Is that your final answer, Reeg?
In a post-holiday bombshell that will no doubt dismay his longtime fans (and exec producer Michael Gelman), Regis Philbin announced on Live With Regis and Kelly Tuesday he plans to call it quits from the popular morning gabfest sometime within the next year.
"I don't want to alarm anybody," the talk-show vet said before revealing, "this will be my last year on the show."
Philbin, 79, couldn't confirm when his last day will be on the show—which could possibly be as early as the summertime—but noted that the timing just felt right.
"It's been a long time," he continued. "It's been 28 years and it was the biggest thrill of my life to come back to New York, where I grew up as a kid watching TV in the early days, you know—never even dreaming that I would one day have the ability, or whatever it takes, to get in front of the camera and talk to it.
"There is a time that everything must come to an end for certain people on camera—especially certain old people!" quipped the Daytime Emmy winner.
On this morning's fourth hour of Today, Philbin's former partner in crime Kathie Lee Gifford, who got up every morning with him for the show's first 15 years when it was called Live With Regis and Kathie Lee, weighed in on Philbin's pending retirement.
"He's an amazing guy. He's every man to so many people," she said. "Nobody tells a story like Reeg does and he's going to be 80 in August and just figured it's time."
Hey, he can always continue filling in for David Letterman!