Can you tell me a little bit about what goes
into preparing for this episode?
Fans might not be aware of all that it entails.
Well, our producers, like, like you said very correctly, come
the day after Halloween, start preparing for what the ideas
will be for our show this year.
And they, they, you know, they pull from pop culture,
whatever movies hot, whatever couples are hot, all that stuff.
Yeah.
The longer it sort of evolves over time because we'll,
we start spitballing ideas at each other, shows that we're
watching, moments that we think are relevant.
Then at the six month mark, we reconvene, usually throw
all of those ideas out the window and something new
and interesting pops up.
And then in August, in earnest, we meet and we
really start putting the show together.
What can you tease about the costumes that viewers can
expect?
I know some of them are well under wraps, though.
What can you share?
I think that they won't be disappointed are our theme
this year is only Halloween in the buildings.
That should give you some idea of where we're headed.
It's going to be a lot of what people are
talking about or the people may have been talking about
very recently.
A lot of celebrity couples because we we slip into
them with great, with great ease.
And then there's some bonker stuff ripped from the headlines
and there's some stuff that I didn't even understand.
Yeah, there's a lot.
So a lot of as is the as per usual.
And this is a year after year thing, Mark and
I don't really necessarily understand what our Halloween show is
about until we see it.
We see it and then it dawns on us.
Oh, that's what we were.
So a lot of times we don't even know what
we are.
They'll just give us a line reading or they'll show
us something on the computer and say, do this like
this.
And we're kind of oblivious as to what we are
because if it's not something we're familiar with, then we
just sort of rely on and it always works out.
It always works out.
We always trust our producers.
And are there any moments that you reel, any pop
culture moments that you really wanted to recreate this year?
That again, I don't know if you're able to share,
but if you are right, we can share one that
you can share.
1 Travis and yeah, Travis and Taylor were at the
US Open.
Everybody saw it.
I mean, I knew what that was like.
I knew, I knew.
I didn't know what that was, by the way.
I didn't know what he was and I didn't know
what I was.
And they put the wig on me and the outfit
and I still didn't know what I was.
And then they showed me the clip and I was
like, oh, it's Taylor and Travis.
But then I didn't know the song that everybody seemed
to know.
So I truly am like, wow, I've really been in
a work bubble for decades at this point that I'm
so behind.
So I'm so excited to chat out with you about
the Taylor and Travis transformation.
Kelly with the glasses, with the red lips.
Did you really feel like Taylor?
I thought you were giving Taylor vibes.
No, I've got to tell you, nobody gives less Taylor
vibes than me.
And I'll tell you why.
If you put a red lip on me, and this
is famously historically and in real life, it on the
rare occasions that I've worn a red lip, I become
unable to, for whatever reason, move my mouth.
I just am so afraid of getting red lipstick on
my teeth, red lipstick everywhere.
I don't want it to go outside of the lines.
So I become almost immobilized by just the mere presentation
of red lips.
And I had a mustache.
I had like a handlebar mustache.
And so that was, again, that was hard for me
to to do that stuff.
You were him last year.
We were, Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's not it's not foreign for Mark to play
a super athlete.
And he's a good guy.
I mean, I've never met him, but he seems like
a great guy and he's funny.
And so I think he'll, who knows, he may see
it.
And it's like, who's that short guy trying to come
off as me?
They did have to stand me up on some boxes.
They said both of us on March, a little, a
little high disparity.
We both have both of us have such a high
disparities with regard to these actual people that they had
both of us on boxes.
That's so great.
Any other behind the scenes things that people might want
to know?
That's so fun.
There's pop culture involved in this particular year.
I mean, not more so, I can't say more so
than normal because every year we sort of up the
bar, but we have a lot of pop cultural references
that people will be very attuned to and hopefully they
get.
And we have a lot of funny takes on events
that happened in the recent past.
We put our own twist on certain world events that
happened in the recent past.
That's all I'm going to say.
That's amazing.
And going back to Taylor and Travis, just for a
second, when, because you, you guys are actors when you
are embodying these characters.
And I don't know, Mark, you said you haven't met
Travis, but I don't know if you guys have also
met Taylor.
Are, are you taking certain things from them?
So I mean, we're watching a clip and we're just
kind of like kind of get into the move.
We literally are mimicking what we're seeing on the computer
because you know, I, I, I've known own Taylor Swift
since she was a young teenager and 1st appeared on
our show many, many, many years ago.
And I, she's been on our show many times and
in every, every era of her life.
She is just as charming and divine and delightful and
you know all of the things that you think she
is for all of these years.
So it's like I can't capture the essence of that
in a, in a very brief clip of her dancing
at the US Open.
But I did my best to to at least not
embarrass her on behalf of both of us.
Same.
So when you think about Halloween, Mark, I know you
haven't had as many shows as Kelly, but what are
the types of costumes that you both enjoy getting to
do on the show?
I can speak for Mark.
I'm not a Halloween guy.
Mark enjoys the process of removing every costume and at
the end of it, when it's all gone, he loves
it.
You know, I just do it.
I have to do it.
It's it's, it is.
I did.
I will say this, that the Halloween show last year,
I was like, oh gosh, what is this going to
be?
And it was really, really fun.
It was super easy because we'd done so much, so
much preparation.
He couldn't, he couldn't understand how that really was going
to happen.
Show.
Yeah.
He didn't really understand it.
And I said, don't worry, just go with it.
Follow the producers, run when they tell you to run.
It's almost like I hosted SNL once in my life
and I always say like our Halloween show is the
closest thing to hosting SNL that there is to actually
hosting SNL.
You, there's, you see something, you come out, you do
your live opening bit, then you throw to like tape
piece, you run backstage while that tape piece is playing.
Then they go to commercial break.
You've got like the tape piece and two minutes to
change hair, makeup, wardrobe, costume, everything.
You've got like a very small window of time to
get back out there and do the next segment.
And that's how the show runs.
It's fast.
It's super super.
It's the fastest hour in a in a lifetime of
fast hours.
I just want to transition to Mark's time on the
show in general.
I know you've been at live officially now for about
a year and a half.
How does it a question for both of you.
How does it compare to what you thought it might
be what you expected?
Gosh, how, what do I expect?
You know, I don't know.
I think a year and a half in, I finally
feel like kind of have my sea legs not so
anxious before a show starts or an interview's going to
happen because I was that that usually terrified me, especially
if there's somebody really famous I kind of climbed up.
Now I'm a little more comfortable interjecting a question or
two.
I don't know.
We're having a lot of fun.
I think the, the, you know, it's good to know
that the audience has welcomed me on a show that's
so, you know, part of of their mornings and their
lives for so many years.
I don't know.
I think we're having a lot of fun.
Yeah, I can just speak for.
I always speak on behalf of me and myself and
us as a group, all the producers.
We just love having Mark.
Here it is.
We are unapologetically thrilled with how amazing he is, what
he brings to the show every day.
He's truly, he's truly just in utterly enjoyable to watch
and I find myself watching him during the show almost
like I'm watching TV and it's really just a pleasure
to work with him.
He makes us feel very safe and protected and energized
and he's given us all sort of a new lease
on this place.
Wow, that's so nice.