for Johns, whose 1964 oil, According to What held the previous sale price record, a mere $600,000. Johns originally sold the encaustic-on-canvas Flags 21 years ago for $900 through a Manhattan gallery. And though he stands to gain not a cent from its resale, he confesses: "I'm not unaffected. I still think of it as mine." For Whitney Director Tom Armstrong, that in no way eases the burdens of proprietorship. Said Armstrong, gazing at his acquisition: "I am very nervous in the presence of this object." --By Claudia Wallis.

Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts Senator, on the Pentagon's new Stealth aircraft, which defies radar detection: "That was the airplane Jimmy Carter gave to me during the first four months of the campaign."

Gloria Swanson, actress, on the merits of autobiography (hers appears next month): "If you don't write your own book, someone who has never been within a hundred miles of you will do it from old newspaper clips."

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