Since I'm up, I might as well POST...
...or, the early-morning MSNBC watch, continued...

Ever since Don Imus was unceremoniously removed from MSNBC (due to some unceremonious comments he made), MSNBC has gone through a veritable plethora of substitute talkers to try and fill a probably-hard-to-fill early morning slot. Can you imagine hosting a 3 hour show, 5 days a week, and trying to remain fresh and original while doing so? Especially when the show involves spontaneous give-and-take; you've gotta be at your best just about every second to pull it off. If you go through some of my previous postings, you'll see other people I've written about, who've hosted the former Imus slot with varying degrees of effeciveness. I was really surprised on how well Joe Scarborough and his associates handled that program slot for the few days that he appeared on that early morning slot. Could be, that MSNBC is now looking within its own employee roster for someone who can handle the demands of early-morning TV?

So, again this morning, I was expecting Joe Scarborough to be back. I really felt he did the best job out of all the host-wannabees that had preceded him in the old Imus slot. So I was surprised when White House Correspondent for NBC news, David Gregory was in the Imus chair, and he's knowledgable enough to go toe-to-toe with any of the politically-oriented guests that usually are featured on the morning program. David Gregory himself appeared regularly on the old Imus show, and he'd try to be serious about all of the heavy news that was going on, and Imus would throw a curveball at him, commenting him on his tie, or the fact that he was dancing onstage with Karl Rove (it's a long, long story; I'm sure you can find the footage on YouTube), and Gregory had to be fast on his feet to keep up with Imus; it took a thick skin to be a regular Imus guest. I miss the confrontational humor that Imus brought to the program; no one did that better than him.

David Gregory is a cool guy, and from being on the Imus program so many times, he's adopted some of Imus' mannerisms; when it came time to say, "more after this", he would give a visual cue, an arm gesture, which means, "hit the commercial break now", a gesture widely used by radio people, a gesture which Imus used. And after the commercial break, he came back and said, "I'm David Gregory, on radio around the country and televised on MSNBC", just like Imus used to say, so some of these parallels I found quite startling. And, get this...it feels like "old home week", because Imus' newsman, Charles McCord, as well as sportscaster Chris Carlin, are on the program with David Gregory! Poor Chris, he is, well, "rather rotund", and Imus would call him a "fat weasel" and always make jokes about his weight. This is where Imus offended ME, because I'M fat! So anyway, it's nice to touch base with these TV characters that I felt like I'd come to know over the last couple of years, when I'd videotape the Imus show and play it back at a more convenient time.

So anyway, it's interesting seeing the paces that MSNBC is going through, trying to find someone, anyone, to host the old Imus slot. MSNBC may have trouble finding a permanent host, though. In my previous post, I mentioned a comment by radio host Glenn Beck which basically said that things are getting so politically-correct that soon, people will be afraid to say anything, resulting in overall radio blandness. It will be interesting to see how this MSNBC situation resolves itself. I like this kind of TV so much more than the stupid prime-time fare spewed out by the networks that weakly passes itself off as quote-unquote "entertainment". For me a well-done news-oriented talk show is TV that LIVES. It's vital. Even if it's occasionally wrongheaded or one-sided.
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And now, I'm going to bed, and you can't stop me. ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.....