Channel 3 has an addition to its weather team.
Llarisa Abreu joined the station last week as the morning weather anchor. She comes to the CBS outlet five months after dawn patrol predecessor Katie Fehlinger reached the “shelf life” she always knew was part of waking up at 2:30 each morning to do a 4:3-7 a.m. newscast.
Abreu can answer the question about whether the easiest job in television, besides Vanna White’s, is being a meteorologist in San Diego, where most days are uniform and gorgeous. She was the weekend weather anchor in that city before leaving for CBS 3 and said, “I am excited to track and forecast weather where there are four seasons and where every single day can be different.”
Before going west, Abreu was a forecaster for AccuWeather in State College. One of her colleagues there was Channel 3 chief meteorologist Kate Bilo. The two remained in touch over the years.
Abreu grew up in North Jersey, She was graduated from Barry University.
She moves to Philadelphia with her fiance, a native of Pittsburgh. She has a puppy, Harper, and enjoys indoor cycling, live music, dancing, and trying new restaurants. She is part of a morning team that includes Jim Donovan and Janelle Burrell at the news desk and Chandler Lutz doing traffic.
Oscar broadcast works out pretty well
Now that a second consecutive Oscar broadcast has been with an emcee, producers have proven award shows do not need a host.
Janelle Monae’s opening number was too standard to be anything more than respectable, but Steve Martin and Chris Rock followed with an entertaining dialogue that was enough without requiring either comedian to come back for more.
Of course, Martin and Rock had to address the elephant in the room, that the nominees for 2019 films did not include a woman director or one more than person of color (“Harriet’s” Cynthia Erivo) among the contenders for acting awards, but they didn’t labor the subject too much and kept from being cloying.
Nominations, after all, are decided by a basic mathematical act. The top five vote getters receive a nomination. To tamper with that for the sake of jerry-rigged inclusion or diversity would be more unfair and insulting than the current system. Therefore, if results do not suit all, the way voting is done should be left alone and chips to fall where they may.
At least Martin and Rock’s pattern worked. On two other occasions when comics appeared, the results were a disaster, and not just because of “Saturday Night Live” veterans Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph’s ugly dresses. Wiig looked as if she had just run off the stage after playing the wardrobe from the cartoon “Beauty and the Beast,” and Rudolph looked as if she cut a hole in a glitzy table cloth from an Oscar pre-party.
Dreadful.
But not more worse than their idiotic routine. Where are Tina Fey and Amy Poehler when you need them?
Will Ferrell did not fare much better, and he had the nerve to take Julia Louis-Dreyfus down with him.
The poorness of Wiig’s, Rudolph’s, and Ferrell’s performances show one thing: The Oscars should not only eliminate the emcee, but get rid of all the insipid pattern and schtick it gives stars to do. Actors are accustomed to scripts, but more are more articulate than the embarrassing goop they’re forced to say, as if simply mentioning “sound effect” isn’t enough to get the point across.
In general, the award show went well, with Eminem providing a stirring surprise moment, Elton John giving a mini-concert, and Cynthia Erivo shaking the house with her rousing rendition of the song that runs under “Harriet’s” credits, a song she co-wrote, “Stand Up,” which was far better than John’s winning “I’m Gonna Love Me Again.”
I would have distributed the acting award differently, except for Joaquin Phoenix’s, which couldn’t have justifiably gone to anyone else. That said, all of the recipients deserved their prize.
Not being a fan of “Parasite” – I think its change-of-pace, and genre, in its last third is gimmicky and heavy-handed as social commentary – the only real disappointment I had is when it beat better conceived movies for Best Picture.
By all means, give Bong Joon Ho the Best Director award. “Parasite” rates that. Writing and Best Picture awards would have been more satisfactorily placed elsewhere.
Remembering ‘Remember Wenn’
By now, “Remember WENN” would have a nostalgic fan base, as it hasn’t been in production for two decades, and the station of which it aired, cable’s American Movie Classics, has successfully reformatted itself to simply AMC, is producing its own programs, and thankfully, will begin a new season of one of its best programs, “Better Call Saul” to audiences Sunday.
“Remember WENN,” a series about the heyday of commercial radio, the 1940s before television added video to the picture, and for the picture, featured a character named Maple LeMarsh, who was a Broadway hoofer that joined the fictional Pittsburgh station as an actress but also served as a substitute organist.
She was played by Carolee Carmello who is better known for her stage career and is a personal favorite of mine.
I first saw Carmello when I traveled to Stockbridge, Mass. – Yes, the locale of Alice’s Restaurant! – too see my favorite musical, “She Loves Me,” which had not yet had any of its three Broadway revivals (although a wonderful concert version with Madeline Kahn and Rita Moreno) or any of its dozens of regional productions.
Since that trek to Stockbridge, the ride home from which included a stretch on the Taconic Parkway that had more deer than cars, I’ve seen both “She Loves Me” and Carmello numerous times.
Carmello is always a joy, a consummate professional with a wonderful voice, and the ability to do drama and comedy. She was especially marvelous as a staid woman who responds animatedly to a truth serum in “The Addams Family” and ends up dancing across a table while confessing the most surprising repressions. How that performance escaped a Tony Award I’ll never know!
For the next two weeks, Carmello will play the title role in the tour of “Hello Dolly!” at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music. It’s the Jerry Zaks revival that starred Bette Midler when it opened on Broadway in 2017.
I saw Midler and adored her. I look just a forward to seeing Carmello. For one thing, I know she has the talent and whimsy to play Dolly Gallagher Levi. More than that, Midler did a star turn. Oh, she gave Dolly a character but it was very much in the character of Bette Midler. Carmello’s one trait is being able to carry a show or a scene. What I can’t wait to see is her comic bravura with an actress’s interpretation of Dolly.
The curtain goes up for me on Wednesday’s opening night. The cast also includes John Bolton, but not the former ambassador to the U.N., but the John Bolton who was seen in “The Good Wife,” “Boardwalk Empire,” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
‘Top Dog’ in Bucks
In January, a Bucks County police officer, Robert Schwarting, and his K-9 partner, Officer Bowie, won their round of “America’s Top Dog,” an A&E program in which dogs are led by their owners or trainers through an obstacle course.
Five dog-handler teams compete on each program, and the winner receives a $10,000 prize in a addition to $5,000 that can be donated to a favorite animal-related charity.
The winner also gets the chance to return to the program to compete with champions from other weeks for a $25,000 grand prize.
Officer Schwarting and Bowie, from the Bensalem police force, took their show, so they will vie for the big money on the “America’s Top Dog” airing at 9 p.m. Wednesday.
990 changes up again
Last March, in a general station shakeup, WPHT (1210 AM) let drivetime morning talker Chris Stigall go in favor of Rich Zeoli in the 5:30-9 a.m. slot.
Stigall went on to begin a podcast, but can now be heard regularly on Philadelphia morning radio as host of 6-9 a.m. call-in program on WNTP (990 AM), which calls itself The Answer.
The Answer is the latest incarnation of the 99 AM frequency that was most famous in the 50s and 60s as the market’s main home of rock and roll, WIBG, or Wibbage.
Since Hy Lit and company vacated the premises, 990 AM has been mostly a religious station. When it became WNTP around 2007, it began airing a lot of regional college basketball games.
In November, the station changed its format yet again. It became a talk outlet and installed Stigall, who had a 1210 following, as morning host. Other shows on 990 are syndicated and feature national hosts such as Dennis Prager and Sebastian Gorka.
Neal Zoren’s television column appears every Monday.
