SOLVED!
UPDATED!
[Blind Gossip] Guess which TV star is getting fired? Our source says, “We wanted someone outspoken and controversial… but she just turned out to be someone ignorant with a big mouth.” Most importantly, the show’s fans just don’t like her.
Of course, no one will say she was fired. Everyone will simply say that she chose not to renew her contract because she wanted to take advantage of other opportunities, blah blah blah.
TV Star:
TV Show:
SOLVED!
Sherri Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy have both been FIRED from The View.
Sherri says:
It’s been seven wonderful years on The View and after careful consideration it is time for me to move on. I am extremely grateful to Barbara Walters and Bill Gedde for giving me the opportunity.
Jenny says:
If Sherri goes… I go too. My View will be changing too. As will with many hard working folks. Thanks to everyone at the show for your dedication and an amazing year.
Blah, blah, blah. Now let’s talk about what REALLY happened! We call it: The Dumbing Down of The View.
The View started out with a promising concept (different women, different points of view), but over the years, Barbara Walters killed the show. Yes, it’s all her fault.
While the show was never a bastion of intellectualism, Walters allowed it to become a nasty, dumbed-down cartoon parody of itself. One objective measure: education. The earliest cast members of The View were all college graduates. While education does not always correlate with intelligence, it certainly provides one objective measurement:
Earliest cast members of The View. College degree?:
Meredith Vieira YES
Star Jones YES
Debbie Matenopoulos YES
Lisa Ling YES
Joy Behar YES
Latest cast members of The View. College degree?:
Sherri Shepherd NO
Jenny McCarthy NO
Whoopie Goldberg NO
When you lose intelligent, well-spoken cast members like Lisa Ling or Star Jones, and try to substitute in dumb, inarticulate cast members like Sherri Shepherd or Jenny McCarthy for entertainment value, you reap what you sow.
When you lose a fun, spirited, upbeat moderator like Meredith Vieira and try to substitute in a dour and bored Whoopie Goldberg (who is contemptuous of everyone and simply shows up to collect a steady paycheck), you reap what you sow.
Whoopie Goldberg is more well-suited to playing the role of the villain in the next Matrix movie than she is to moderating a morning talk show.
Barbara Walters lost the thread. She dumbed down the show. With the firings of many previous cast members, Walters proved over and over again that she lets her personal feelings about people get in the way of making smart business decisions. Walters is completely responsible for turning The View into The Really Dumb Housewives of Daytime TV.
The tipping point for the recent rash of firings show came when ratings for The Talk (an all-female talk show on CBS) started passing The View. That was INFURIATING to Barbara Walters, and she started cleaning house: Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselback, and now McCarthy and Shepherd. She had petty, personal arguments with more than one of these women and exacted her revenge by firing them.
While she will never admit it, Walters FIRED Behar, Hasselback, McCarthy and Shepherd.
They didn’t decide to leave because they were “too far apart on contract negotiations,” or because they “wanted to pursue other opportunities.” All of these women loved that fat, steady paycheck and would have stayed there forfreakingever if Walters had allowed it.
As for the show’s future: If Walters hires vibrant, educated, articulate, interesting women – and an upbeat moderator – we think she has a good chance at rebuilding the show. If not… The Talk rules, and The View dies.
While we originally wrote this item about McCarthy, everybody who guessed either McCarthy or Shepherd got this one right. Congratulations to Ohithinknot for being first!
UPDATE!
As expected, both women announced that it was “their” decision to leave the show. This way Barbara Walters gets to continue to claim that she has never fired anyone from The View. But, just in case they tried to vary from the script, Walters had them read “their” statements from a teleprompter. Of course, each of their statements included a blurb about how grateful they are to Barbara Walters.
Jenny McCarthy said:
Let me tell you what is going on. I am so grateful to have worked with Barbara Walters in her last year, along with many producers and co-hosts. After much consideration, I’ve taken a new job which allows me to do what I do best, which is talk without having to interrupt anyone.
Sherri Shepherd said:
A lot of those people close to me and some of the producers here, they’ve known since the spring that I did not intend to return to the show after my contract ends in August. I didn’t discuss anything publicly in my personal life because I didn’t want to do anything to distract from Barbara Walters and our celebration of her retirement in May.
Does anyone out there actually believe that Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd voluntarily chose to leave cushy $1.5 million a year jobs on The View?
Ha!
UPDATE!
We told you a couple of years ago that Barbara Walters was responsible for the dumbing down of The View.
True to form, she is still denying it… and now she is whining that the demise of the show is EVERYONE ELSE’S FAULT. The latest from The New York Post:
Barbara Walters feels ABC execs have ‘ruined’ legacy of ‘The View’
Barbara Walters thinks ABC execs have ruined “The View” and fears the show will be remembered for its petty backstage bickering and revolving door of talent.
Walters is so over the show that she even ditched a post-election appearance, which reunited original hosts Debbie Matenopoulos, Meredith Vieira, Joy Behar and Star Jones. Walters’ longtime rep told us she was vacationing with her daughter in Florida. “It was a prearranged vacation for the two of them. She calls the control room multiple times a week to offer her suggestions. She has a wonderful relationship with the show,” she said.
Meanwhile, “The View” continues to part ways with its talent. Candace Cameron Bure is the latest casualty of the talk show.
Several sources told Page Six last summer that the show would slowly phase out Bure and Raven-Symoné in order to avoid another embarrassing public shake-up at ABC. Raven-Symoné flew the coop in October. Paula Faris remains on the show, splitting her time with “Good Morning America.”
“She feels they’ve ruined the franchise that she and Bill Geddie built. Instead of focusing on smart, educated women with strong talent, they cast uninformed child actors on the show. The legacy has been compromised because of poor casting and bad leadership under ABC News,” a source told us.Wah wah wahhhh! Barbara hires dumb and uneducated people… but blames others for hiring dumb and uneducated people. Barbara hires antagonists… but blames others when they bicker. Barbara is “over” the show… but still “calls the control room” to manage things.
Sounds like Barbara Walters is in serious denial that this entire mess is hers!
Related: Live By The Big Mouth