Some days are just big on the "Today" show: The day after election night. During disasters. Halloween.
At least as much planning goes into the annual costumed "Today" show as goes into any other special edition, and so to recover from last year's Diva debacle, the cast saluted a 40-year old show, "The Munsters" with Matt Lauer all green as Herman Munster, Maredith Viera as Lily, Al Roker looking like an old Jewish man as Grandpa, Hoda Kotb turning blonde to become Marilyn and Natalie Morales maybe the most convincing of the bunch as Eddie. New guy Tiki Barber had to be fitted in a costume as Spot the Dragon.
Ann Curry, who was Cher last year, missed the party. She was on her way to the South Pole for next week’s costume drama – reporting from four corners of the earth.
People are carping about Brian Williams in danger of losing stature by hosting "Saturday Night Live" this week. But it’s not clear how people like Lauer miss this criticism after annual costume parades.
What was impressive about the presentation of the costumes during the 8 o’clock hour was that they got into their makeup and costumes in about 10 minutes. Lauer’s costume may have been better than that on the lead of “Young Frankenstein," the cast of which stuck around to perform a couple of times.
Later, "Live with Regis and Kelly" seemed particularly mirthless for Halloween this year. The hosts are not only now slaves to costumes which, in the case of Regis Philbin at least involves dressing as men half a century younger, some of whom he may never has heard from.
Indeed, as Troy and Sharpay from "High School Musical," he didn’t have a sense of who exactly he was playing (at any rate he kept mispronouncing her name as "Sharpie." "Live" always seems two steps back in parody, so Gelman’s adventure as a particularly stiff Borat not only seemed dated by a year, but the use of a fat old guy (whose name I’d know if I watched enough) as Britney Spears seemed a little meaner than necessary (and already done).
The gimmick this year was 3-D and every so often the screen would get blurrier than before as the hosts threw balls or shot Silly String at the camera. Fun for a minute, and more effective than the 3-D recently on Cartoon Network, it was still hardly worth the trip to Walgreens to pick up the special glasses.
Later, Philbin put on prosthetic teeth to portray David Letterman; Ripa played both Paul Shafer (in baldheaded wig and unexplained spasmodic moves) and guest Judge Judy, a get up that was kind of convincing.)
Dr. Phil McGraw was guest of the show within a show, more to be a prop in the Letterman setting than that he had anything really to say (as such, he played opposite his own show locally). The other guests for the morning were The Backstreet Boys, dressed like a boy band (there’s only four of them now).
Their next costumes were the Beckhams, who I’m surprised to find are popular enough to warrant costume parodies. But Ripa was very good as Victoria – not many women can pull off the Posh look (being thin as a stick is the only way to do it). Philbin, as usual, wasn’t so convincing in portraying Beckham (he had to wear his name on his chest, always a bad sign).
And like their final costumes for the day – as Harry Potter and Hermione, he used the same Cary Grant impersonation to serve as his English accent.
There were some very elaborate costumes competing for a $20,000 prize, also provided by Walgreens. Winner this year was a giant Transformer costume that may or may not have had someone inside of it.
They tried class on "The View," where the theme was the Cotton Club, which had Sherri Shepherd as a flapper, and Whoopi Goldberg as Cab Calloway, singing "Minnie the Moocher," who was apparently portraying Minnie, swinging on a swig and singing "hi-de-ho."
Barbara Walters made an entrance with a black gown and feathered headdress worthy of Bob Mackie or Vegas at least. She had a connection to the era, since her father opened the Latin Quarter on the site of the old Cotton Club.
As much as she liked her costume (better than her 2003 Marilyn Monroe at least), everyone was so uncomfortable, Goldberg was trying to yank her wig off, and Behar was getting rid of her fur vest.
Walters had lost her fancy headdress by the first commercial break, looking instead like she was going to a White House dinner in fancy dress. And intending to class up the holiday, she kept up the theme of the show by bringing on Tony Bennett to sing Duke Ellington. Bennett, who has dressed as Red Hot Chili Pepper earlier in his career for a bit on the MTV Video awrds, stuck to his dressy suit as usual. This left people in the audience dressed as ladybugs and Santa Claus feeling a little out of place.
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