Kathie Lee Gifford began her stint as co-anchor of the fourth hour of the Today show this morning. There was talk of her family, some semi-tears and anti-gravity boots. So, how’d it go?
• The Huffington Post’s Patrick Waldo pulls two video clips from the first day, including a tear-inducing (from Kathie Lee, and possibly some viewers) serenade by Harvey Fierstein. “Clearly, we have a lot to look forward to this year,” said Waldo, not-at-all sarcastically.
• The New York Daily News’ David Hinckley writes that the show has to figure out, “the ‘why’,” for Gifford’s move to Today, and better establish her rapport with co-anchor Hoda Kotb. “In the broader scope, the whole show felt like we were watching musicians learning to play the guitar as the song went along.”
• Tom Shales of the Washington Post was not a fan. “Opening day was a windy, dithery mess with virtually no portents of improvements to come,” he writes. Shales put much of the blame on the producers for the show’s almost exclusively outdoor presentation. “In addition to Gifford and Kotb talking over one another like dueling magpies, viewers also had to endure crowd noise from easily thrilled tourists and late-to-work New Yorkers gathered around them,” writes Shales.