I realize I've been on this beat extensively, but if you host anything, Rachael Ray is a good study. She does a ton of signposting, "here's what we're going to do," "here's what we just did" stuff. Mixes maybe 90 percent information with 10 percent personality patter.

You could diagram the way the show starts, ends, works in and out of commercials, and you'd get some interesting reflections on how very successful shows are built.

It's also a structural challenge, 30-Minute Meals, because they don't do the "put it in the oven; here's one I made earlier" trick. The idea is that they approximate real time, so the structure ideally is set up so she's doing boring things during breaks.

When she's doing something boring (like peeling potatoes), she has to either (1) talk about potatoes, (2) talk about possible substitutes for potatoes, (3) talk about something else, or (4) be on break. You see all these strategies in use.

I may be losing it during isolation, but I think I am right about this.

One of the reasons she does those little "get in there, you" to an onion that doesn't go in the bowl or whatever is just character stuff, but I think another is the same reason podcasts use music buttons and things -- it just puts a little texture on the landscape.

She particularly has a way of going either "mm-mm-mm" while she's cooking, descending in pitch, or "mm-mm-MM-MM-mm," and yes, it can seem like flair on a TGIFridays server, but it's also like the "doodle-doodle" music that breaks up podcasts.

I am not a crackpot.