After a self-calculated 5,000 dawn patrol newscasts for Channel 6’s “Action News,” anchor Tamala Edwards is swapping places with 10 a.m. anchor Alyana Gomez and moving from the 4 a.m. berth she shared with Matt O’Donnell to join the 10 a.m. team with Alicia Vitarelli and Nydia Han.
Both Edwards and Gomez announced the exchange at the end of their Thursday programs.
Edwards, one of the few throwbacks to an era when you were certain the person delivering the news actually knows the background and details of stories, as opposed to just reading them, has been on “Action News” morning broadcast since she arrived at the station from ABC News in 2005.
She said while she announced her departure from that show, “I thought I was coming (to Philadelphia and 6ABC) for a job. Little did I know I was coming for a life.”
Like O’Donnell, Edwards is also a rotating host of the Sunday morning discussion show, “Inside Story.”
Linking her tenure at Channel 6 with her life, Edwards was doing a story with O’Donnell when he met her husband, pastry chef Rocco Lugrine, in 2006. They have two children, who only know Philadelphia as their home.
Alyana Gomez came to 6 ABC in 2022.
A year later, she helped launch the market’s only 10 a.m. local newscast, and the only one to conscientiously maintain an all-woman team.
Channel 29 also has a 10 a.m. news product, “The Aftershow,” but is a mélange of talk, discussion, and camaraderies rather than a standard newscast.
Gomez, Vitarelli, and Han have made their show a success, with weather anchors Brittany Boyer and Karen Rogers being part of the mix.
Now Gomez will be rising about 2 a.m. weekday mornings while Edwards presumably gets to enjoy more normal hours.
There is evidence Gomez is an early riser. While saying so long to Vitarelli and Boyer on her last midday show, she said she always watched Edwards, O’Donnell, Rogers and company on what I call their rooster broadcast.
Gomez also sat in for Edwards and others, so morning viewers have some familiarity with her.
‘Jawns’ a Channel 29 exclusive
The Channel 29 team called it “Jawns,” and it included Mike Jerrick channeling Robert Shaw, Sue Serio showing off genuinely skilled acting chops, Alex Holley as a gleefully smiling shark, Bob Kelly saying, “We need a bigger boat,” and Jennaphr Frederick cautioning, “Don’t go in the ‘wooder.’ ”
The occasion was a “Good Day Philadelphia” Players celebrating the 50th anniversary classic movie, “Jaws,” by doing their own remake.
More camp than serious, the eight-minute-ish skit covered most of the key scenes and lines from Steven Spielberg’s thriller while working to eke some comedy out of the familiar.
The scenes that worked best, in spite of Holley’s joyful predator — Well, it was fulfilling its one purpose in life: to eat! — were the most dramatic and traumatic.
Thank the talented Sue Serio for that.
One of the shark’s early victims was — gasp — Bus Stop Buddy, the 6-year-old meteorologist Serio invented to suggest how parents might dress their kid for a particular day’s weather.
We see Buddy, in his usual representation as a cartoon figure, in what is called the Schuylkill, as the shark is sighted and orders are given to “Get out of the wooder.”
In two subsequent scenes, Serio is quite moving as she stands, arms raised at the elbow in Munch-like panic, frantically yelling for Buddy, who she cannot see, then, in mourning clothes, black lace veil and all, at Buddy’s funeral — Yes, the worst occurs — slaps — I hope I get this right; I can’t find “Jawns” on line to verify — Bob Kelly’s police chief for not protecting Buddy and others when he “knew” a shark was stalking the Schuylkill.
Powerful stuff there, Sue. I can see why you’re tapped for acting roles here and there.
Mike Jerrick also acquits himself well in a fairly intense, respectful take-off of Robert Shaw’s Quint, the shark expert from Spielberg’s “Jaws.”
“Jawns” had its ups and downs, but it was fun to watch and was another example of how Channel 29’s news department separates itself from all the others in the market.
Another example of that was a July 3 discussion with Thomas Drayton, Karen Heap, Alex Holley, and a woman I didn’t recognize — and who wasn’t ID’d while I was watching — about what they would do if I they were healthy but were told, without wiggle room, they were living their last 24 hours on Earth.
The example showed before the discussion involved a “Star Trek”-like transporter so Hepp or another of the group could be “beamed” from place to place for their final hurrah.
Karen actually chose one place I would have, Greece, somewhere neither of us has been, a 2023 tumor and an extensive 2025 home plumbing project absorbing the funds I put aside the two times I planned to go.
Water seemed to be part of everyone’s swan song — and my dilemma!.
Drayton had the most subdued response, an actual deathwatch while he sat terrified and occasionally crying while sitting and looking at the ocean.
I’d be in line with the rest of the pack, using the transporter to take me to Greece, then Israel, then Egypt to see the Pyramids, then to Australia, and finally to London or Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, for one last marvelous production, probably Shakespeare, most fittingly “The Tempest.”
I designed my “heaven” years ago, so I’m all ready for that.
The takeaway from all of this is that the 9 a.m. hour on “Good Day Philadelphia” usually includes the anchor team discussing some news story or matter from everyday life.
The reason I enjoy watching is their talk is mature, smart, and shows knowledge of the world and insight into each participant.
That, frankly, is the television I want. Channel 29 is the only place I find it.
His ‘Jawns’ fallout
Two other things that came from trying to find the footage from “Jawns” online.
Google led me to a 2024 story about Mike Jerrick’s visit to a place called “Burger Jawn,” a storefront sandwich shop I’ve been curious about but never entered even though it is two blocks from my house, where the dry cleaner used to be.
It’s this thing I have about storefronts — neurotic idiocy, but there — and my preference for sitting at a table and being served. The Chinese takeaway down the block from Burger Jawn is the lone exception.
Mike was quite pleased with the place, so I’ll mention his name when I deign to try it.
Jenn Frederick’s line about “wooder” reminded me of an interview I did with actor Michael Moriarty at Channel 3 decades ago when he was in the original cast of “Law & Order.”
Just as I was taking my seat next to Moriarty, an intern from Channel 3 came in and asked if I’d like some “warrer.”
That’s the way she said it, “warrer,” more K&A than Jenn’s Delco.
I answered, “I’d love some, without ice, please.”
Once the intern left, Moriarty grabbed both of my hands in his and asked, “What is it you just said you wanted?”
“Water,” I replied, not lapsing into Delco, “without ice.”
“Water!” he bellowed, slapping his forehead with his palm. “Water!”
“You’re the third person who’s interviewed me today, and neither of the others wanted what that woman offered. I was afraid to say yes when she asked me because I didn’t know what she’d bring me.”
When the intern returned with my Schuylkill Punch, the lifelong drinking of which I’m sure has made me impervious to any number of bacterial strains, Moriarty said, “I’d like a glass, too, please; ice is fine for me.”
“Water!”
“I never would have guessed.”
WIP challenge underway
A heady showdown is going on at WIP (94.1 FM).
Morning host Joe DeCamara and afternoon host Jack Fritz are embroiled in a five-event challenge of individual athletic prowess.
Competition is fierce with the “Morning Show’s” crew backing DeCamara and the “Afternoon Show” just as gung ho for Fritz.
The trash talk has been rife. So has each competitor’s on-air rationale for why he will dominate over his rival.
Callers to each show are also involved. I hear the “Afternoon Show” more often than the “Morning,” so I’ve heard the locker room pep talks, or parodies of locker room pep talks Fritz has gotten.
So far, with one event down, golf, in which Fritz was favored, an upset took place.
Amid reports of golf clubs thrown further than any ball was driven and DeCamara quibbling whether Fritz should be charged with a stroke when he accidentally touched his ball with his putter — with less than a millimeter’s difference — DeCamara won the match.
The morning host now has a 1-0 lead in the competition.
The next event is baseball, also thought to favor Fritz, who is nicknamed Jackie Baseball and was a pitcher on college teams.
This takes place Wednesday at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School’s field, to which WIP listeners and the public are invited.
No dog in the hunt here. I just like the boasting and crying as this challenge proceeds.
Closed caption gaffe
We all laugh at the spelling errors in closed captions, especially during live events, when the mettle of the operators or, more likely the quality of the AI program being used, are sorely tested.
On Saturday, I tuned out of the Phillies-Reds game mid-sixth inning because I was due at a dinner date before going to a Sherlock Holmes play in Princeton. (Great work, Emmie Collins!)
When I got home, I went right to the Phillies website, saw that our team in red was the one that earned victory and watched highlights.
These were captioned, and according to what I’m guessing is all AI, the Alec Bohm home run that broke a 1-1 tie in that bottom of the sixth was clouted by “Ali Foam.”
Priceless.
Celebrating long-lived actors
So much in recent columns has been about the death of television notables, local and national, it’s time to mark at least three birthdays and one remarkable life.
June Lockhart, known as the mother on “Lassie” and “Lost in Space,” among other roles, turned age 100, in June while Eva Marie Saint, who earned an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for 1954’s “On the Waterfront,” celebrated a 101st birthday on July 4.
Saint is the living actress who received her Oscar the earliest in her category, followed by Shirley Jones, 1960; and Rita Moreno, 1961; Joanne Woodward, 1957; Jack Nicholson, 1975; and George Chakiris, 1961; hold that distinction in other categories.
On June 28, the amazing funny and deliciously irreverent Mel Brooks turned age 99.
Of course, we all look forward to December when Dick Van Dyke, still doing some dancing for audiences, celebrates his 100th birthday.
I personally get a kick in realizing that on Oct. 1, Julie Andrews, who I envision as eternally young, will become age 90.
I was with her on her 70th birthday, I and about 1,000 people at Wilmington’s Playhouse Theatre, where Andrews had directed a production of her first Broadway hit, “The Boyfriend.”
We came on stage for cake and chance to say hello, thank you, and many more years to come!
Source: Berkshire mont
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