Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

TV & RADIO

Allen Charged: “Home Improvement” star Tim Allen pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a drunken driving charge filed after he failed several sobriety tests in a Detroit suburb Friday night. Allen, who has a home near Detroit, did not personally appear at the court hearing and could not be reached for comment. He was in Baltimore Wednesday filming the Universal Pictures movie “For Richer or Poorer.” Police said Allen, 43, had been stopped for driving his 1988 Ferrari 70 mph in a 40 mph zone. Newspaper reports said tests indicated Allen’s blood-alcohol level was .15%; .10% is considered legally drunk in Michigan.

Battling Lung Cancer: Veteran L.A. radio personality Robert W. Morgan, a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame, said on the air Wednesday that he has lung cancer and will take time off from his KRTH-FM (101.1) show to recuperate. Morgan, who said he quit smoking just last year, concluded his broadcast by asking listeners not to take up the habit. Jim Carson will temporarily host Morgan’s 5 to 9 a.m. show.

Still Employed: KFI-AM (640) listeners who expected to hear longtime talk-show host Bill Handel Wednesday morning were told repeatedly by Phil Hendrie, who is normally heard in the evenings, that Handel had been “terminated . . . let go . . . fired.” But the broadcast was only a hoax, KFI said. Handel had taken several days off, and Hendrie--who often executes hoaxes on his own show--took over on Wednesday with what a KFI spokesman called “parody and satire.” Handel, meanwhile, was scheduled to return today.

Molinari’s CBS Opportunity: Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday that she is leaving Congress because CBS News offered her “a tremendous opportunity” to be part of a new journalistic enterprise. Molinari stunned politicians by opting to resign her House seat to co-anchor a new CBS Saturday morning news program, beginning this fall.

MOVIES

Poor Joe: Joe Eszterhas, writer of the upcoming Hollywood satire “An Allan Smithee Film,” is pleading hardship, saying that none of the Hollywood entities involved with the project are willing or able to finance the film’s music. In a full-page ad in Wednesday’s Variety, Eszterhas says that “the expensive nature of my divorce settlement and the number of babies we have” precludes him from doing so himself, so he is asking for public submissions. Eszterhas asks musicians to send original, self-produced songs to Tri-Tone Music in West Hollywood. If a soundtrack album is made, he says, musicians will be paid. (Disney, the film’s distributor, would not comment.)