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Regis and Kelly: Our Favorite Memories

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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Are you still worked up about not having an Emmy?
KELLY RIPA: He's won it on his own.
REGIS PHILBIN: The show has never won an Emmy.

You handle it with humor, I think.
REGIS: Well, what can we do? We're never going to win. It's just one of those things. We're just not going to win. We're all used to it now. But it's funny that in the early days when we started the show and were getting all these ratings that somebody else would win the Emmy — and they're not here anymore. And we're still here — and we still haven't won an Emmy!

You've certainly perfected the reaction shot at the show each year when your names aren't called.
KELLY: It's very funny. I would go to the Emmys when I was with All My Children, and when they wouldn't call Regis and Kathie Lee, the audience was stunned. It was like, ''What do you mean?'' And Regis would have this fit. They would show him up on the Jumbo-Tron and he would have torn pieces of paper that he would throw up in the air and do the whole thing and storm out. He was even making that moment into a thing. Because what's more boring than an awards show?

Kelly, you were clearly in awe of the entire enterprise, then. Were you totally freaking out when you first cohosted?
KELLY: I was horrified for an entire year. You don't want to be the person to ruin Regis Philbin's otherwise sterling career.
REGIS: And now you've become King Kong! But, you know, Kathie Lee was a bundle to replace because she had been through a lot of stuff, and we shared it all with her. There was always controversy swirling around her, so it was difficult to find someone who could come up to and even, at times, surpass it.

You never really came across as somebody who was blatantly trying out for the role of Kathie Lee 2.0, though.
KELLY: I think that helped me. I'm probably the only person that never threw their hat into the ring and said, ''I'm angling for this job.'' I had a job. The soap opera was great. Yes, it was a lot of work, but to me to, like, leave a job to go out into the abyss of looking for work never occurred to me. I'm one of those people. I need another job before I can actually leave my current one, and I need to have it for several years. I worked at All My Children and Live for two years before I actually left the soap. I wanted to make sure: What if they fired me? What if it didn't work out here? I wanted a safety net.

What are the toughest segments for you guys, in terms of coordinating and doing them?
REGIS: Well if a guest falters or if a guest gets nervous or it's a difficult time in the conversation, that can be the toughest time for us. That's when we really have to pull them through. We kind of enjoy doing the difficult things, the outdoor games or the strange guests. It's a departure for us. It gets us away from sitting at the stool or sitting behind the desk and joining somebody in what they do best.
KELLY: You don't like putting on the Halloween mask.
REGIS: No, the Halloween show is a tough one because over the years it has grown into this monster. Every year, we each have to be an exact duplication of some other celebrity.
KELLY: Well, we have the greatest Halloween show of any show. I stand by that 4000%.
REGIS: We do. We started it long before the Today show would come out all dressed up as cats. It's unbelievable that we started it, and we'll take credit for that. I'll stack up our show against any one else's for Halloween.
KELLY: We love the freak show quality.
REGIS: But what I don't like, of course, the makeup that goes into duplicating these people. They take great pains and a lot of costumes.
KELLY: Becoming me isn't easy, is it? He looked at me one day. He's in the wig, he's in the Diane von Furstenberg dress, he's in full drag. He looks at me, and he goes, ''It's a lot of work! I had no idea being you was this much work!'' I said, ''It is that much work and more.''