Anderson IS Brilliant!

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AC360º’s Talk Show Experiment Debuts With Trivia, Beyoncé, And John Leguizamo

by Frances Martel | 1:18 pm, May 15th, 2010

The much whispered-about Anderson Cooper 360º live studio experiment aired last night, a talk show/game show/breaking news hybrid featuring a variety of personalities and topics. On hand were pundits, comedians, and political experts to discuss a grab bag of issues in a collegial atmosphere. It’s not, as Anderson Cooper said minutes into the show, a new Oprah, but with this news/talk hybrid, CNN may be onto something.

Before it launched, there was much speculation on whether it would take the tone of daytime talk shows, but, ultimately, Cooper kept his hard news edge on the show, presenting a product that was more Bill Maher than Oprah Winfrey, except with out the partisan dialogue and with a panel much less inclined to debate each other than to have a friendly chat about the matter at hand. It’s not a completely new idea as much as it is a unique blend of many previously seen talk show elements put together for the first time.

And then there’s the game show element of the show, which may be the single most innovative and entertaining part. Yes, this isn’t the first time there is a trivia segment on a cable news show– Bill O’Reilly has two Fox News personalities on for trivia every Thursday– but this segment was unique in that it was clearly fueled by the little things that give color to Cooper’s personality– think shameless Snooki references and a glimmer of the overzealousness about trivia that made him so bitter about losing Celebrity Jeopardy! to Cheech Marin. Letting Cooper indulge his off-topic obsessions is a great way to inject character into the primetime CNN lineup while sticking true to its rejection of shouty opinionated cable news.

Below is a segment with Mary Matalin, Anna Deveare Smith, and John Leguizamo discussing a viral video of 7-year-old girls in lingerie dancing to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies,” which is probably the most exemplary of the show’s tone: