Kathy Griffin, Anderson Cooper start CNN – New Year’s Eve show with Caitlyn Jenner, Poppy Harlow jokes

New Year’s Eve television is getting off to a big start courtesy of Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin, and in their opening to the annual CNN special on Thursday night, they did not disappoint when it comes to being random, funny, and certainly controversial.

The edgiest material of course came from Kathy herself, who asked Cooper a series of questions about Caitlyn Jenner that made him increasingly uncomfortable. From there, she also told a joke or two about Poppy Harlow passing out on the air, which of course led to Cooper defending her. Harlow is ironically also in Times Square in New York, and it’s possible that we could see her at some point before the night is over.

Griffin’s first major stunt of the night was to supposedly place a note outside of Cooper’s hotel room, claiming that people can stop by to say hello. We also got a fun little clip from Rio, which may be one of our go-to locations for the year.

Of course, this is a show we’re going to keep updates on over the course of the entire evening, mostly because this is such a personal favorite of ours. It’s always funny, sometime controversial, and it at least tries to tell you a thing or two about the year as a whole in the process. Given that this is the year before a election, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the name “Donald Trump” has already been mentioned on at least one occasion. (There are probably more to come.)