Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose Appear as Puppets in Robert Smigel’s ‘Let’s Be Real’

Disgraced news anchors Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer have returned to television… as puppets, that is. On Thursday night, Robert Smigel aired Let’s Be Real, a half-hour special on Fox that featured puppets of politics and news media’s biggest names, including Rose, Lauer, President Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kanye West, and Nancy Pelosi. Because nothing says 2020 quite like, “Exaggerated puppets of world leaders discussing real-life political issues.”

As Variety reports, Smigel’s Let’s Be Real special featured a series of sketches riffing on politics, pop culture, and the looming 2020 election. While the event was taped this past weekend, Smigel, best known as the mastermind behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, managed to include a few nods to the chaotic Trump-Biden debate on Tuesday night. At one point, the puppet Biden tells a rabid badger (his debate prep partner) to “shut up, man!,” while elsewhere, the real-life Larry King asks Trump about his decision to tell the Proud Boys and other white supremacist groups to “stand back and stand by.”

“Obviously we threw in a few dubs at the end referencing very specific things that were said at the debate but I was surprised how well the Trump one played, having been written before the debate,” Smigel told Variety on Thursday night.

Other sketches weren’t quite so political. Towards the middle of the special, viewers are reunited with puppet verssions of Rose and Lauer, who are now hosting a morning talk show in Sarasota, Florida. During an interview with guests Jackee (Sister, Sister) and George Wendt (Cheers), Rose and Lauer attempt to shrug off allegations of misconduct, a discussion makes their guests increasingly uncomfortable. “If a man would close a bathroom door to be alone with a woman, that was considered flirting, and now it’s not,” said Lauer. “Does anyone even care or remember the things we were obsessed about in 2019, like which white person may have groped another white person?” asks Rose.

Check out a few clips from Robert Smigel’s Let’s Be Real above. The full Let’s Be Real special is available to stream on Hulu.

Watch Let's Be Real