This morning at 6 a.m. it was official: MSNBC was broadcasting live from New York in the brand-spanking new studios at 30 Rock, the shiny new apple of NBC's eye, at least until those episodes of "Seinfeldvision" start rolling out. (Though those "Bee Movie" ads almost count.) ETP attended the launch party for those studios earlier this month where the space was unveiled (with a special blessing from Mayor Bloomberg, who decreed the date, Oct. 11th, 2007, as "NBC News Day" — seriously, he can just do that!). Check it out in the clip below from "Morning Joe" which eschewed its usual classic-rock soundtrack in favor of the even more classic "New York, New York" as the camera swept over the (still dark) midtown Manhattan skyline and a new day dawned. From there, it took about 3.5 seconds for Mika Brzezinski to sound exasperated, so you knew things weren't that different. See below:

God bless Willie Geist for staying on message, eh? He would make an excellent NBC page.

A few notes on the studio: If you think it looks like it would make an awesome dance club, you're right — at the opening, NBC News prez Steve Capus cracked that it looked like the lobby of the Stockholm Hilton (which he would know after earning his Swedish stripes in Oskarshamn, which is the apple of Småland's eye), and maybe it was the waiters circling with flutes of champagne or the fact that Keith Olbermann and Brian Williams were having a dance-off like in "Beat It",* but it really did seem like a good place to pump up the jam and bust a move. Or it could have been the red walls, mirrored ceilings, flashing monitors, and studio-traversing catwalk,which alas no one got wasted enough to test out. (That is, while I was there — in his speech, Williams said both that the space "would never be empty again" and hearkened back fondly to all-nighters in the office, "some of them work-related," so who knows, those mirrored ceilings might be put to good use.) This morning on "Joe" Jackie Meretzky put the catwalk to good use for the weather (see below) though alas with no disco moves; for a multi-tasking studio as this is meant to be, we think that "MSNBC Late-Night Dance Party" might just fit the bill (or at least give "Predator Raw 7" a run for its money). More on the studios later when we review Nightly's new look; also, we know we owe you Keith Olbermann's giant head. We're getting to that.

I have been informed by some of the younger members of the HuffPo masthead that a better analogy might be "You Got Served." Or that time Britney and Justin totally had a dance-off at some LA club. But I still like "Beat It," to be honest. I kick it old school.

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