Somehow, it's been a relatively calm week or two within the world of morning TV talk shows, but that doesn't mean we've forgotten all of the turmoil that's come before. Some of the biggest headlines in recent months centered on Michael Strahan's highly publicized and unexpectedly truncated exit from Live with Kelly and Michael, and it's been a little over a month since the ex-football great's final episode. You'd think he might get pangs of regrets for leaving, but that's not quite the feeling he expressed when asked if he missed Live.
No, I don't...I really haven't missed it. But I loved it. Don't get me wrong. I loved it. When you get a break sometimes, you kind of go, 'Wow, I kind of needed it.' I needed a break.
I'm sure there's someone out there whose heart of hearts couldn't detach itself from the idea that Michael Strahan, Kelly Ripa and everyone else would come to their sense and get the band back together as soon as possible. But that's just a silly thing to obsess over.
Occasionally, everyone can get sick of doing the same thing, especially when its for years and years and requires emoting a TV-friendly attitude on a daily basis for millions of people. (I mean, I get bummed when my fingers get calloused from using a mouse and keyboard so often, and as far as I know, no one is watching me.) There's no specific and uniform amount of time that can pass before a person can begin to look more fondly back on a past endeavor, and the hullabaloo that came with Strahan's gig change makes me think that it'll be later, rather than sooner, when the show's absence from his life gets to him.
After all, it wasn't exactly smooth sailing back in April when this big change was first brought to everyone's attention, since the announcement was made without Ripa having any foreknowledge about it, which ticked her off and caused her to take a few days off before returning to address things publicly. It was then decided that Strahan didn't need to be around as long as he'd originally intended before hopping over to his permanent spot on Good Morning America. And here we are.
As Strahan told Chelsea Handler on the comedian's Netflix talk show Chelsea, his time away from Live has allowed him to do things he hadn't made time for in his post-NFL years. He can now hang out with his kids more and travel around for trips that just couldn't be scheduled in before. I imagine it's all but impossible to miss a former job when you're living it up for weeks on end. But we still miss him, so that counts for something, right?
Live with Kelly is continuing its celebrity co-host pattern as the hunt is still on to find someone to fill that second chair for the next chapter of this show's existence.
