SMALL SCREEN THE BUZZ ON TELEVISION.

Byline: - Compiled by Valerie Kuklenski

DECK THE DOORS AND YARDS AND LAMPPOSTS: Feeling pretty good about those light-up reindeer, electric icicles and the fiber-optic radiant wreath you've put out this season? Well, step aside and watch how the real pros, the champions of home holiday decorating, do it. On Sunday, Gail O'Grady will host NBC's ``America's Greatest Christmas Decorations,'' looking at a few households across the country that do it up big - and probably are rewarded with a four-figure utility bill. The decorations don't always inspire good cheer, unfortunately. The Osbornes of Arkansas have attracted so much attention with their display that their bah-humbug neighbors have taken them to court over the traffic.

AMERICA'S GREATEST CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS, 7 tonight, NBC, Channel 4.

HEY, COWBOY ...: One of the more amusing unscripted shows around these days is producer Shanda Sawyer's ``Who Needs Hollywood?'' on Oxygen. Here's the set-up: Katie Puckrik and her flamboyant choreographer, Marvin Thornton, descend on a microcosmic community - say, a Catskills resort, a burlesque convention or, this week, a rural cow town, and convince the inhabitants that they have what it takes to put on a show in two days' time. In Bandera, Texas, Katie sincerely sweet-talks a bunch of bona fide cowboys, from young stud muffins to a crusty character in an eye patch who claims his name is Rooster Cogburn, into strutting their stuff at the local cabaret with genuinely entertaining results. Picture this: For the big dance number, none of these tough guys is willing to use the Appaloosa stick horse because, as one notes in a very serious tone, ``They're not very good-natured.''

WHO NEEDS HOLLYWOOD?, 10 tonight, Oxygen.

SEXY MOVIE: Now that we have your attention, MTV has a new movie airing tonight that addresses the debate over abstinence-only sex education programs in high schools. ``Everybody's Doing It'' is set in a fictional high school where officials have just implemented a federally funded abstinence program whose rewards include a ``purity scholarship'' for the entire student body if everyone signs a virginity pledge and lives by it. But the ink is barely dry when a few ill-informed students, lacking both safe-sex equipment and self-control, suffer a minor outbreak of a sexually transmitted disease. The moral of the story is abstain if you can, but if you can't, know the consequences and how to protect yourself.

EVERYBODY'S DOING IT, 8 tonight, MTV.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) no caption (Christmas trees)

(2) Co-producer/director Shanda Sawyer, co-producer/host Katie Puckrick and Texan Suzie Heywood.