WATCH ‘The Today Show’ goes late night for its Halloween theme
The whole crew – and several guest stars – turns out for the show’s most elaborate costume ball yet
Halloween on Rockefeller Plaza. You know what that means: crazy costumes for The Today Show staff. This year the morning show went way overboard with a tribute to NBC's Saturday Night Live.
As you'll see in the clip, the hijinks started with SNL's Kenan Thompson giving the weather report as Al Roker. (Actually all Kenan's impersonations sound a lot like Kenan.)
Then the extended Today family tried to recreate some classic characters from the Saturday Night Live pantheon, beginning with Willie Geist and Tamron Hall as the overly cheery cheerleaders originally played by Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri. Geist is really funny – except when he's trying to be.
Natalie Morales gave it her all as Molly Shannon's armpit-sniffing Mary Katherine Gallagher. Supastar!
Then came the spookiest part of the segment, Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford as Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World. Can you believe how much they actually look like Dana Carvey and Mike Myers? Freaky, right?
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. Al Roker singing! He and Lester Holt tried on the trappings of the Blues Brothers – Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Aykroyd).
We didn't think Matt Lauer would take part – not after the way he was viciously mocked last year for his bikinied imitation of Pamela Anderson on Baywatch. But there he was…as Toonces the Driving Cat!
Just kidding. He made the curious choice of playing the androgynous, simpering Pat. The original Pat, Julia Sweeney joined him for a little Marx Brothers pantomime.
Finally we got a reprise of the parody commercial for Mom Jeans with Jenna Bush Hager and two surprise guests, Savannah Guthrie and Meredith Vieira, as the ladies who prefer a roomier fit.
Vieira is Lauer's former co-host (her talk show just got picked up for a second season) and Guthrie is his current – although she's been on maternity leave since August. Do you think the new mom did the skit just to keep the comfy clothes?
The important thing is they all made each other laugh uproariously. That forced mirth was better acting than any of them did in costume.
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