Mickey Rooney is starring in a TV...

Mickey Rooney is starring in a TV film called “Little Spies� that will air on ABC’s “Disney Sunday Movie� next season. He plays a World War II hero who helps a group of children raid a dog kennel so they can rescue their favorite pup before it comes to harm.

KCET Channel 28 has received a grant of $135,000 from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation to produce a documentary about the problem of young people dropping out of school. The program, to air under the “KCET Journal� banner, also will focus on how some organizations are working to provide solutions to the problem.

Did you think all the Kennedy stories had been told for TV? Not yet. NBC has commissioned “The Ted Kennedy Jr. Story,� with Craig T. Nelson as Sen. Ted Kennedy and Susan Blakely as his wife, Joan. Kimber Shoop III plays their son, who loses a leg to cancer but goes on to lead an active life.

Mare Winningham has the lead role in “Who Is Julia?,� a TV movie that will be broadcast on CBS next season. She plays a housewife who is severely injured in an accident and receives a brain transplant from another woman. She survives, leaving the two “identities� to reconcile themselves inside her. Jameson Parker co-stars.

With “Today� show co-host Jane Pauley on maternity leave, NBC plans to have a succession of substitutes until she returns Oct. 10. Among those slated to share the morning duties with Bryant Gumbel are NBC correspondents Anne Garrels and Ann Rubenstein, writer and editor Gloria Steinem, “Today� reporter Pat Mitchell and three anchors from TV stations around the country--Lea Thompson of WRC in Washington, D.C., Jean Enerson of KING in Seattle and Carol Marin of WMAQ in Chicago.

Peter Strauss plays a judge facing a ticklish political question in “The Penalty Phase,� a TV movie being filmed in Oregon for broadcast next season on CBS. His character must decide whether to risk his reelection chances by freeing a mass murderer on a legal technicality. Millie Perkins portrays his wife, Mitchell Ryan plays a former law partner and Melissa Gilbert is an attorney working on the case.