Did you watch the Kennedy Centers Honors telecast the other night? This year, they honored Dave Brubeck, Robert DeNiro, Grace Bumbry, Mel Brooks and Bruce Springsteen. The Springsteen segment was probably the biggie (great speech by Jon Stewart, great musical performances by John Mellencamp, Jennifer Nettles, Melissa Ethridge and Sting) but the whole show was good.
The Mel Brooks tribute was hosted by Carl Reiner and then there were musical numbers from various Brooks efforts by Frank Langella, Harry Connick Jr., Richard Kind, Martin Short, Gary Beach and others. If you saw the show on CBS, you saw its editors do a fancy bit of scissoring, presumably due to length, on what was taped December 5th. Cut from the broadcast was a number from the Broadway version of Young Frankenstein performed by Roger Bart, Shuler Hensley and Cory English (who, ironically enough, are currently doing that show at the Kennedy Center). Also excised was Jane Krakowski singing "If You've Got It, Flaunt It" from the musical of The Producers, and they removed the entire finale, which had everyone on stage together. The ending was therefore rather disjointed as they cut to shots of some performers taking the bows that everyone was cheering and applauding…but couldn't use the full master shot because it contained Bart, Krakowski and the others who'd been trimmed.
There were probably other cuts in every part of the show. It's a shame they can't put the thing uncut somewhere…on PBS or maybe just a DVD. Here's a small part of what they did air…
