I should have known I was in trouble when Regis Philbin’s team starting calling me Friday morning, wanting to make sure I would be at his Friday night show at Hinckley Casino. Weeks earlier, I had a fiery, but entertaining chat with Regis in which I needled him about not doing more contemporary songs and challenged him to perform some Bob Dylan at his Minnesota show.

At this point, you should take a moment to read the original interview: http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/onstage/58529122.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

Are you done? Took you long enough…OK, back to story. I hadn’t originally planned to make the hike to Hinckley, but the slim chance that Regis would actually warble a few bars of “Like a Rolling Stone” was too much, so I hopped in my car and headed in Duluth’s direction.

The show itself was corny, silly - and lots of fun with Regis sliding through standards like “Swanee,” “Where Or When” and “Me and My Shadow” - and telling predictable jokes about Kelly Ripa and David Letterman. The crowd ate it up.

Then it was my turn to be in the hot seat. About halfway through the show, Regis mentioned our interview and my challenge to him. He then made me stand up (at this point, I went into a bit of schtick, pretending to be an 80-year-old, which, in retrospect, may not have been the most PC choice, since the crowd was full of 80-year-old men). After a couple false starts, Regis sang the chorus of “Blowin’ In The Wind.”

How did I respond? Why, obviously, I….blew him a kiss. Yeah, that’s right. (Regis responded in kind). The good-natured ribbing continued throughout the evening. When Regis came into the crowd, singing “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” he adapted the  line: “I can’t give you anything but love, Neely!” When he invited somone in the audience to join him on “You Made Me Love You” he begged me to chime in (fortunately, for Reege, the crowd and myself I was too far away from the mike). When REgis asked me from stage at one point, what I thought of the show so far, I shook my hand a little, indictating it was “so so.” Regis laughed. The Regis-lovin’ crowd didn’t.

Came backstage afterwards and spent some time with the man, who seemed to truly enjoy his first performance in Minnesota. Funniest moment: We were talking about how important casinos are now to “classic” entertainers and I mentioned how I saw James Brown at a casino years ago.

“What was that line he always said?” Regis inquired.

“Um, I feel good?”

“I FEEL GOOD!” bellowed Regis even after a 90-plus minute show.

Great job, Reege. But next time, see if you can add a couple verses as well.

Anyone who has watched the VMA show in the past know that producers always find a way to make headlines the next day - and it rarely has anything to do with the music. That’s why I’m almost certain that Kanye West’s “moment” - he got up on stage, took the mike from best female video winner Taylor Swift and sang the praises for Beyonce - was highly encouraged by producers.

 I mean, if they really didn’t want Kanye up on stage, security would have stepped in. Then there’s the fact that Taylor Swift just “happened” to be backstage when Beyonce, the night’s big winner, asked her to come out and get a chance to give her full acceptance speech.

Manipulated or not, everyone came out a winner. MTV got a much buzzed about event, Beyonce came across as looking gracious and Taylor got a lot of sympathy. And what about poor, poor Kanye? Don’t cry for him. The guy loves being the center of attention - whether it’s good or bad. His spoilsport act keeps him in the news - and that’s all he wants.

Lost in the controversy is the fact that Taylor delivered the musical highlight of the night just moments after the Kanye interruption. Her performance, starting at the 42nd subway stop and leading up to the top of a taxi in front of Radio City Music Hall, was a perfectly orchestrated bit that reminded me of something of of “Hard Day’s Night.” It was that enthusiastic bit - not Pink’s acrobatics or Janet Jackson aping her late brother’s moves - that stole the show.

In an e-mail to ABC staffers, anchor Charle Gibson said he’ll step down in January. No big surprise - and no big surprise that he’ll be replaced by Diane Sawyer. I’m skeptical. I’ve always thought Sawyer was a bit over the top emotionwise and more interested in getting people to cry than in getting the news (and don’t throw the “chauvinistic label” on me; I think Lesley Stahl is one of the top 3 interviewers in the business and I’m a fan of Katie Couric).

But who else does ABC have? Maybe Sawyer will prove me wrong and have the right “gravitas” for the job. We’ll see. The good news is that two of three main anchors will be female. It’s about time. Is this the right move for ABC? Who else is there?

Chad Hartman is back…sort of. Starting this Monday, the former KFAN host will fill in for Michele Tafoya when she’s got “MNF” duties. No surprise that he ended up at WCCO - and don’t be surprised if he puts in more hours in the near future.

Just weeks after the death of Walter Cronkite comes news that Don Hewitt, the man who put the anchor on the map, has passed away as well. In 2004, I paid tribute to Hewitt in conjunction with a documentary on him. I thought I’d share that story again.

   Television has had its share of scary icons: the one-armed man.
J.R. Ewing. Pauly Shore. But none are quite as intimidating as Don
Hewitt when he’s on a tear.

   As one of the architects of the network evening news, the
producer of the first debate between presidential candidates and
the creator of the TV newsmagazine, Hewitt has ruled electronic
journalism for more than half a century with a fiery style that
could make even Mike Wallace duck under his desk.

   At the end of this month, Hewitt, 81, goes into semi-retirement
and the news business will never be quite the same - or quite as
loud.

   You can feel some of Hewitt’s heat by watching tonight’s show
“Tell Me a Story: The Man Who Made `60 Minutes,’ ” especially the
old footage of Hewitt slamming down a phone in the control booth,
or a roundtable discussion among some formidable correspondents who
recall their boss’ tirades after showing him their stories.

   “Most everybody who produced at `60 Minutes’ at one point or
another has a story about what happened when the lights went on and
Don didn’t like your story,” said Jeff Fager, the producer tapped
to replace Hewitt, at a news conference this year. “He said to me
once, `Kid, where do you want it? Right between the eyes?’ ”

   Fager remembered the time another producer emerged from the
screening room looking as if he’d just been shot and announced that
Hewitt had declared his piece the worst story he had seen in 25
years.

   “No, I didn’t,” said Hewitt, sitting next to his mentee at the
conference, in a voice that sounds like he could still drown out
Bill O’Reilly. “I said, `I’ve never seen a story I couldn’t fix,
and I just saw one.’ ”

   CBS News president Andrew Heyward said that Hewitt’s blustery,
blunt delivery probably wouldn’t work with today’s new breed of
managers.

   “It’s an older industry, a blander industry, and the colorful
people who made it have given way to a kind of different style,” he
said. “In the somewhat more politically correct workplace
atmosphere, shouting is something that would lead to criticism that
his or her people skills weren’t the greatest.”

   .

   First debate was `the worst night in American politics’

   Hewitt had something else working for him besides the bark: He
knew what he was talking about.

   It was Hewitt who brought multiple angles and cue cards to the
evening news, and invented the term “anchorman” for Walter
Cronkite. It was Hewitt who saw how Life magazine married
“low-brow” entertainment and “high-brow” issues, and brought the
concept to television, creating “60 Minutes” - the
great-great-granddaddy of all TV newsmagazines. It was Hewitt who
saw the logic of pairing the rumpled Harry Reasoner and the
firecracker Mike Wallace, and helped develop the careers of Ed
Bradley, Dan Rather and Lesley Stahl.

   It was Hewitt who ran the first televised presidential debate in
1960, between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy - and now has the
wisdom to regret it.

   “I think that’s the worst night in American politics,” he said.
“That’s the night politicians looked at us and said, `Those guys
are the only way we can run for office,’ and we looked at them and
said, `That’s a bottomless pit of advertising dollars.’ Every time
people congratulate me for that broadcast, I get a little uneasy.”

   That kind of unprecedented history gave Hewitt unprecedented
freedom. He said he’s never looked at Nielsen’s minute-by-minute
viewership numbers, never attended a focus group and never been
asked to give a back seat to good, solid journalism.

   That kind of power is hard to surrender. Hewitt resisted
retirement for years and even now says he plans to spend plenty of
time at CBS headquarters, taking up the office previously belonging
to Bryant Gumbel. He’ll serve as an adviser to Fager and Heyward,
and help with recruiting, as well.

   One can bet he’ll use that access often - and loudly.

   Hewitt recalled a story that former CBS chairman William Paley
used to tell about Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. As the feisty
leader lay on his death bed, he heard cows mooing outside his window.

   “What’s that?” he said to his doctor, who replied, “It’s your
cows. They’ve come to say goodbye.”

   The dictator’s response: “Where are they going?”

   .

   Neal Justin is at njustin@startribune.com.

   .

   DON‘S DEEDS

   A few of Hewitt’s contributions to TV journalism:

   - Helped create TV’s first nightly newscast in 1948.

   - Oversaw TV’s first presidential debate, between John Kennedy
and Richard Nixon - perhaps the turning point in the 1960 election.

   - Coined the term “anchorman.”

   - Invented the first TV newsmagazine, “60 Minutes,” which has
been TV’s highest-rated news program for more than 30 years.

   .

Just got off the phone with Regis Philbin for an interview that will run Sept. 10, the day before he performs at Hinckley Grand Casino, his first singing gig in Minnesota. I don’t want to give too much away, but part of the interview got so out of control that I ended up humming a Bob Dylan song to Reege and he was either so impressed or flabbergasted that he promised he’d bring it up on Thursday’s episode of “Live With Regis & Kelly.” We’ll see…

In exchange for Reege being such a good sport, let me pass along a plug: He said that Sunday night’s closing episode of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” is extra special and that it isn’t to be missed. We believe him.