Steve Anthony discovers that blondes have more fun than H1N1

Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa dressed up as Jon and Kate (minus eight) this morning in the first of their annual sequence of costume changes, but TORONTO’S BREAKING NEWS channel CP24 took a break from its swine flu fixation to finally live up to its 2009 reinvention by beating them to the punch by three hours — with Steve Anthony and Melissa Grelo reversing genders for the occasion. Anthony was originally confined to a traffic helicopter on their CP24 Breakfast show, when it debuted in March, but was soon dragged into the anchor desk to replace Matte Babel — who, in turn, was given Anthony’s old Breakfast Television job of killing airtime at a remote location. “I am dressed like Kate Gosselin,” tweeted eternally blond Anthony before the break of dawn. “And I made the transition TOO easily. I’m scared.” The more ethnically ambiguous Grelo evidently did nothing more than don a garish Ed Hardy T-shirt and a short wig — with hair too prodigious compared to the genuine balding article — in order to approximate Kate’s ex-husband. Do you think the belt-tighteners at owners CTV would approve the budget for anything more nuanced? “You kinda look like Freddy Prince [sic] Jr.,” tweeted one enthusiastic viewer, of which there may not be many, but in light of this week’s scathing reaction to superficial changes at the CBC News Network, the too-often-ridiculed CP24 v.2.0 suddenly seems like slightly less of a farce.