ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" is putting out one of those periodic calls for a heart-tugging family saga from southeast Wisconsin that comes equipped with a house in severe need of rebuilding.
If you fit the bill -- or know somebody who does, you have to get the information together and e-mail it to Castingwisconsin@gmail.com by Sunday.
Producer Jeff Cruz says the theme of the show this season is volunteerism.
"We are looking for families that, despite living in hardships of their owner, are able to help others," he says.
The show -- which will air its 200th episode this season -- tries to move across the country in search of good stories to tell. One reason is that the rehabbing work is done through donations by volunteers.
"We try to spread it out," says Cruz. "Once you hit an area, you don't want to wear out your welcome."
Here's what you need to include in that e-mail: details about a family that helps out others despite its own difficulties, information on the house, which can't be fixed without help from the show. You have to include the names and ages of everyone in the family, along with photos of them and the house.
If you want more information on how to apply, check out the "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" Web site.
"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" airs at 7 p.m. Sundays on Channel 12.
On TV: Greendale's own Jane Kaczmarek is teamed with Adam Arkin in an ABC comedy pilot called "Who Gets the Parents." They play a couple divorcing after 30 years who decide to take more active roles in their adult kids' lives. In real life, she's going through a divorce from fellow Wisconsin native Bradley Whitford.
- It looks like up to a quarter of ABC News' staff -- possibly up to 400 people -- will be out of work after major cutbacks at the news division.
- Single teen mom Bristol Palin will play herself on ABC Family Channel's "Secret Life of the American Teenager."
- Tony Kornheiser has been suspended for two weeks from ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption," after he was suspended for making comments on his radio show about fellow ESPN commentator Hannah Storm's wardrobe. He said, "She looks like she has sausage casing wrapping around her upper body."
Now they're actually campaigning: Cybergossip Perez Hilton has made a campaign video that makes his case to join the panel of judges on Fox's "American Idol" after Simon Cowell told reporters, "He's got good taste in music, he's got a personality, that could work."
Here's his effort:
As long as we're talking "Idol," the dozen male semifinalists perform at 7 tonight on Channel 6. Four singers will be axed at 7 p.m. Thursday.
I'll be on WRIT-FM (95.7) with Dave Murphy and Meg McKenzie shortly after 7 a.m. Thursday to talk about the top 24.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
