It's the biggest TV show of the year. But the annual Oscar telecast can seem endless and self-indulgent.
So the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has decided to double the number of hosts, picking Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin to headline the March 7 telecast on ABC.
The academy had already doubled the number of Best Picture nominees to 10 -- in hopes of including some movies that may draw in viewers. And honorary Oscars have been dumped from the telecast to keep things moving.
The addition of Baldwin and Martin isn't revolutionary -- although it's been years since more than one person has hosted. Both are funny, comfortable hosts, so the move is a good one.
If they could just limit the telecast to three hours, they might actually turn this into truly watchable television.
Condolences to Mr. True: Listeners to Steve "The Homer" True's WAUK-AM (540) afternoon show may have wondered about his absence from the microphone this week -- especially after Brett Favre's weekend return to Lambeau Field.
Sadly, the sports talker was in South Bend, Ind., for the funeral of his 86-year-old father, motivational speaker G. Herbert True. The elder True, who died Friday, called himself an "edutainer."
Here's an interesting quote ascribed to Herb True: "The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention."
On TV: NBC's Jay Leno is already talking about a change from the 9 p.m. hour, telling Broadcasting & Cable that if the network wanted him back to the 10:35 slot, "That would be fine if they wanted to." To be fair, it was in response to a question. But if he's not exuding confidence about staying in prime time, it can't help the already troubled show.
- The Parents Television Council is already angry about the upcoming episode of the CW Network's "Gossip Girl" and a threesome, with the self-appointed watchdog barking to network affiliates that formal complaints could follow the show, which airs at 9 p.m. Monday on Channel 18.
- CBS has ordered five more episodes of Jenna Elfman's lame "Accidentally On Purpose." That's not quite a full-season pickup.
- Kirstie Alley is the lastest celeb to get a "reality" show. The untitled show -- about the single mom actress and her battle with her weight -- will air next year on A&E.
The word from Spade, and another Farley: TMZ's cameras caught David Spade and the late Chris Farley's brother, Kevin, and asked them both about the DirecTV spot that uncomfortably resurrected the Madison-born Marquette gradl using a scene from his 1995 comedy, "Tommy Boy."
The video of their answers follows below.
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.
