Many adults love to spend Halloween sitting on their rocking chairs and screaming that the holiday should be celebrated exclusively by children, and that adults shouldn’t be caught dead in a costume, but the hosts of daytime television programs are not among them. These people live for costumes. Halloween may very well be their favorite work day of the year.
On the other hand, it could very well be part of their contracts to shove their bodies into whatever their network tells them to, smile bigger than normal, and pretend to be celebrating their favorite day of the year for one to four hours every Halloween morning.
Either way, we lose.
Today
The Today Show anchors followed up their horrific 2015 display of ill-conceived corporate synergy with a significantly more flattering theme: the ’90s! The gang was a little all over the place, but I enjoyed these looks. Though things got a little dicey when the anchors were asked to “perform” in character (Tamar/Al/Dylan’s Pretty Woman bit was more than a little painful), when viewed as a group photo, this was good clean fun.
- Tamron Hall: Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction AND Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman
- My Precious Willie Geist: John Travolta in Pulp Fiction
- Carson Daly: The Terminator
- Kathie Lee Gifford: ’90s Regis Philbin
- Hoda Kotb: ’90s Kathie Lee
- Matt Lauer: Jerry Seinfeld in the puffy shirt
- Savanna Guthrie: Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair
- Al Roker: Steve Urkel
- Dylan Dreyer: Baby Spice
- Some Random Dog: a Beanie Baby
- Jenna Bush Hager: Barbara Bush
BONUS:
- Barbara Bush: a Common Witch
And here are a few close-ups.
Good Morning America
As a faithful Today Show viewer, I do my best to give the inferior team over at Good Morning America as little attention as possible. Acknowledging their existence would betray my close personal friends Willie, Tamron, Al, and Matt, but for the sake of this post, I must mention them. ABC’s theme was a nice counter to Today’s, and was strictly current and topical—by which I mean it was wholly unexciting.
- Michael Strahan: Pikachu
- Robin Roberts: Ash
- Gio Benitez: Jigglypuff
- Lara Spencer: Alexander Hamilton
- Jesse Palmer: Capta
And now, a better look.
The Talk
The best part about this assortment of “music legends” (that somehow includes Marilyn Monroe) is that it’s being billed as an event the public both remembers from 2015, and is clamoring for more of. In what world am I going to drop everything I’m doing to watch Sara Gilbert lip sync to a Cher song alongside Aisha Tyler in Lionel Richie drag?
I mean, OK. Fine. I’ll drop one or two things. Not everything.