“I wasn’t paying attention.” Fox & Friends Weekend co-anchor Dave Briggs appeared to channel the author this morning as he shared headline news reading duties with Courtney Friel. After over 2 1/2 hours of a forgettable “special edition” Memorial Day edition, Dave seemed to succumb to the tedium. After Courtney read the first story and a concomitant vid ran, the camera focused upon Dave who was peering downward: looking up suddenly, he turned to Courtney and apologized, “Pardon me, Courtney: I wasn’t paying attention.”
You were not alone, Dave. Of course, F&F viewers who were celebrating the start of their Memorial Day by firing up the grill, grabbing a few bloody Mary’s, and preparing the food may have also had less than an eagle eye on their TV. However, some of those who were actually gathered around the set could be forgiven for suffering from a similar malady.
Readers of this blog had ample warning that FNC SVP of Programming Bill Shine seemed to have plans for a Memorial Day much less memorable than the one last year. (Of course, the 2009 was notable primarily for Dave’s apparent appreciation of the rumps of his female colleagues, Ainsley Earhardt and Janice Dean, as captured and lampooned by Jay Leno.) Notably, Shine did not bring Ainsley back for the celebrations this year and both Dave and Janice were conspicuously absent from the obligatory meat segments. Interestingly, both of them were needled by Clayton: Before his Johnsonville sausage segment with Courtney, Clayton teased a “hungry” Janice that they were “gonna have to keep [her] off the platform” of the weiner mobile and, afterwards, kidded an in-studio Dave about being stuck without eating the brats.*
F&F Memorial Day 2009: a day to remember. F&F Memorial Day 2010: a day to forget.
Fox & Friends – 05/31/10 (@8:39 a.m. ET)
Tags: ainsley earhardt, Bill Shine, Clayton Morris, Courtney Friel, Dave Briggs, David Briggs, FNC, Fox & Friends, Fox and Friends, Fox News, Janice Dean, Jay Leno, Memorial Day
Carpe Diem 
May 31, 2010 at 7:05 pm
I was off today for Memorial Day. I rarely get to watch F & F through the week, for one I am off to work but I get to see about a half hour. Gretchen is just more than I can take. Surely with her being Miss America, she would learn how to dress and sit properly. I am just sayin.
Then today Courtney and I will call her Britney was just terrible. I had to turn it off. It was just painful to watch.
May 31, 2011 at 2:49 pm
[…] of Ainsley and Janice. Not too surprisingly, in 2010, FNC Executive VP of Programming Bill Shine put in a more boring blonde, Courtney Friel, to co-host the F&F Memorial Day […]