The View
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| runtime = 1 hour 2 minutes per episode | creator = Barbara Walters, Bill Geddie, and Jessica Guff | starring = Star Jones Reynolds
Joy Behar
Elisabeth Hasselbeck, (2003-present)
Barbara Walters
Meredith Vieira, (1997-2006)
Debbie Matenopoulos, (1997-1999)
Lisa Ling, (1999-2002) | country = United States | network = ABC | first_aired = August 11, 1997 | last_aired = Present | num_episodes = 2,000, as of February 2, 2006
|}} The View is a daytime television talk show on ABC created by Barbara Walters, Bill Geddie, and Jessica Guff. It is moderated by Meredith Vieira, with co-hosts Star Jones Reynolds, Joy Behar, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Walters, the show's co-executive producer, sits on the panel an average of three days a week. The show premiered on August 11, 1997.
The concept of The View is to showcase women with a range of perspectives, as they speak with each other as well as with their guests. An early version of the show's opening credits, with voice-over from Walters, captured the premise:
- I've always wanted to do a show with women of different generations, backgrounds and views: a working mother; a professional in her 30s; a young woman just starting out; and then somebody who's done almost everything and will say almost anything. And in a perfect world, I'd get to join the group whenever I wanted ...
The show opens each day with "Hot Topics," in which the women weigh in on the day's top headlines in politics and entertainment; the segment's popularity soon led it to expand.
Contents |
Initial reviews
A New York Times review<ref name="nytimes">Feet on the Ground, Heads Without Bubbles, an August 21, 1997 review from The New York Times</ref>, published ten days after the show premiered, describes what critic Caryn James thought was distinctive about the show:
- The idea of women talking to one another on daytime television is not exactly radical. The idea that those women should be smart and accomplished is still odd enough to make The View seem wildly different. It actively defies the bubbleheads-'R'-us approach to women's talk shows....
- If it keeps its mildly renegade spirit, The View should only grow stronger. It is easy to tease Barbara Walters; we've all done it. (She hasn't made anyone cry on the air yet.) But she and her production company deserve full credit for guiding this show in such a smart direction. During hot topics, it is often her voice that marks out some complicated middle ground and prevents The View from becoming Crossfire for Girls. This show dares to assume that women, even those watching at home in the morning, have minds of their own.
After a year on the air, a review of the show from Salon.com<ref>August 1998 review of the show from Salon.com</ref> attempted to summarize what had made the show a "(very guilty) pleasure" for its mostly female audience:
- The View has caught on with viewers because it gives expression to feelings more complicated, and real, than its detractors realize. Like the Rat Pack, it's all about freedom in an uptight world. Vieira, Walters, et al., have confessed to a lot of things on the show that women are supposed to feel guilty about: forgetting to vote, being too lazy to exercise, hating skinny models, letting the kids watch too much TV, admiring Hollywood's latest hunk. And, apparently, they don't care what people think. Look, I'm not holding them up as role models. And I'm not saying they're representative of the death of feminism, or the rebirth of feminism, or anything like that. I just like the way they don't give a damn. If the Rat Pack was Everyman's id, The View is Everywoman's. These chicks do it their way, and it's a kick in the head.
Changes in co-hosts
Image:TheViewCurrent.jpg The show premiered with four co-hosts: Vieira, Jones, Debbie Matenopoulos, and Walters. Walters and Behar initially took turns as the fourth co-host, an approach that at least one TV critic considered disconcerting:
- The comedian Joy Behar, who appears on the days when Ms. Walters is off, is truly funny but hasn't blended in yet; at times it seems as if a Joan Rivers clone had parachuted in<ref name="nytimes" />.
Behar soon became a regular co-host, with the panel expanding to five when Walters joined in.
The show's youngest co-host has changed twice during the show's history. Matenopoulos was on from 1997-99. When she was fired, Lisa Ling took over, leaving in 2002 to host National Geographic Explorer. Hasselbeck replaced Ling after she, Rachel Campos, and Erin Hershey Presley were the finalists in a competition that ended with each of the three getting a week-long on-air tryout<ref>The View Eyes Elisabeth, a November 2003 story about Hasselbeck's selection from E! Online</ref>.
Vieira announced on April 6, 2006 that she will be leaving The View in order to replace Katie Couric as the co-anchor of NBC's Today<ref>Vieira Selected as Couric's Successor at Today, an April 2006 Los Angeles Times article</ref>. Star Magazine is reporting that Everybody Loves Raymond star Patricia Heaton is the early favorite to replace Vieira; while the Chicago Sun-Times reports that CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien is the most likely succesor <ref>[1]</ref> and the New York Post claiming Connie Chung is the front-runner. E! News is also reporting that a complete overhaul of the panel of hosts may be in order this May, as Jones' contract is up for renewal later this year and producers are said to be looking for a replacement for Hasselbeck.
The show occasionally uses guest hosts to substitute if one of the women are out. Past guest hosts have included: Monica Lewinsky, Myrka Dellanos, Felicity Huffman, James Denton, Daisy Fuentes, Ann Coulter, Hillary Duff, Marcia Cross, Kathie Lee Gifford, Amanda Bynes, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Anna Kournikova, Bo Bice, Rosie O'Donnell, Robin Roberts, Constance Marie, Melania Trump, Mario Cantone, Mariska Hargitay, Wanda Sykes, Brooke Sheilds, Kim Catrall, Mila Kunis, Ricardo Chavira, Lauren Graham, Dennis Miller, Teri Hatcher, Terrence Howard, Eva Longoria, Rachel Dratch, Nicolette Sheridan, Patricia Richardson, Lynda Carter and Chandra Wilson.
Politics of The View
While diverse in terms of age and backgrounds, the show has been criticized for a lack of diversity in political views. Changing this was at least one factor in the selection of Hasselbeck as Ling's replacement.Template:Fact Hasselbeck's conservative credentials were later demonstrated when she delivered a speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
The hiring didn't end the criticism, with some characterizing Hasselbeck a token conservative on The View. Comments made by Star Jones Reynolds in January 2006, comparing the ego of U.S. President George W. Bush to Osama bin Laden were controversial.
Awards
The show's longtime director Mark Gentile received a Daytime Emmy Award in its first year. The show's producers shared the "Outstanding Talk Show" Emmy in 2003, with The Wayne Brady Show.
Since 1999, the show's hosts have received Emmy nominations every year, though they've never won.
Trivia
- The show was originally called The View From Here. However, there was already a program airing in Canada with the same name, and ABC execs decided to change the name to simply The View. Template:Fact
- Their first day on-air was August 11, 1997 with Tom Selleck as their first guest; Regis Philbin was the first guest on their pilot episode.
- The women used to sit around a full-circle table. However, it was very difficult to interact with the audience with half of the women having their backs against the audience; the table was quickly changed.Template:Fact
- Their set was actually a leftover set from an old cancelled soap opera. ABC didn't commit to their own set until their fifth season. Template:Fact
- In 2005, MadTV parodied the show in a sketch, exaggerating the women's speech as simultaneous bickering. The sketch introduced Michael McDonald as a farmer treating the women as hens, tossing chickenfeed on the ground and producing eggs from the women's seats. In that one particular scene, Elisabeth Hasselbeck laid multiple eggs, Star Jones Reynolds laid a brown egg, Joy Behar laid none, and Barbara Walters laid sand, making fun of her age. This parody also joked about Elisabeth's seemingly under-qualified working past on television.
References
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