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.
matt lauer-related stories
Today Show's Halloween: Matt is Luke, Ann is Darth, and Hoda is Yoda
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.
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.
Mackenzie Phillips was high during One Day at a Time reunion
Like you, I wanted to take a shower and pour bleach into my ears after hearing what Mackenzie Phillips had to say on Oprah yesterday (thanks Oprah). But one of the interesting revelations that has come out of all of this is that Phillips had done heroin and was high during a One Day at a Time reunion on Today last year. Here's the clip from that episode.
Bonus: I didn't realize that One Day at a Time was based on the life of Meredith Baxter's family.
Bonus: I didn't realize that One Day at a Time was based on the life of Meredith Baxter's family.
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Update: Richard Hatch is in jail again!
Just yesterday I posted the video of Richard Hatch's appearance on Today. Now just a day later the Survivor champ is in jail again.Hatch's sister is saying that the reason why Hatch is in jail is because of the interview with Matt Lauer. There are no details yet on why he would be sent to jail because he talked to someone on a morning talk show (he did the interview from his home so he wasn't violating his home-confinement sentence) but his sister says that when the police came to take him, that's the reason the officer gave.
Continue reading Update: Richard Hatch is in jail again!
The View goes cooky over the Cookie Monster
Those combative ladies on The View have another bee floating around in their Marge Simpson size bonnets. This story, however, caused perhaps the most egregious and heated debate/clusterf#*$ of noise in the show's history. Cookie Monster has been in "cookie rehab" of sorts for about three years now. The View ladies finally caught wind of it and went off on a three minute tear about it using voices that are normally reserved for members of WTO protests or people who are on fire.
How bad did it get? Elisabeth Hasselbeck was the "good cop."
Continue reading The View goes cooky over the Cookie Monster
Three montages about Michael Jackson
This clip from The Soup will bring a smile to the face of every reader who thinks that TV coverage of Michael Jackson has gone too far. I guess that would be all readers. Joel McHale introduces montages about how the gossip shows and news channels reveal too much info about his death, wonder where his body is, and speculate wildly. The funeral is tomorrow, so we can imagine what coverage is still to come. (Video also here.)
There are very few exclusives in TV news nowadays
We've talked about this a lot here at TV Squad, how the word "exclusive" isn't used correctly in TV news these days. In fact I'll go one step further and say that networks often lie when they say something is an "exclusive." They'll say that an interview with a famous celebrity or a politician is an exclusive, but you realize you just watched an interview with the same person on another network the night before, or there's an interview with the same person the next day. Now, some networks will say they have an exclusive before another interview airs, so in that case I guess we can say they're right (if we give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn't know the other interview was coming, that is), but more often than not they know it's not an exclusive.
Continue reading There are very few exclusives in TV news nowadays
Miss California explains her answer (kinda)
Miss California, Carrie Prejean, caused some controversy the other night when she said she was against gay marriage. Today she explained her answer on, well, Today. I think Matt likes her!
GMA and Brian Williams welcome back Matt Lauer - VIDEO
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.
Continue reading GMA and Brian Williams welcome back Matt Lauer - VIDEO
Matt Lauer takes a tumble
If you tuned in to Today this morning expecting to see Matt Lauer, you were disappointed. But Matt wasn't off on another world wind tour of Asia or South America or the Baja Peninsula. No, the intrepid NBC host had a serious bike accident which sent him flying over the handlebars. According to co-host Meredith Vieira, Matt was biking at his Long Island home over the weekend when he had a run-in with a deer!
Continue reading Matt Lauer takes a tumble
Yes, Stephen Colbert has Twatted - VIDEOS
I constantly wonder what they're thinking over at NBC.If you missed it this morning, Stephen Colbert was on the Today show to talk about his role in the new animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens and The Colbert Report shows that he is going to be doing from The Persian Gulf. As usual, he was his funny self, even saying he was irritated that the show wasn't doing "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" this year (he's hoping one day they really will lose him somewhere around the globe).
At the end of the interview, Vieira asked him if he knew what Twitter was and if he was on it. Colbert answered "yes, I have Twatted." The crew got a nice chuckle out of it, but you can see from the video (after the jump) that when NBC posted in online, they took that section out! Really? Come on, it's not that bad.
Here's Colbert's Twitter. He hasn't updated it in a while. The "offensive" part has been caught on video and it's after the jump too. I think Vieira's response was even more suggestive.
Continue reading Yes, Stephen Colbert has Twatted - VIDEOS
Brian Williams puts in his hour at Today - VIDEOS
Seeing Brian Williams sitting next to Matt Lauer on Today was a bit disconcerting, wasn't it? I knew NBC was having some budget problems, but I didn't realize how thin of a bench they actually had. Williams subbed in for Meredith Vieira, but only stayed on the show for an hour, as I'd imagine he'd rather spend the 8:00 hour putting together tonight's Nightly News lineup than talk about ten ways to keep your car running or what Drew Peterson ate for breakfast.Anyway, Williams was at times a bit too stuffy for the morning gig, but his famous sense of humor showed through a number of times, including the clips after the jump. The first one is a clip reel of some strangely homoerotic interplay between Williams and Lauer, which Al Roker called "a Whitman's Sampler of man candy." The second one is of Lauer, Williams, and Natalie Morales making their Oscar picks.
Continue reading Brian Williams puts in his hour at Today - VIDEOS
Everyone in the world will be on NBC this Super Bowl Sunday
NBC is airing the Super Bowl this year. Sunday's all-day telecast (several hours of pre-game and probably another four or so for the game itself) will feature a wide variety of guests. Which of these guests are not going to be seen during the broadcast?
Keith Olbermann
Sarah Palin
Tina Fey
Top Chef's Tom Colicchio
Matt Lauer
Al Roker
Bruce Springsteen
Bob Costas
Jay Leno
Conan O'Brien
Continue reading Everyone in the world will be on NBC this Super Bowl Sunday
Ann Curry: Today's lovable nut talks about climbing Kilimanjaro
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.
Continue reading Ann Curry: Today's lovable nut talks about climbing Kilimanjaro
Palin to visit Desperate Housewives?
File this one under the category of really, wild rumors that should become reality: Desperate Housewives wants Governor Sarah Palin to appear as a guest on the show. Like I said, this is a rumor that cropped up yesterday, saying that head-writer/creator Marc Cherry was "very hot to trot to have her appear in the season finale." That was followed by an ABC spokesman denying that there's a shred of truth to the story.
Still, what if it's not such a Lucy Ricardo idea? Sarah Palin as a visitor to Wisteria Lane would be terrific -- and probably a boost in the ratings (which are doing great anyway, but still why not do even better?).
Continue reading Palin to visit Desperate Housewives?
Why can't debates be more like talk shows?
Like a large number of Americans, I watched last night's vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden with great interest. And, like most Americans, I was interested in the debate for reasons other than finding out about each ticket's policy views. I wanted to see Palin and Biden screw up. Big time.
Unfortunately (heh), both did fine. Palin spoke in complete sentences that more or less made sense, even if they didn't answer any of Gwen Ifill's questions; Biden didn't ramble on or say that FDR was the president during the stock market crash of 1929. But I don't know if you can attribute this debate's gaffelessness on the poise of the candidates alone. The format of the debate was so restrictive, it didn't give either of them time to go off on screwy tangents.
Wouldn't it have been better if both could just sit in a couple of chairs and speak freely? You know, like on a talk show?
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