louis aguirre

The good news over at WSVN-Fox 7 Wednesday was that Deco Drive anchor Louis Aguirre was chosen by viewers nationwide to co-host the syndicated talk show Live With Regis And Kelly on Monday (it airs locally at 9 a.m. on WSVN). He'll work with Kelly Ripa while Regis Philbin takes the day off.

The bad news is that Aguirre's victory means another WSVN anchor, Lynn Martinez, lost. She was holed up with lawyers Wednesday, considering a challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court alleging that voters were confused by butterfly ballots, not to mention Philbin's endless stream of cosmically esoteric trivia about Notre Dame football.

You would think Aguirre has been doing this for years. It probably helped that, in effect, he has on the similarly formatted Deco Drive. The WSVN show got several nice plugs from Kelly Ripa. Among other things, she said she watched it every night during the week in May when Live came to Miami Beach. Knowing her affection for junk culture, the compliment came across as totally believable.

Aguirre's ease also might have been aided by the fact that there is a familiarity factor between him and Kelly from the visit to Miami and the way back when. A clip reel of Aguirre's career turned up a brief role he did opposite Ripa on All My Children in 1998 when he was an aspiring actor. Aguirre doubtlessly remembers it more than Kelly but she made it seem as if she recalled it vividly.

Kelly was generous throughout. She opened the program, looking at Aguirre and quipping, Regis, you look incredible." She also shared interviews with Rivers and Sienna Miller in the same manner she would if Regis had been there.

At the end, a viewer e-mail complimented (I think) Aguirre on how much he resembles Simon Cowell. Aguirre said he gets that all the time.