his & hers

Friday’s finale of His & Hers wasn’t exactly a strictly sad occasion for hosts Jemele Hill and Michael Smith, who are being promoted to the 6 p.m. edition of SportsCenter, but it was surely bittersweet.

Smith spent more than five years on His & Hers (previously called Numbers Never Lie), and Hill was there for the last three and a half years, so the duo obviously has made many memories in the show’s studio. So to commemorate their final episode, Hill and Smith shared a sort of greatest-hits montage, then reflected on their departure from the show.

The final moments of His & Hers featured a big hug, a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reference and Hill announcing that, “We like to take anything not nailed down,” before absconding with a plastic sign bearing the show’s title. After the show had appeared to end, Smith returned to the set, said, “Come on, this is His & Hers. Ain’t but one way we going out” and poured out a drink on the carpet.

Here’s the full video of Smith and Hill’s goodbye, including, at the end, Hill taking the sign and Smith pouring out the drink.

Hill and Smith did a good job differentiating His & Hers from other talk shows, putting their own stamp on it and attracting viewers seemingly without changing who they are. Here’s how Hill described the show in an interview with our Shlomo Sprung in December 2015:

We knew a long time ago that if people wanted a breakdown of the Cover 2 or some of the more intricate analysis about particular sports, they have plenty of things to choose from. But if they want to laugh, they want to be entertained, they want things that are relatable to their lives— whether they’re intense sports fans or maybe just casual sports fans— I think we’re a good option for them.

And we know that might be a bit of an untraditional or non-traditional way of looking at things in sports, but we kind of say it over and over to ourselves, to remind ourselves as former newspaper people, that we’re more of a talk show. We’re not a newspaper. And so I think that’s the kind of approach we try to take into it.

Hill and Smith will take over the 6 p.m. SportsCenter on Feb. 6, the day after the Super Bowl.

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.

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