ABC tries daredevil programming

GET READY GHOULS, ABC is prepping a show for next month in which you'll be able to wait breathlessly for three hours to see if a daredevil plunges to his death.

The alphabet network is turning Nik Wallenda's attempted tightrope walk through the mist and wind over Niagara Falls into a prime-time TV event on June 15.

As a tie-in, if Nik needs a doctor, the cast of "Grey's Anatomy" will appear.

Wallenda is a seventh-generation member of the famous Wallenda daredevil family, whose history as a traveling circus troupe dates to 1780.

"It's a return to some of the great events you've seen on television over the years," ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said. "I think back to my own childhood and Evel Knievel, where literally the whole country would gather around the set and watch one of these extraordinary stunts."

"The real tension here is not will he get from one side to the other," said media expert Robert Thompson. "The tension is will he make it across without dying, and I think there are some real serious ethical issues."

Ah, now that's television.

As Tattle has seen the 1978 footage of Nik's grandfather, Karl Wallenda, falling to his death in a tightrope walk between high-rises in Puerto Rico, we'll pass.

'Passion' prequel scandal

In a real-life case of drugs and extortion that could itself make a pretty good screenplay, prosecutors have forced a Mexican drug traffickerto turn over his profit-participation stake in a planned prequel to "The Passion of the Christ."

You would think a drug dealer would know better than to sign on for a movie's back-end movie profits.

The trafficker pleaded guilty last week in federal court to extortion and money laundering in a deal that required him to give up a 10 percent stake in "Mary, Mother of Christ," which is scheduled to begin production this year and includes megachurch pastor Joel Osteen as an executive producer.

"When you get a script, you just don't think to say, 'Hey, was this script ever tied to a Mexican cartel?' " said Donald Iloff, a spokesman for Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston. The script was already being handled by a legitimate production company when Osteen got involved.

Aloe Entertainment, the L.A.-based company that paid nearly more than $900,000 for the script, said it knew nothing about its other stakeholder, who was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Had the dealer stayed involved, "We don't know what would have happened," Aloe said in a statement. "We have assembled an amazing team to bring it to the big screen. Now the American taxpayers can be part of this incredible project."

TATTBIT

A video shot at Seattle Children's Hospital featuring cancer-stricken children, their nurses, doctors and parents lip-synching and dancing to Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" has become an online sensation.

"It made my day. I know it's making everybody else's day online," Kelly said in a message posted on her website. "I just can't wait to meet you."

The video is on YouTube and is worth watching, as are the brief "making of" videos.

The kids in it are so happy and focused it seems like such projects should become part of their therapy. n

— Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

Email gensleh@phillynews.com.