It's almost over.
Whatever you think about the State Senate recall elections, if you're a Milwaukee TV viewer you have to praying for an end to the incessant bad-mouthing of both Republican incumbent Alberta Darling and Democratic challenger Sandy Pasch.
The ads are omnipresent and repetitious and add little to the debate. Instead, they make it seem like both Darling and Pasch should be ridden out of town on a rail for their atrocious behavior.
And, frankly, none of the ads have been very interesting or even entertaining (if you're going to come into my home incessantly, you should at least be interesting).
Last month, I proclaimed an anti-Darling spot from a political action committee called We Are Wisconsin featuring a faux Darling and a bunch of bad acting as the "cheesiest" just far. Now that we're at the end of the campaign, it's safe give it the official designation as cheesiest.
Mercifully, that silly spot appears to have disappeared from Milwaukee TV.
We now have a second place finisher, an anti-Pasch spot produced by "The Friends of Alberta Darling," who dipped into what's become political commercial stereotypes to demonize Pasch.
Without any narration, the mostly black and white spot features pictures of Pasch designed to make her look angry or ugly or generally unpleasant. The soundtrack is funereal music, not quite ominous, but generally sad.
The message, Sandy Pasch is bad, real bad.
Technically, it beats out the amateurish anti-Darling spot. But the first time I saw it, I was reminded of parody political ads from "Saturday Night Live."
It's no more negative than the bulk of political ads that have filled our TV screens over the past weeks, but if it's provoking a focus on its portentous style over its message, it's a loser.
After the flood of political spots, the real winners in Tuesday's voting are Milwaukee TV stations, whose ad inventory was filled to the brim with political spots.
Just wait for Scott Walker's recall election.
Heading to Tucson: Part-time WTMJ-AM (620) talker James T. Harris is heading full-time to Journal Broadcast Group sister station KQTH-FM, a radio station that humbly calls itself "The Truth."
In addition to his 'TMJ weekend duties, he'd been doing part-time work at the Tucson station.
On TV: MSNBC talker Ed Schultz's 9 p.m. hour will air live from Madison tonight and Tuesday, to focus on Wisconsin recall elections.
- FX has ordered new seasons of its "Louie," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Wilfred." "Sunny" actually got two more seasons.
- By all accounts, the coming eighth season of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" will be its last.
- TNT has ordered a third season of Rizzoli & Isles.
- Fox has canceled its "Million Dollar Drop" game show.
A "tribute" to Jerry Lewis: ABC late-night funny guy Jimmy Kimmel's team compiled a bunch of clips to highlight Jerry Lewis' recent Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethons now that he's been cut lose from the annual TV event.
Here's the video:
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.
