People

By Guy D. Garcia

It was a coronation fit for Don King. Earlier in the evening Mike Tyson had won a unanimous decision over Tony Tucker, thereby making Tyson the first fighter in a decade to be simultaneously recognized as the World Heavyweight Boxing champion by all three of the sport's ruling bodies: the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Council and the International Boxing Federation. So to mark the occasion, Promoter King decided to mount a "throneization" at the Las Vegas Hilton. With Actor Dennis Hopper, Comic Eddie Murphy and former King of Boxing Muhammad Ali in attendance, King presented Tyson with a blue chinchilla robe, a jeweled necklace and a scepter. After King shouted, "Long live the heavyweight king! Long live the king!", six trumpeters dressed in Elizabethan tunics blared a fanfare, and Ali placed a crown, studded with what King described as "baubles, rubies and fabulous doodads," on Tyson's head. Muttered the clearly embarrassed sovereign: "Does this mean I'm going to get bigger purses?" A more urgent question for Tyson: When he faces his first challenger, Tyrell Biggs, on Oct. 16 in Atlantic City, who will crown whom?

Say kids, what time is it? It's Howdy Doody Time! That's right -- the show that went off the air in 1960 after 13 years and 2,343 episodes is back. Well, sort of. Howdy will be celebrating Howdy Doody's 40th anniversary this fall in + a nationally syndicated TV special. Roger Mure, who produced both the special and the original series on NBC, describes the new Howdy as a "cross between Hollywood and Doodyville." The show will feature Milton Berle, Gary Coleman and Monty Hall, as well as old pals like Robert ("Buffalo Bob") Smith, 69. In recent years Smith has made a second career of appearances at colleges and shopping malls, playing to audiences who grew up on Howdy Doody. Comparing them with the peanut gallery assembled for the special, he says, "We get the exact same reaction from kids today that we did 35 years ago on the same routines. It works every time." Kowabunga!

With reporting by D. Blake Hallanan/New York