TVSquad

This morning, the Today gang dressed up for Halloween like they do every year, and this year it was a Star Wars theme. Besides the characters mentioned above, we have Meredith as Princess Leia, Kathie Lee as C3P0, Natalie as Amidala, Al as Han Solo and many Storm Troopers.

There's an awkward silence a couple of minutes in as each character is introduced. Lauer gets off a funny line about why he was late.

NBC just sent me a series of photos showing the interviews that will be conducted during the network's "A Woman's Nation" series. As part of the series, NBC, CNBC and MSNBC personalities will interview each other about "the state of women in American life," as the accompanying press release has stated.

In most of the pics, the pairs -- Andrea Mitchell/Rachel Maddow, Kathie Lee Gifford/Jenna Bush Hager, Mika Brzezinski/Hoda Kotb, Natalie Morales/Suze Orman -- sit on the comfy chairs, legs crossed. As you can see from the pic above, Ann Curry, who's paired up with Meredith Vieira, wants to be different: shoes off, feet tucked under her rear end. She's really into this conversation, know what I mean? She's listening. She's comfortable.

It's so Ann Curry, isn't it?

This is one of the more enjoyable clips you'll see this week. Paula Deen was on the Today Show a few days ago to make some coffee cake, but things got out of hand after some mysterious guy walked onto the set and laid on the ground behind the counter.

Deen gets off one of my favorite lines of the year, wondering where the guy came from. As a bonus, another TV personality makes a random appearance to try some of the cake and Ann Curry acts all Ann Curry-ish.

[via Slashfood]

We told you the other day about Matt Lauer being attacked by a deer while riding his bike. Now come the inevitable jokes.

Lauer returned to Today this morning, arm and shoulder in a giant sling, and you knew the wisecracks were going to come. But where the humor came from was a bit of a surprise. A producer from rival morning show Good Morning, America brought a present for Lauer. He also read a funny note from ABC's president, who suggested that Lauer take some time off.

Brian Williams also sends a funny video message to Lauer, which is worth seeing just for hearing Williams use the phrase "gooned up on Percocets." There's also footage of Jay Leno joking about the incident. The funniest part of the video for me are the Today fans in the background, all wearing antlers.

Something about Today's Ann Curry has always struck me as odd. Don't get me wrong; she seems like a nice woman and a hell of a journalist. But something about the way she answers questions, how she gets chummy and touchy-feely with people she's just met, and how she always chooses to go on needlessly life-threatening assignments makes me think that she's not quite all there.

Her November climb up Mount Kilimanjaro furthered this notion. Yes, it was nice to see how the glaciers on the African mountain were affected by climate change, but couldn't we have seen it using an airplane and a high-powered spy camera? Did Ann and her crew really need to climb the toughest route up the mountain during the most treacherous time of the year to get the story?

Well, it was absolutely necessary, as she tells TV Week in an entertainingly wacky interview about the assignment.

They're dyin' to call this for Obama, aren't they? (In fact, they just did at 11 PM ET) In our last update, NBC called Pennsylvania for Obama before barely any votes were counted, then they were on top of Ohio like lions on a limping elk. According to their board, the big O has over 200 electoral votes already, whereas the New York Times website says Obama only has 159. Do the networks have better exit poll data than the Times or are they just too eager to wrte the conclusion to The Obama Story? It's anyone's guess. At least they're not falling all over themselves to call it based on Ohio, like other sites are doing.

More observations:

• From the girlfriend: "Ann Curry looks foxy! Well, she does!" I agree. Curry's rockin' the boots on the virtual set tonight.
• They showed the green room again at 9:30. BriWi's doing it for "full disclosure," but when the graphics turn off, Curry ends up looking so lonely in there.
• Speaking of which, Curry told Brian Williams that "she felt like she was in a video game," then her Sincerity Chip kicked in and she added "Whatever it takes to get the information out to people, Brian." Sure, because phony columns, fake birds, and spinning graphics are the only way to do that.

Thankfully, NBC has decided once again to do different election coverage than their kissing cousins at MSNBC. So instead of David Gregory trying to moderate slap fights between Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough, and Chris Matthews, we get the relatively dignified analysis of Brian Williams, Chuck Todd, Tom Brokaw, Andrea Mitchell and Ann Curry. Whew. Looks like I selected the right network.

Some observations from the first couple of hours of coverage:

• Chuck Todd really has to shave his goatee. Yes, it was nice for awhile. But he might be the host of Meet the Press after this election is over; how can any one take him seriously with that "look, Ma, I can grow a beard!" look?
• Ann Curry is doing exit polling in a green room. Not a green screen, mind you, but an entire green room. It's freaky. Williams wanted to assure us that Curry was safe from those flying graphics. Nice of him.
• Does Williams have to remind us of his blue-collar, fire-fightin', hard-drinkin' past at every turn? "It's probably not a good thing that I know where Finnegans' Wake (a bar in Philly that's Obama's HQ there) is" he says to Mike Taibbi. Thanks for the insight into your past, Bri.

Yes, you read that headline correctly. The First Lady has gone from being a guest on NBC's Today show to becoming part of it.

Mrs. Bush will guest host the 9 am hour of Today next Tuesday, April 22nd (that also happens to be the day of the Pennsylvania primary). That later part of the show is usually quite a bit softer, with less political talk and more topics aimed at women. Laura Bush will also appear earlier in the broadcast with daughter Jenna to talk about their children's book, Read All About It!. And she will give Ann Curry a tour of the family's Crawford, TX ranch.

I think we can officially slide Today over to the same category as The View, rather than a news program. But many people probably did that when Meredith Vieira took Katie Couric's spot on the show. It's not as if Mrs. Bush is going to be asked who she endorses to replace her husband as president while she's co-hosting. Oh, wait. I can totally see that happening. Ed Murrow is rolling over in his grave.

Is Kathie Lee Gifford coming back to daytime? Does Regis know; does he care? Well, whatever the case with Reeg, there is talk that La Kathie Lee may be ready for a new talk show gig. In the Hollywood Reporter, Today executive producer Jim Bell said Kathie Lee Gifford is on the short list as a co-host for the fourth hour of the show. "I think she's a great talent," he said of KLG, while adding that other names are in the hopper as well.

What's happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• On December 17, Ann Curry is going to bungee jump off a bridge.
• Here's the trailer for the big screen Speed Racer movie.
• Behind the scenes of Rachael Ray.
• MTV picks the 10 most uncomfortable star interview moments (I think the Phoenix interview should be #1).
• Cracked picks the 13 most ridiculous TV shows of all-time (I don't agree with their choices of Quark and The 100 Lives of Blackjack Savage.)
• Tim Goodman has started a new TV blog, and he picks the 5 best Christmas specials, and I really can't argue with that list (though Miracle on 34th Street should probably be in there).

Former Live with Regis & Kathie Lee star Kathie Lee Gifford is going to guest host the fourth hour of NBC's Today Show tomorrow.

As I mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of any morning show having a fourth hour. Even if they brought back Breakfast Time I'd say that two hours was enough. And just the fact they're now getting "guest hosts" proves how trivial the fourth hour really is. But isn't the third hour mostly cooking, celebs, and fashion tips too? What's the fourth hour, just all the ladies (Ann Curry, Natalie Morales, and Hoda Kotb) having pillow fights with each other while Al Roker watches? Let's just hope Kathie Lee doesn't sing.

NBC's press release is kind of odd. It says that this appearance "will mark the first time she has co-hosted the fourth hour of Today." Has she co-hosted any of the other three hours of the show?

Are Today Show viewers - even the most loyal Today Show viewers - asking for a fourth hour of the show every single day?

Looks that way. As we reported earlier, NBC is going ahead with their plans for a fourth hour of the morning show, and Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that the hosts have been named: Ann Curry, Natalie Morales, and Hoda Kotb. Giada De Laurentis and Tiki Barber will be correspondents on the show.

I assume that NBC has done some sort of market research that pushes them in this direction, but as a viewer I'm kind of nauseated. Look at all that TV space that's being taken up by having four hours of Today on Monday through Friday (and another two hours each on Saturday and Sunday). Yikes.

[via TV Newser]

Doing the news can't be easy. It's a lot more than just reading the teleprompter, especially when you do it live. The really good anchors make it look easy and the merely competent ones make it look hard (but you feel for them). It's the really bad ones that make you cringe and throw something at the TV (or change the channel). Not only are they incompetent when it comes to skills, they have an off-putting air about them. At best they are anchors who should be reporters and not sit in an anchor chair.

I've picked the three very worst ones I can find on TV right now. And just so we're clear, I'm talking about news people who read the news or anchor. So you won't see show hosts like Nancy Grace or Bill O'Reilly here. And I'm concentrating on national anchors, not local ones. There's not enough space on the web to do one on local anchors. Though I'd love to do one on Boston anchors some day.

1. Rick Sanchez (CNN): Do I really have to explain why he's #1? OK...

NBC is trying to save money everywhere.

Longtime Dateline host Stone Phillips is being let go by the network, for money reasons. Phillips' current co-host, Ann Curry, will continue to do the show. I guess NBC wants someone in there who is already under contract and does other stuff at the network. Curry is the newsreader on The Today Show too. She'll be joined by various NBC reporters as rotating co-hosts.

No word on what Phillips will do now. I wonder why they didn't just keep him on and have him do other things at the network and MSNBC? Maybe he didn't want to, who knows.

After Today's presentation at NBC's press tour day, I wandered up to the stage to ask Al Roker, Meredith Vieira, and Ann Curry some questions (Matt Lauer bolted to catch a flight back east right after the presentation was over). I had one and only one question for Curry, which was "Were you disappointed when you didn't get the anchor job?"

Let's just say that she had a lot of feelings about the move; she even copped a slightly defensive tone when she discussed her own field reporting from Lebanon and Darfur. But all of this came out without prompting by me; I think that somewhere in this soliloquy I uttered the question "So you're doing more field reporting now?" but that was about it. The woman knows how to filibuster; can a career in Congress be in her future?

Curry's entire response is after the jump: