For an annual TV event that has moved on from its long-time host, the revamped Muscular Dystrophy Association had an unusual opening with a tribute to the show's host since 1966, Jerry Lewis.
"You can never be replaced," said Nigel Lythgoe, a member of the show's team of hosts said about Lewis, who had, of course, been replaced.
Although the telethon was cut back from 21 hours to six, it had the familiar look: Vegas-y acts, corporate donations and the local cut-ins. Gone from the national telecast was the traditional tote board, which dramatically tallied the donations as they flooded in.
The 2011 national total was reported as $61.5 million, $2.6 million more than last year's Lewis-hosted telethon.
This year, the local cut-ins came from Channel 6, which has taken on the telethon after more than a decade of it being on Channel 58. It was hosted by Channel 6 anchors Ted Perry and Mary Stoker Smith, and the station reported that the local telecast of the telethon had raised $1,056,706.
And Channel 6 hasn't dropped its tote board.
In one sorta local note, former Milwaukee radio personality Brett Andrews got a bit of face time as he introduced a band, Rootdown, from his new stomping ground, KKRZ-FM in Portland, Ore.
But, honestly, the focal point of the show since the 1960s has been Jerry Lewis. So his absence, rumors of the reason that he didn't make even a brief appearance and the possibility that he's going to talk about it all has been a focal point of this telecast.
It's interesting that this TV anachronism – it's one of the few remaining "variety" shows on TV – has remained a Labor Day weekend tradition in so many American homes. And I'm sure that there were people tuning in (or DVRing, as I did) to see if Lewis would pop up ever so briefly at the end of the six-hour telethon.
He didn't, but near the end of the show, Lythgoe showed a series of silent clips of Lewis' telethon appearances while the band played "Smile."
The traditional closer to the show, Lewis' annual rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone,"didn't come.
Here it is for those who missed hearing it this year:
On TV: The new TV season doesn't really launch for a couple weeks, but tonight's schedule includes the fourth season premiere of cult favorite "Sons of Anarchy" at 9 p.m. on FX.
- TNT has canceled Jada Pinkett Smith's "Hawthorne" after three seasons.
- In more on the turmoil at CBS' daytime "The Talk," Holly Robinson Peete confirms on her blog that she's been axed. Meanwhile, former "Saturday Night Live" regular Molly Shannon is being brought in as a guest host this month.
- ABC has scheduled a two-hour special airing previously-unheard recorded interviews with the late Jacqueline Kennedy for Sept. 13 at 8 p.m., locally on Channel 12. Diane Sawyer hosts.
More promotional video from "Glee": The premiere is just a couple weeks away, and Fox has released this behind-the-scenes video from the new season of "Glee:"
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.
