THE WINTER WORM BUSINESS

This latest episode in Giff's spinoff series about Casey Valentine, Tracy Matson, et al. has just about enough plot--and a tacky-enough plot--for a half-hour sitcom. The kid-sufferer this time is Tracy's buddy Leroy--whose winter will be blighted, he fears, by the arrival of lookalike, know-it-all cousin Mitchell and Mitchell's sniveling eight-year-old sister Elaine. To say nothing of their fatuous mother, from whom Leroy is destined to take piano lessons. And, sure enough, Mitchell is soon setting himself up with Tracy as a ""Wilderness Gide,"" distracting her attention from the winter worm business she and Leroy have started (to supply ice fishermen), and otherwise homing in on Leroy's territory. His efforts to ignore Mitchell and Elaine meanwhile come a cropper--what with both publicly leaning on the relationship. But after Mitchell saves Leroy embarrassment at the dread piano recital, Leroy has second thoughts--helped along by Tracy's reminder that he's ""no saint"" himself. Crude and old-hat--for the following only.