The New GMA and the Hazing of George Stephanopoulos
Today was George Stephanopoulos' first day as Good Morning America's new co-anchor. Let's take a look at Georgie's best moments replacing the slurring, World News Tonight-bound Diane Sawyer!
Georgie's first order of business was interviewing senior presidential adviser David Axelrod. Axelrod wasted no time in jovially pointing out Stephanopoulos' own past as a Clinton flack!
In front of the whole country!
On his first day!
As the new co-host of ABC's (supposed) stalwart of great American, Early Morning Journalism! (Although the other "stalwart" features Kathie Lee-Gifford, so maybe it's a relativity thing.)
Still, awkward!
Towards the end of the interview, Axelrod totally punk'd Georgie with this cutesy bit about how his "friends in the White House have chipped in" to get him an alarm clock!
Get it? Because GMA is on early. In the morning.
Of course, Georgie's not the only new face at GMA. Similarly, possibly conflictingly interested Chris Cuomo is onto bigger and better things (which is to say, 20/20), and replacing him at the morning news desk is JuJu Chang.
Her name's fun to say and reminds us of candy, so that's cool. And she even spared us from one of Sam Champion's awful jokes by preemptively pointing out the similarities between her name and musical guest, YoYo Ma's.
Don't mess with this one, Sam. She will cut you.
Poor Georgie was supposedly concerned that accepting the GMA gig might threaten his reputation as a "serious" journalist.
After all, cooking with Emeril isn't exactly Emmy-award winning stuff, right?
Sadly, no morning show news anchor can ever completely escape the banality of The Morning Fluff Segment. Stephanopoulos got one on his first day and was forced to host this segment with GMA's painfully annoying "tech correspondent," Becky Worley.
In this clip, Becky shares her wisdom on how to get your holiday shopping done with Internet coupons!
In a completely futile attempt to be cute (or funny, or entertaining, or likable, or just not completely obnoxious, or something), Becky jokingly finds a great deal on a 14-cup Cuisinart coffee maker for poor Georgie.
Because he's going to be really tired! Because the show airs at seven o'clock. In the morning. Understand?
Can you picture George Stephanopoulos in a singlet and headgear? Neither can we, nor do we want to.
But apparently he used to be a wrestler at Columbia, as we learn in this moment of "Get To Know Your New Cast Members" filler.
Hey, they've gotta put something between those Febreze commercials. Now, who has a Columbia yearbook from 1982? Share.
With so many shake-ups at 7 Times Square, it's hard to keep all the new names and faces straight! Even our beloved veterans, Robin Roberts and Sam Champion, can't remember who they are!
In the second hour, Georgie showed off his Solemn Medical Report chops by taking us on a trip to the future, where we previewed what he'll look like after 10 years of hosting GMA's Summer Concert Series and dealing with Sam Champion's bad puns!
Oh, wait, no, that's just Dr. Mehmet Oz, sharing a feel-good story about how most heart attacks deaths happen around Christmas.
They're cousins, identical cousins!