freddi

I am loving the Christmas sketches -- refrigerator cards and especially the "Rear Window" communications that took so many dark turns for a Christmas dinner invite. And then became an advert for "NextDoor" -- which is where the skeevy underside of so many neighborhoods is found. Next week with Paul Rudd is new -- are we getting *two* Christmas episodes this year?!

Oh, I wish Stephen would stop mentioning that the fake Friday audience is "there" on "Friday". If he did not mention "Friday audiences" five or six times in the opening sentences, I would not be as focused on the idea that they are not there on Friday. Really, I don't mind that they tape in advance, just don't need to keep getting hit on the head with it. Last night (12-11, Friday) they were not even trying very hard to patch together the segments taped with previous guests over several days. Jon Baptiste's clothing initially was the same as Thursday (hard to forget the elaborate formal ensemble) for the monologue, then later he was in the outfit I assume he wore on the evening that Sting originally had appeared.

They have a special in Brian William's time slot on Friday, and it sounds like maybe some guest hosts for a while? I'm sure they have chosen the new host, but will announce it when it will get attention. Brian has handled all the praise exceptionally well in the past couple of weeks -- never maudlin, looking a little embarrassed, and very gracious even as he tries to move his guests back into the news cycle. I will miss him, and I never would have guessed I would get to that feeling about him.

Argghhhh, Rachel and staff -- Nixon did NOT resign in 1973, but 1974 (August 8, left the White House on August 9). Rachel was not around for this, but it was a very long time between the s--- hitting the fan in early 1973 and the resignation almost 18 months later. It was summer of 1973 when the famous daily, televised hearings were on the air all day.

Ah, Brian Williams just said that his last show is "a week from tonight", so, December 9. I thought he was on to the end of the month -- well, Christmas. His guests are being so sweet with their tributes and toasts.

OH yes, it definitely was an evergreen episode, not pegged to that particular Monday.

I cannot stand the spiel he does before “Meanwhile,” pointing at his monologue location, talking about curating the material, talking about the bits he left out, etc. Tonight, Tuesday, I think the ramblings leading up to “Meanwhile” was longer than the material that followed. I’ve started muting, but that also is interminable.

What was that noise? I woke up to Mika making sounds that only dogs could hear. And she ended her rant with “they are floating around the very bottom.”

The issue was not that the show was pre-taped for the day after Thanksgiving (not *on* Thanksgiving, Joe), but that they were pretending they had already eaten "Brzezinski’s theoretical turkey" (a great phrase): https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/morning-joe-did-you-really-just-pre-tape-your-post-thanksgiving-banter/2017/11/24/7a73d84a-d161-11e7-a1a3-0d1e45a6de3d_story.html

Did Saweetie have to give up a few minutes because Taylor Swift went over the limit for song length last week? Everyone else has to give back a couple of minutes now?

Thanks for saying that. I'm still hoping for Steve Martin and Simon & Garfunkel, so I'm pretty hopeless at knowing some of the current hosts! Came over to say how clever the "Republican or Not?" sketch was ("My body, my choice" -- I did not see around the corners on that one!), but "Walking in Staten" was so well done that I could not even remember the previous sketch. Whoa, that was fantastic. Marc Cohn: "No, I don't want to be a parody in my own song. What do you mean, I already am?" Some people are really good sports.

Oh, MSNBC, are you literally turning into the ambulance chaser network? I am looking forward to seeing what parts of this story are true, and which are not. If anyone "in the New York office" really told this freelancer to follow the jury bus, that person is toast. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/msnbc-banned-rittenhouse-trial-bus-incident-81258479

Mika and Joe SIDE BY SIDE at a table with their guests (Michael Steele!). It makes me want to stay up to watch some of this. (It’s 3:00 AM here.)

The child "Coraline" was hilarious -- the way she crossed her legs and looked like she was in a trance, then the way she celebrated at the end of the sketch, gesturing "I *nailed* it," and taking deep bows.

I winced at the replica AK47 being part of the cold open -- somewhere between the Rittenhouse trial and the tragedy on the "Rust" set of having a gun on set, it was jarring. I know it was not a real gun, but I get the sense that even this type of replica is being banned from sets.

No, in Brian's comments at the end of Monday's show, he said that "The 11th Hour" would continue with a new host. I thought he read his statement very graciously and genuinely. On Wednesday night, the combination of Eugene Robinson and Michael Steele again was hilarious -- not because of anything very witty, but because that combination seems to laugh at anything with Brian.

That occurred to me, also. But I hope not. He referred to "the shore" so many times this summer that I finally searched for his beach house where he spends weekends -- and if I had a house like that, ON.THE.BEACH, I would never leave it. I hope he enjoys his next phase.

Saw he was trending on Twitter, and am surprised at how sorry I am to see him go. When he started the 11th Hour, I was very resistant to his stilted style, but the show and he have grown into a very reliable set of regular guests with an array of perspectives, and his opening panel always has A-list journalists. Cranky as James Carville is, I always appreciated that Brian could channel Carville's energy into a perspective that pushed the edges, but tended to predict what would happen. And Bill Kristol, whom I do not see on other shows. And Michael Steele played off Brian so well. Sigh.

I was surprised that the word “bullshit” was not bleeped when Rep. Gallago used it. Was “the list” of forbidden words reduced when I was not looking?

The Spectrum sketch was wonderful. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to thread it throughout the show, giving the real-time equivalent of what those calls are like (yes, I've been on hold/transferred on a CenturyLInk cancellation for at least ninety minutes). Then when he was transferred to Dominos, where the worker actually knew how to transfer him to "cancellations" -- perfection! ("Oh, yeah, they do this all the time.") Enjoy that landline.

The secret Rachel gave away on her show was not that she had hidden a bottle of rye in her desk for Steve Kornacki, but that she has a desk with a secret compartment! After she explained to Steve how to find the secret panel, I had an image in my head of him futilely scratching at the desk until she got back to the office. But it was a sweet moment.

Shoot, Michael Steele is one of my favorite guests on MJ, but I just found out that he has formed an exploratory committee to run for Governor of Maryland (where he had been Lt. Gov.), so he will need to get off the talk show circuit if he goes down that road.

Joe REALLY interrupted Heileman even in his first sentence, and Heileman pushed back hard, talking over Joe who was talking over Heileman, whose face showed how unhappy he was.

All in the studio, both hosts and guests. Wow. Mika is wearing a black suit, I suppose mourning the election results. So glad they got Michael Steele and John Heileman on set. Steele had been predicting the Virginia outcome as a certainty.

Agree! And compared to all the MSNBC guests with designer kitchens and wood paneled libraries, Steve looks like he is in a hostage video.