WCCO-TV anchors Don Shelby and Amelia Santaniello sat down to reminisce about all the time they’ve spent together on the anchor desk. Starting at WCCO 1996, Amelia has been the longest co-anchor with Don.
Santaniello: You talked to all your, well most, of your female co-anchors here. How did that feel?
Shelby: Well, I feel very old now.
Santaniello: Do you really?
Shelby: Yes. Because each of those anchors, including you, is like 10 years of my life.
It has been discussed among Colleen (Needles) and Pat (Miles), all the babies that seem to be born as a result of sitting next to me.
Santaniello: You got the power, yeah.
Shelby: Do you think that is evidence that I make female anchors ovulate?
Santaniello: So now you’re a fertility god too?
Shelby: I’m just saying there’s a set of facts here.
Santaniello: Well, you must be pretty powerful because, you know, I had twins while sitting next to you. There you go. Three kids within two years, yeah.
Shelby: We also covered some pretty serious stuff together.
Santaniello: We did. I have a tendency to get a little emotional.
Shelby: You do.
Santaniello: Yeah.
Shelby: There are times when you can’t even read the next story.
Santaniello: Yeah, I have to tap you.
Shelby: I wonder how many people would know that was true about you. That what you’re hearing about people stories and their lives and things that happened affects you so deeply.
Santaniello: It’s gotten just worse, well it’s harder, especially after having kids too because every time you do a story about children you put your kids in that place, you know.
It’s tough, but it’s our job too. You just do it.
Shelby: What’s that going to be like working every day with your husband, three shows a day?
Santaniello: I don’t know. (laugh)
I already told him, I put the cabash on doing anything together before we have to come into work because you need your time, I need my time, you know. It’s going to be strange because I’ve been with you longer than I’ve been with him.
Shelby: I noticed he’s a little jealous.
Santaniello: He is a little jealous. We have that. We’ve been together longer.
Shelby: We have that history.
Santaniello: Yeah we do.
Shelby: So David Letterman’s producers call and they say do one little bit…
‘Good evening. There’s a gopher in my pants and his name is Carlos.’
Shelby: And you played your role so perfectly because if you go back and watch these things, I laugh not at what I’m saying. I laugh at you. Because you are just looking at me like you are the biggest idiot in the world.
Santaniello: No, I was looking at you like ‘You are a crazy man.’ And I do that a lot during the day. It’s just my typical look at you.
Shelby: So you’ve been anchoring for 14 years with a crazy man?
Santaniello: Yup. I’ve always known that. Now everybody else does too.
