Twelve-year-old Delano Melvin walked into Studio 1A on Thursday, April 23, with a swivel chair, a stack of notes, and, apparently, a financial agenda, making his National Bring Your Kids to Work Day appearance on the 3rd Hour of TODAY one of the most talked-about moments of the show.
The son of TODAY co-host Craig Melvin and sportscaster Lindsay Czarniak, Delano turned 12 on March 10 and has visited the show before for the annual workplace holiday. But this year, he arrived with noticeably more confidence and a very specific ask for his father before the cameras cut away.
A Natural Behind The Anchor Desk
From the moment Delano wheeled himself into position alongside co-hosts Al Roker and Dylan Dreyer, it was clear the kid had a feel for the room. He arrived with notes prepared and immediately began spinning in his chair. Roker quipped, as reported on TODAY.com, that Delano was simply doing what Craig always does. Craig, for his part, tried to redirect his son toward the camera, a classic parenting instinct that played out in full view of a national audience.
The trio kicked things off with a sports segment centered on a viral optical illusion from a Seattle Mariners game. Pitcher Logan Gilbert threw a pitch that appeared to vanish into his jersey, and Craig invited Delano to weigh in. The 12-year-old did not disappoint. “I thought he was a magician when I first saw it,” Delano told the TODAY audience, as reported on TODAY.com. “I thought the ball went up his leg and just appeared in his shirt, ” he added.
Wacky Pet Names And A Studio Full Of Laughter
Dylan Dreyer then handed Delano the segment everyone would be talking about: Nationwide Insurance’s list of the wackiest pet names in America. Delano dove into his notes until Craig nudged him to look up at the camera instead, drawing laughs from the whole set. Once he found his footing, Delano delivered the top cat name with barely contained amusement.
“The top cat is Cheddar Big Booty Cheeseburger,” he announced, barely holding back laughter as he finished the line. Roker immediately fired back, telling Delano, “That’s what we call your Dad!”4, sending the studio into full chaos and leaving Delano visibly struggling to compose himself.
The pet name segment carried an extra layer of charm, given that Delano himself is something of a naming authority in the Melvin household. He and his younger sister Sybil received an Irish Doodle as a Christmas gift in 2024, and Delano chose the name Myles, inspired, he explained, by football star Myles Garrett. “Myles Garrett was a good football player at the time, so like I decided to name him Myles Garrett, well, not ‘Myles Garrett’ but ‘Myles,'”5 he said. After running through other famous Miles’, including Miles Davis and Miles Morales, Delano landed on his final justification: “And it just sounded like a good name.”
Going Off Script and Straight to the Point
According to People, the April 23 appearance was notable for how freely Delano went off script throughout the hour, leaning into spontaneous moments rather than sticking rigidly to his prepared notes. That willingness to improvise is exactly what made the segment’s finale land so well.
As the segment wrapped, Roker asked what the father and son had planned for the rest of the day. After a beat of silence and a glance at his dad, Craig joked that they had, in fact, skipped school for the occasion. Roker then turned to Craig with a compliment that doubled as a gentle dig: “This kid’s a chip off the old block!”7 a moment Entertainment Weekly highlighted as the exclamation point on Delano’s on-air debut skills.
Craig called it “Roker’s first-ever father-son swipe,” which may be the most accurate description of what unfolded.
Then came the moment that sent the clip into viral territory. With the cameras still rolling, Delano teased an upcoming segment about how families can talk about money and how a kid might convince his dad to raise his allowance. He turned and looked directly at Craig with a grin. Craig’s response was immediate and unambiguous: “That’s not happening.”
A Father-Son Dynamic That Resonates With Parents Everywhere
What made Delano’s appearance so shareable was not just the humor. It was the recognizable texture of real family life playing out under studio lights. Craig coaching his son to look at the camera, Delano spinning in his chair, the allowance negotiation attempted in front of millions: these are moments every parent knows, just with a slightly larger audience than most families ever face.
The appearance also offered a window into how the Melvin family navigates the intersection of a very public career and ordinary parenthood, school mornings, Christmas puppies, and a 12-year-old who clearly pays attention to what his dad does for a living, even if he still needs a reminder to look at the camera.
A Genuine Parenting Moment Parents Can Recognize
In an era when celebrity family content can feel carefully curated and polished to the point of unreality, Delano Melvin’s TODAY appearance was refreshingly unscripted. The allowance ask, the chair spinning, the barely suppressed laughter over a cat named Cheddar Big Booty Cheeseburger: none of it felt staged. For parents watching at home, that authenticity is exactly the point. Kids are funny, unpredictable, and occasionally brilliant negotiators, and sometimes the best parenting content is just letting them be themselves on live television.
If Delano’s track record holds, he will almost certainly be back at Studio 1A next year. Whether his allowance situation will have improved by then remains, per Craig Melvin, very much an open question.
