‘Today’ Show Welcomes First Live Guest in Studio 1A in Over a Year and They’re a Comedy Icon

The Today show just marked a major milestone! After more than a year, the morning show welcomed its first live guest back to Studio 1A on Tuesday morning, with the comedy icon making a big entrance. For their first live guest since 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic halted most in-studio appearances, actress and comedian Tina Fey showed up via a double-decker bus, making her presence known with a megaphone and crossing off an item on her “pandemic bucket list.”

Fey’s grand entrance, in which she excitedly proclaimed to passersby, “Hello, 1A!” was celebrated by Today viewers, with one person writing online, “This is awesome!” Somebody else tweeted, “Tina Fey never disappoints.” A third viewer quipped, “How are the people on the street not in any way bothered by this, if I saw Tina Fey rolling down the street on top of a bus there is no way I’d just casually keep walking.” After making it to Studio 1A, and even sharing a brief hug with Today co-anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, Fey said she was “so honored to be here,” also expressing her dismay at being selected as the first live in-studio guest. Fey also didn’t hesitate to shower a little praise on the Today co-anchors “for keeping all of us outside 1A tethered to reality for the last year-and-a-half.”

During her in-studio appearance, Fey discussed her hit Peacock comedy Girls5eva, which was recently renewed for a second season. The series follows the women of a ’90s one-hit-wonder group as they reunite and try to reclaim their former glory, or, as Kotb dubbed it, “the Ted Lasso for girls.” Fey serves as executive producer on the series and also made a cameo as Dolly Parton.

“I knew that Meredith was a joke machine, and once we were able to get this cast – Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Busy Phillips, Paula Pell –you feel like you know when something is very juicy,” she said before dishing some details on those hilarious songs. “My husband Jeff Richmond writes pretty much all of the music for the show, with the exception of like a song, and Meredith Scardino I would say wrote the bulk of the lyrics, along with the writers of the show.”

Girls5eva initially debuted on Peacock, which you can sign up for here, back in May. The streamer announced on June 14, just a day ahead of Fey’s Studio 1A appearance, that the show would be returning for a second season. Girls5eva Season 1 is now streaming on Peacock.

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