The main guest was a woman who had been estranged from her children and who was brought to the show by a friend, thinking she was just gonna be in the audience.

Unbeknownst to her, we had found her children, who were in Texas or something, that she had lost contact with, and it was a big old reunion show, and it was emotional and, "Oh, my God," and the son stood up and said, "Hi, Mom," and he had these flowers that we had given him, and it was like...

Yeah, so that was the pilot.

Worse than boring, line producer Tish Hevel felt like the show was also frivolous.

Working in news, you think you're doing something important.

If you're responsible about it, you're trying to tell the stories that people might wanna hear, and you're trying to be fair and honest and get it right and blah, blah, blah, and all of a sudden your job is to, like, find crazy situations and maximize them before a live audience.

And so when I decided to leave, I was like, "Jerry, I can't do this," and he goes, "Shit, I don't blame you.

This is a terrible job.

Tish Hevel's boss put her in charge of getting him ready.

And he looked at me and he said, "Tish, you've had some success with talent coaching.

You got six weeks." And I remember thinking to myself, "I got six weeks to find a new job." This is not gonna work.

Sorry, Jerry, but you know, he didn't fit the anchorman look.

He was no Ron Burgundy-ish, and that was what worked in those days.

He didn't have great vocal quality.

Plus, he had this New York accent in a town where people did not like outsiders.

I asked her to read one of her favorites out loud.