TVSquad

The Daily Show team must be exhausted. Last week was Tuesday through Friday on-location coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Colorado, and this week is the same from the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. I can't even imagine how new mommy-again Samantha Bee has been handling this, returning at the busiest time in months.

It was an interesting weekend, news-wise, wasn't it? The Tina Fey look-alike that's the Republican VP nominee announced that her teenage daughter was pregnant, and instead of covering the beginning of the Republican National Convention, all the broadcast and cable news operations sent their anchors to New Orleans, hoping to cover the "devastation" caused by Hurricane Gustav.

One problem: Nothing happened.

Well, that's not entirely true. The storm did hit rural areas west of New Orleans, and hit them pretty hard. But most of the Big Easy was spared. There was some minor flooding, some overflow of the leeves, and Geraldo Rivera bringing us "dramatic" footage of a "person!" in the water ... who was wearing a life jacket and tethered to what looks to be a Coast Guard boat. But that was about it. It makes a person wonder if the networks were disappointed there wasn't more destruction.

Pew Research Center's biannual survey on how Americans get their news revealed significant shifts underway from print to new media, and even from television to the internet. But it looks like that idiot box remains our number one source for just what's going on in the world around us. The article shows the demographics to be pretty much where you'd expect them to be as far as who goes where for their news. The younger, more affluent and/or more educated you are the more likely you are to go online for your news. The older, poorer and less educated you are the more likely you are to rely on the TV.

I live in a pretty small town that's chock full of poor, uneducated people and I can assure you that most of those citizens still think of computers as that fancy technology they use in them colleges and whatnot. And the Internets, well that's where you go for sin! But the young people, who have grown up with computers and the web are more savvy than their parents and if they can afford a computer, then they're online. Most are playing World of Warcraft, but they're still on there.

"Dick Move of the Week": John McCain has been making more news with one of his new attack ads against Barack Obama, in which he calls Obama out for being an attention-seeking celebrity, just like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. That's not the bad part though. That honor goes to the fact that Paris' parents support McCain and have sent thousands of dollars for his campaign. Smooth move, my man. Smooth move.

The new season of Sesame Street is right around the corner and, while I normally wouldn't give it a second thought, I am unusually excited right now. No, this isn't a snarky rant about how I've been driven to children's TV because of the sorry state of grown-up programming. Sesame Street's 39th season, starting August 11th, looks like it has a lot of fun lined up not only for the pre-schoolers but parents as well. I already posted Feist's upcoming special take on "1 2 3 4", but I had no idea how many amazing guest appearances were coming. Just check out this star-filled highlight reel after the jump.

If you watched the network morning shows this morning, you've seen the shocking sight of the Big Three evening news anchors -- Brian Williams, Katie Couric, and Charlie Gibson -- appearing on each show ... together! Gasp! How can that happen? Don't the networks have contract clauses and armies of lawyers to prevent these things from happening?

Well, I guess the lawyers tend to stay home when a good cause is involved. The anchors went on the news shows this morning to announce a cross-network telethon called Stand Up for Cancer Stand Up To Cancer, which will air on NBC, CBS, and ABC on September 5. The one-hour show will have musical performances and testimonials from all three anchors about the need for furthering cancer research (remember Couric's husband and sister both died from various forms of the disease). Money raised by the telethon will go to a number of organizations and research groups.

Way back in August, I listed my choices for the three worst anchors on television. I said in that post that "later this week" I was going to name the best news anchors on television. Apparently, "later this week" meant seven months later. Sorry about that!

Here are my choices for the six best news anchors currently on television. Feel free to disagree and argue with me in the comments section (as if you need any suggestion from me for that).

It wasn't April 1st so it couldn't be April Fool's Day. It was March 1st. Still, there she was, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton saying those famous words, "Live from New York, It's Saturday Night Live."

In an unannounced and potentially savvy political move, Senator Hillary Clinton, appeared on the NBC late night comedy and showed that she can laugh at herself. This surprise appearance, coupled with her agreeing to be on Monday's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, can only help her in Tuesday's primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. It's pretty much desperation time for the Clinton candidacy and if Hillary wants to make it to the Denver convention with a chance to beat Barack Obama, she must win Texas and Ohio -- the big states -- decisively.

"Bushman of Africa": President Bush recently paid a visit to five countries throughout Africa. He shared his learnings and experiences through a slideshow, keeping it real old-school. Due to his initiatives on malaria, there will be a George W. Bush Day to raise awareness. Was that a joke, Mr. President? I'll pretend it was.

Correspondent John Oliver stopped by to talk about this strange, new caring Bush and expressed his pain in seeing that Bush had it in him to do good all along. Whenever people bash The Daily Show (or the Colbert Report) for being really unfair to Bush, I like to point them to segments like this. Sure, they have a bit of a liberal bias, but they're not afraid to point out the blunders of the Democrats, nor do they shy away from recognizing when Republicans or conservatives have done well. Seriously, these two shows are probably more fair that many mainstream news outlets. Bless their snarky little hearts.

OK, this isn't exactly "Who Shot JR," but it does have people guessing.

NBC Nightly News will have a new announcer starting tonight (longtime announcer Howard Reig retired in 2005), and they're trying to make it a surprise. The only clues from the network is that it's a name we all know, and this person had "an extensive, award-winning theatrical career for nearly forty years." Some of the guesses from fans include James Earl Jones, Patrick Stewart, James Lipton, Morgan Freeman, and ... Tom Brokaw? Yes, he was great in A Streetcar Named Desire.

"No offense to those over 60, but that's not a demo we want."

That's a quote from Les Moonves at a press conference yesterday, talking about statistics that say the average age for a viewer of the nightly network news programs is 61.

Looks like all of the younger people in the country are getting their news from the web and cable.

Like many people, I had serious doubts about Brian Williams hosting SNL. I wasn't worried that he wouldn't be funny (I've seen him on Conan so many times and he always makes me laugh). What I was worried about was that he might look stupid. Let's face it, SNL is pretty hit and miss these days and his episode could have easily been a stinker.

I was really happy to see that this was not the case.

(S33E04) From Brian Williams' guest spots and cameos on The Daily Show, I already knew he was a surprisingly funny guy. He has an incredibly dry delivery and that level of newsman integrity paired with any remotely dirty joke is absolutely hilarious. That said, I still was not sure how he would deal with a live show. After all, even the funniest of comedians or most polished of actors can fall flat on their face when pressured with the threat of no edits, no do-overs.

I am very happy to report that Mr. Brian Williams did a spectacular job. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up joining the ranks of hosting gods Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin some day. His performance was crisp and professional, and I'm sure people that only know him from his news program were caught completely off guard. Too bad the writing this week was below average.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has two gigs this week: hosting the nightly news show and preparing to host Saturday Night Live this weekend, rehearsing and helping to write some segments. Some people say he's blurring the line between news and entertainment, but I'm looking forward to seeing how he does. And he's keeping a blog of how the week is going so far.

The Daily Nightly is one of the better network news blogs anyway, but these entries show Williams' funny side. After working one night, he actually had to go to 30 Rock and join the writers for their all-night writing session.

We told you a couple of weeks ago that Brian Williams is going to host Saturday Night Live on November 3. But what if Katie Couric hosted instead?

That's the intriguing question asked by TV critic Ed Bark, who wonders if talk about Couric not having enough "gravitas" to host a nightly network news show will now go away. How can her detractors say that now that Williams is crossing over the line that separates the news division and the entertainment division?