Live from somewhere

I guess most of us are not thrilled with the lockdown, and those of us who like television can't be too happy watching "The View" and "The Talk" and "The Viewtalk" with all the participants at home, broadcasting via Zoom in their underwear, with their home furnishings on full display.

On the other hand, the weekend editions of the CBS Evening News have been farming out anchor duties to hometown anchors across the nation, and a lot of those people have done well while the main CBS News studios are being sanitized or whatever.

I know they're doing their best on these chat shows, but it works so much better when everyone is at the same table. Having four people in four houses makes it awkward when no one knows when the other people have stopped talking (which, in the case of Meghan McCain, is never).

Howard Stern has been doing his morning radio show from the cramped quarters of his house in the Hamptons (left). I guess he and Beth pushed some stuff off to a corner and set him up with a card table and a microphone in the basement.


But who cares where the people are, really? ABC's popular morning show "Live with Regis and Kelly Except Regis Left, So Now Ryan Seacrest Is Here" rolls on every day. But people are all worked up over the "revelation" that Kelly Ripa is in the Caribbean doing her show. I don't understand the complaining.

Seacrest has been taking some time off anyway. With radio shows, several TV shows, and a weekend job selling Volvos at a dealership in Kankakee, he was scaring people with how tired and confused he was, so he stepped aside and allowed Mark Consuelos to handle co-hosting duties for a while.

And how convenient! Consuelos is married to Kelly, has been for years, and the entire Ripasuelos family was down in some tropical paradise when the lockdown hit.  So they just said, we'll stay here. Kelly (and now Mark) can do the show just as easily as if they were in New York anyway, so what the what?

For her part, Kelly has gone on tv and shed a tear over how she misses her parents back in New Jersey, and how her kids won't hug her.

“I’m like, ‘Guys, we’ve all been on lockdown together. We’re fine, you can give me a hug,’” she said.

It's ok with the bosses too: Debra O’Connell, president and general manager of WABC, which produces “Live,” told the NY Post: “We have required our staff to work remotely until we decide to return to studio operations. We are incredibly thankful for all that Kelly, Ryan and [executive producer Michael] Gelman have done to make ‘Live With Kelly and Ryan’ the No. 1 syndicated daytime talk show during this time.”

Talking about being in the Caribbean rather than New York City, Kelly says, “I hate to use the word ‘stuck,’ but we were. We decided to stay where we were.”

And who wouldn't?