No shortage of ‘Talent’

Coincidentally, Ed McMahon died Tuesday, the morning the new season debuted; from 1983 to 1995, McMahon was the host of “Star Search,’’ which preceded “AGT’’ in the great chain of talent shows and itself followed “The Amateur Hour.’’

Unlike “American Idol,’’ whose Simon Cowell is the “creator’’ of this patented and internationally franchised inflation of something that has been going on in community centers, high school auditoriums, and church basements for ages, “AGT’’ defines talent as broadly as possible and welcomes, if often only to smack them down, performers of all shapes and ages: It likes the very young (children are always asked their ages, usually by judge Sharon Osbourne), the up-from-the-streets, the family band, the dream that won’t die - contestants are a mix of karaoke singers, hobbyists looking to take it to the next level, frustrated professionals seeking a larger venue and people who just need you to see that thing they do.

On this week’s show, which covered auditions in New York, Seattle, and Chicago, we saw a man put sharp things up his nose, a man rotate his feet 180 degrees, a couple twirl erotically on a hoop and a man sing satirically about being in love with judge David Hasselhoff - songwriting was his avowed talent, not singing - alongside the more usual singers, comics, choirs, and dance crews.

These shows run on a sort of cognitive dissonance. The point of the Boyle phenomenon is not her singing but that her singing was unexpected, given the drably dressed, thick-set middle-age person from which it issued: She represents the ultimate expression of the “Got Talent’’ brand. Last year’s “ATG’’ winner, Neal E. Boyd, was similarly an unlikely star, a very large insurance salesman from a small town in the Midwest with a thing for opera. (His debut album was released this week to coincide with the start of the new season.) First “AGT’’ winner Bianca Ryan was a big-voiced 11-year-old who sang Janis Joplin.

Like “American Idol,’’ “America’s Got Talent’’ also embraces a narrative of amateurism triumphant. That last season’s “Idol’’ runner-up, Adam Lambert, already had a relatively hale career was not exactly a secret, but it fought uncomfortably with the idea that these shows are venues in which raw talent is “discovered’’ and groomed, and finally let out into the world as a butterfly leaves its chrysalis.