Some place they got here! Big, beautiful, a great view of Madison Square Park and, thanks to TV cameras loosed throughout its 6,500 square feet, a view from outside looking in that the whole nation can share.
"Fox After Breakfast" is the Fox network's new weekday talk show with co-hosts Tom Bergeron and Laurie Hibberd, as well as Bob the Puppet, the program's rascally conscience.The apartment certifies the growing convergence of television with real life. Specially designed for Fox's fX cable network (where "Fox After Breakfast's" prototype had a 20-month run), this second-floor suite at the corner of Manhattan's 26th Street and Fifth Avenue is not only to die for, but fully functional. The stove cooks. The toilet flushes.
Presided over by Bergeron and Hibberd (with four hand-held cameras in pursuit), the show roams these tony premises for many of its interviews, features and foolishness.
Meanwhile, a quartet of field correspondents dubbed "Road Warriors" (Jillian Hamilton, Phil Keoghan, Jeff MacGregor and Suzanne Whang) will be dispatched across the land to report on the places and people they visit.
And it's all live.
This is fitting, since in many cities "Fox After Breakfast" goes up against the long-running "Live with Regis & Kathie Lee." And this, in turn, is ironic, since "Live's" executive producer, Michael Gelman, and "Breakfast's" Laurie Hibberd are romantically involved.
The almost studiedly oldfangled "Live" originates from a studio just two miles, but a world, away. "Breakfast" is out to break some rules.
"Cameras are now so small and so sensitive to light that we can produce programs within any environment," says executive producer Peter Faiman, reflecting on the state of TV in general. "We are actually in an apartment, not an aircraft hangar called a studio left over from the movies."
Just before 9 a.m. one recent morning, a camera operator loosened up with a few deep knee-bends. He knew he needed to be nimble. The next hour may be just a rehearsal (aptly termed a RUN-through), but it bristles with this-is-for-real energy.
There's an interview on the couch in the living room. A chat with a New Jersey family invited in for pancakes over at the dining room table. A mad dash through the apartment's seven rooms to the tune of "Saber Dance."
During one spot, the co-hosts consider several special-interest magazines, including Prison Life, a slick-looking publication that Bergeron explains is full of useful information for the jailhouse set.
"Like escape routes?" cracks Bob the Puppet, looming over Bergeron's shoulder.
The hour brings occasional glitches.
"Tom, you need to turn on your mike," someone alerts Bergeron in midprogram. But ever the wiseguy, he recovers by holding the microphone tenderly and cooing, "Hey, baby, whatcha doin' later?"
No standing on ceremony at "Fox After Breakfast." And little standing still.
But when the run-through is finished, the co-hosts look pumped, not pooped.
"This is a hybrid of radio, the live TV I've done and the improv training I've had on stage," says Bergeron, formerly a Boston TV personality and drive-time jock. "It feels like coming home."
For Hibberd, who was an entertainment reporter for Miami TV, there was a little more of an adjustment.
"I had to unlearn the TelePrompTer," which "Fox After Breakfast" casts aside. "I had to learn to go with my gut, and it was hard. It was very scary for the first six months of the cable show.
"It's very comfortable now," she adds, "but high-energy," and she demonstrates a quick breathing exercise that puts her in show mode.
"I never knew that Laurie learned Lamaze," says Al Rosenberg, a one-time investment banker who is Bob the Puppet's alter ego.
But will Hibberd ever out-run questions about being the girl-friend of the competition's boss?
"That we would have shows up against each other is a really funny coincidence," she laughs. "I don't expect people to EVER let it go."
Then Bergeron pipes up. This morning talk-show tryst may serve as a running gag, he allows. But it will be Michael Gelman, he adds slyly, "who will be known as Laurie's boyfriend - and very soon."