Hoda And Klg
The Today show truly went to the dogs on Thursday, when co-host Kathie Lee Gifford dropped a puppy during a pet adoption segment in the show's fourth hour.
"Oh, puppy needs a bath-y," Gifford quipped, as she held a squirming
brown pup, which then promptly went hurtling headfirst into a playpen. A
clearly mortified Gifford immediately picked the dog back up and
cradled it, repeating, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," as her co-host, Hoda Kotb,
covered her mouth in a combination of amusement and horror. "Puppy took
a nosedive-y," Kotb said. (Don't worry, the puppy is fine.)Today has seen its ratings increase as much as 30 percent
during Olympics coverage in years past, but the show's pre-Olympics
broadcast last Thursday lost to ABC's Good Morning America by nearly 400,000 viewers. The Daily News quoted
a source that claimed that NBC was "shoehorning [Kotb] into the show to
help bring it alive. ... They called Hoda on Thursday begging her to go
to London because they said it wasn't working like they thought.