TVSquad

FOX is preparing to launch a new morning show with Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy, former weekend co-hosts of Fox and Friends. The new morning show will air at 9am in markets where News Corp. owns the stations. I never watched Fox and Friends, so I can't tell you how entertaining these two hosts are, but FOX is confident that the show will mix well with its other popular morning programming.

Before coming to Fox and Friends, Jerrick hosted specials on HBO and SciFi and was also a co-host on Good Morning Philadelphia. Huddy started at Fox News as a reporter in 1998. According to AP, the new show will use some of the same elements as other shows but also try a few different ideas to set itself apart. Ultimately, however, I think the success of any new daytime talker will come down to how likable the hosts are. You can try all the gimmicks you like, but if the hosts can't endear themselves to the audience, you've already lost.

The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet premiered this morning. If your caught it, I'd like to hear your reaction.

King World, the syndication company behind Rachael Ray's new talk show, conducted a survey of 1,800 people to find out who the most likeable TV hosts were, and Rachael Ray came out the winner. The survey was meant to find out a star's "Q" score, which is industry jargon for how appealing a TV personality is to an audience. Ray was followed up by Ty Pennington of Home Makeover, and Food Network stars Paula Deen and Giada DeLaurentiis. Sixth place went to Oprah, with Sean Hannity, Emeril Lagasse and Dick Clark trailing. I'm not really a daytime talk person kind of fellow, nor do I watch a lot of cooking shows, so I can't comment on most of these choices. I don't know if he would count, but if we're going on likability alone, I'd probably choose Jay Leno. I don't care for his show, but he is an amicable personality. How about the rest of you? Who would you have picked?

[via Lost Remote]

This January, Spike TV will be airing Wild World of Spike, a kind of alternative sports comedy show that doesn't sound too far removed from the network's other wacky sports challenge series, MXC. Wild World of Spike will feature three hosts, Kit Cope, Sam Ellis and Sam Tripoli, who watch bizarre "sports" from around the world such as "mop jousting" and "dirt skiing," and then try to recreate the events themselves. The result, they hope, will be funny for the stoned college kids who will no doubt be the show's core audience. Personally, I'm wondering how long it took them to come up with the concept of watching something on television and then copying it. That's either ingenious or just incredibly lazy, I haven't quite figured out which. The series is being produced by the same folks behind The Princes of Malibu and Growing Up Gotti.

Most people don't think of Julia Louis-Dreyfus as an SNL alumnus; sure, it's been mentioned here and there, and she did participate in the various show retrospectives that aired last year. But, unlike Will Ferrel, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, and any number of big names that came from the show, when you hear JLD's name, the first thing you think of is Seinfeld, not SNL.

That might be because Julia wasn't used all that much during her time on the show, which was from 1982 to 1985. That was especially true in the classic "Short - Crystal - Guest - Shearer" season of 1984-1985, as the star power of that year overwhelmed whatever semi-known cast member was left over from previous years. Pre-Seinfeld, JLD was probably on the SNL fame meter somewhere around the Melanie Hutsell level.