Vision TV and wtn will launch the 1997/98 season with five new Canadian series each in their fall schedules including one of the first homegrown comedy sitcoms produced for a local specialty.

In the midst of the 13 new series beginning Sept. 1 on wtn is Go Girl!, yang to the New Red Green Show’s ying, to be produced by Steve Smith’s S&S Productions. The all-female cast will provide a perspective on the lives of women similar to that which Red Green offers the men.

Also among wtn’s Canadian offerings are You, Me and the Kids from Vancouver’s Force Four Productions which explores the childhood years between eight and 12, Cooking With Bonnie Stern from Summerhill Entertainment, and Royal York Communications’ Out of Bounds, a new magazine show hosted by former ski racer Kathy Thurley that encourages women to ‘get outdoors and get moving.’

Vision will begin its tenth season on Sept. 29 with new Canuck program offerings that include Mandate For The Millennium, an eight-part, half-hour series that gathers key Christian leaders and thinkers to debate the central issues facing the church now and in the years to come. The series is being produced by Karen Pascal of Windborne Productions.

Also new on Vision this fall is PhotographŠBeyond The Lens, produced by Ted and Bruce Ellis of Media Giants Entertainment in association with Vision. The series promises to examine the heart behind some of the work of Canada’s finest photographic artists. Rounding out Vision’s Cancon slate are In The Key of Eh!, Hancock and Company and Heartbeats.

In keeping with the ‘Animals are Cool’ philosophy running amuck across the dial (see cbc’s World of Discovery), Family Channel is on board come Sept. 6 with a new all-wildlife weekend theme block called Fangs ‘n Fur.

The two-hour block running four new series ­ Going Wild with Jeff Corwin, Omba Mokomba, Audubon’s Animal Adventures and Amazing Animals ­ will air Saturdays at 1 p.m. and repeat Sundays at 10 a.m.

In addition to new Cancon series Franklin (Nelvana/Neurones France, s.a.r.l.), Kleo the Misfit Unicorn (Stanfield Productions), and Billy the Cat (NOA Network of Animation/EVA Animation Studios, Europe), Family will telecast the Canadian premiere of Ronnie and Julie Sept. 7.

Directed by Vancouver talent Philip Spink and produced by Larry Sugar, the teen comedy adapted from the Shakespearean classic is produced by Sugar Entertainment in association with Hallmark Entertainment, Vidatron Entertainment Group and Showtime.

Family, should it come aboard tier three in its present incarnation or as the Disney Channel, could complement the unrelenting moviefest September will spawn across specialty spectrum with an eight-episode telecast of The Great Romances of the Twentieth Century series. Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall, Howard Hughes & Ava Gardner and Marilyn Monr’e & J’e DiMaggio are among the subjects of episodes which will run through to the end of October.

Over at tvontario, new series on its fall children’s and youth schedule include Escape from Jupiter, a kids’ sci-fi 26-parter, the first coproduction between nhk and Film Australia; Mouse and Mole, the North American premiere of a five-minute Brit-set animated series from Grasshopper Productions; My Little Planet, another North American premiere, an animated five-minute series produced by France’s Folimage; The Puzzle Palace, 65 preschool half-hours produced by Lancit Media Productions with l.a.’s kcet; and So You Want to Be?, another North American premiere, 13 hip half-hours of career insight from Champion Entertainment.