Posts Tagged ‘The View’

Eyeing The View Through Rose-Colored Glasses

My closest friends know that my favorite TV show is The View. I’ve watched it for years; even when I was in the workforce, I’d tape it. I’ve even got a View coffee mug. Not since my sister-in-law, Barbara, and I attended Oprah’s show in November 1986, when it was taped in DC, have I been so intent on attending another live show. For years, I’ve had my eyes on The View.

Whoopi Goldberg has served as moderator since the show’s creator, Barbara Walters, retired on May 14, 2014. Depending on the topic, Whoopi offers enthusiastic commentary or sits with her elbow on the table, face resting in her hand, looking bored or making faces to elicit a laugh from the audience.

Over the years, I’ve seen the turnover in cohosts.  Joy Behar, Meredith Vieira, Star Jones, and Debbie Matenopoulos were on the original team. Others who have come and gone are Lisa Ling, Sherri Shepherd, Rosie Perez, Sarah Haines, and Rose O’Donnell. The current team members are Whoopi Goldberg, Ana Navarro, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and the program’s longest survivor of turnovers, Joy Behar.

Twice in the distant past, I had the opportunity to get tickets to a taping of the show, but bad timing prevented me from attending. Some weeks after I had requested tickets, the second time, one of the show’s staff members phoned me, extending four tickets for the Halloween show; audience members were expected to wear costumes. That would have been fantastic, but it, too, was a missed opportunity.

While contemplating whether to sign up one more time for tickets, I did some research. What I discovered lends truth to the adage,” Everything is not as it seems.” And so it is with The View.

I read dozens of reviews by ticket-holders: those who waited in line to attend a taping and those who were lucky enough to get inside.  Here’s what I know – and what I learned.

The taping takes place at ABC studios in New York on 57 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Tickets can be requested on the website  https://1iota.com/show/385/the-view. Once on the site, select a desired date on the calendar and click Request Tickets. You may apply for up to four tickets, and when approved, you will be notified via email.

If your side job is scalping and you request tickets with the intent of selling them, forget it. The tickets are free, but they are also non-transferable. The person who registers and requests tickets must be in attendance. ID will be checked. Guests also go through security screening.

Remember that just because you book one of those outrageously priced hotel rooms near the studio (the least expensive one I found was $400 per night) and then travel to the Big Apple by plane, train, or automobile to attend The View doesn’t mean you’ll be admitted. Tickets are issued in excess of capacity, and being a ticket holder does not guarantee admittance, nor is preference given to out-of-towners. That’s why it is essential to read the ticket guidelines.

The View has a dress code for live audience members. “Guests are encouraged to dress ‘upscale casual’ and look trendy. No tank tops, large logos on hats or shirts, t-shirts, shorts, or solid white or solid black tops.”

As if the revelations from people who have “been there” were not enough to change my mind about wanting to attend a taping, I read the book Ladies Who Punch:  The Explosive Inside Story of The View. Written by award-winning journalist Ramin Setoodeh, it promises to deliver “the gossipy, real-life soap operator behind the show,” and it does. Interviews with the cohosts disclose bickering, ego-tripping, and hiring and firing of cohosts. In addition, revelations come to light about the personalities of the cohosts — some unyielding, others fragile — and the backstage shenanigans, including Star Jones’ wedding fiasco, Elizabeth Hasselback’s meltdown, and Rose O’Donnell’s putdowns and temper tantrums. It is all there on every riveting page. Prepare to be surprised. I was.

In the meantime, I bulleted below some of the comments I read by reviewers and, where necessary, edited or paraphrased.

  • Being a ticket holder does not guarantee entry, even if you arrive early. Guests are advised to arrive by 9:30 a.m. sharp. Standby/same-day tickets are handed out at the audience entrance. To increase your chance of getting a standby ticket, you should arrive and stand in line before 8:30 a.m. The wait can take one to two hours, so dress appropriately for the weather.
  •  A 72-year-old woman wrote: My friend had the tickets in his name. He arrived very early, at about 8:15. [The staff] promptly cut off the priority ticket line at 9:00 a.m. I arrived at 9:03. They told me to go to the “standby” line. After 10 minutes, they said people in the standby line should leave because they were filled to capacity. The attendants didn’t listen to my reasoning that my friend was in line waiting for me even though my friend also tried to reason with them. They were rude and unaccommodating. We had ordered the tickets way in advance. I will never again attempt to get tickets to The View.
  •  Another person wrote: It doesn’t matter how early you arrive and get in line. I showed up at 7 a.m. so we could be the first ones there and get front-row seating, but that didn’t matter. They [the staff] sit you wherever they feel like it. I was furious. We were the first ones there but were assigned to the last row behind the cameras. And if you need to use a restroom during the wait period, you must wait to be escorted.
  • Regarding the taping, the hosts could have cared less if they had a live audience. We were merely props. They could have run a laugh, applause, or other soundtrack and never missed us. There was an opportunity to ask the cohosts questions during commercial breaks, but they pretty much ignored the audience. I have been a fan of The View since day one and am greatly disappointed with the experience. I would not recommend the trip; it is better to watch from home.
  •  Donna Brazile was the guest on the program, and the audience was promised a copy of her book, which I was excited about. After the show’s end, when we were instructed to leave, I asked one of the staff members about the book to no avail.
  • I’ve been to The View a few times. 1iota gives out Priority and General Admission tickets. It doesn’t matter what kind of ticket you have. The staff members who check in the audience decide where they seat you. I don’t find that fair and don’t think it’s worth seeing The View in person because of this process; instead, watch it on TV.
  • I signed up for my tickets online and met great people in line. We were admitted into the studio around 9:45-ish. You get one chance for the bathroom, so TAKE IT! Taping takes an hour; then, you’re quickly kicked out of the studio. The staff will not allow people to use the bathrooms after the show.
  • It was a View Your Deal Day, and [that segment] is not taped in front of the live audience. We sat there for about fifteen minutes while Sarah taped it backstage. You also wait outside for a while before being admitted inside. There’s no awning or anything to protect you if it’s raining or very cold.
  • I’m so disappointed. Thank goodness my husband & I were in NYC for three days because I would have been furious if I had gone just for this show. We received priority tickets, which meant nothing, and we had to stand in line in the rain.

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Barbara Walters died on December 30, 2022. Long-time fans of The View will always appreciate the program’s innovativeness and Barbara’s tagline, “I’ve always wanted to do a show with women of different generations, backgrounds, and views.” And so she did.

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Blowing Leaves off Family Trees

“We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.”

– Robert Frost, The Secret Sits

Ancestry.com is breaking up families, according to a segment today on The View. The cohosts discussed a case where a son requested a DNA kit from Ancestry.com and learned from the results that his dad is not his father. Instead, it turns out his father’s brother and his mom had an affair (the mom admitted it), and the man the boy thought was his uncle is his father. Upon hearing that, I felt like doing what one of the cohosts did: shout out to the uncle in my Maury Povich voice, “You are the baby’s daddy!” (LOL. I couldn’t resist.)

Revelations from Ancestry.com and enthusiastic genealogists everywhere expose secrets and blow more leaves off family trees than an F3 tornado.

All families have secrets. There are no exceptions; the rich, the famous, the poor, and the unknown have skeletons in the closet, and even pulverized bones sometimes yield secrets.

Years ago, when I took it upon myself to become the family genealogist, I began digging into my immediate and extended family history. I searched archival and other public records and solicited narratives from family members, who trusted me and divulged information on the condition that I bury it (and not in the pages of a book). Some of my sources are now deceased. Some writers would say that once the source dies, all bets are off. I’m not one of those.This sleuth unearthed revelations about a rape, a near-fatal abortion (not the rape victim), an ill-conceived and nearly disastrous intercontinental romance, out-of-wedlock births, and shotgun weddings. Decades ago, when morality and ethics were reverenced, some of those events were scandalous; today, many would not raise an eyebrow.

Unfortunately – or fortunately – depending on how you view it, all of our lives are an open book today, in many ways, thanks to Google. Who hasn’t done or experienced something we regret and hoped to conceal? It doesn’t matter whether the act occurred when we were young and dumb or old and foolish. In every family, remnants contributing to “the history of us” are everywhere. Even wrongdoings and foolish deeds that are not necessarily secretive await discovery. History can be covered up but not erased. It is stored in someone’s memory, logged in a journal, or tucked like a metaphorical note in a bottle waiting to be plucked from the ocean of time.

A family genealogist will inevitably come across some zits that are not secrets but are well-known truths, seldom discussed because they are embarrassing or unpleasant.

Just as there are two sides to every family, paternal and maternal, there are secrets aplenty. History. Herstory. Our stories.

Over the years, I’ve learned that before sharing “a secret,” one should think twice about the profound words of Benjamin Franklin, “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

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Taking a Different View of Whoopi

Tff 2014I am a huge fan of Whoopi Goldberg. Followers of my blog may recall that seven years ago I wrote a post candidly expressing my concern about Whoopi’s disheveled appearance on the TV talk show, The View. Undoubtedly, owing to my self-consciousness about appearance, I didn’t hesitate to brazenly offer my opinion that Whoopi should dress more appropriately for her job, like the program’s other co-hosts.

The odds are at least 20 million-to-one that Whoopi never saw that post and if she did her response would likely have been, “Who did you say wrote it? Loretta who? Who the hell is that?” before curling her lips and rolling her eyes. Nevertheless, my candor did not thwart a phone call I received months later from the program’s Audience Services Department, offering tickets for me and some friends to attend the show. Unfortunately, due to bad timing, I couldn’t attend. Being unable to accept that offer has been one of the biggest regrets of my life.

Getting back to why I admire Whoopi. If you didn’t know who she is (Who doesn’t?), and you happened to see the dreadlocks wearing, New York native walking on the street near her 8-bedroom, 9,486-square foot mansion in a gated New Jersey community, you might think that she was out of place. A vagabond, perhaps. Of course, you would be so far from wrong you couldn’t see daylight at high noon.

Nearly every celeb-watcher and anyone who knows about Whoopi knows that she is one of the entertainment industry’s finest. Aside from being strongly opinionated (a commonality that we share. You think?), she is highly intelligent and well-read. When she speaks her mind, she doesn’t hesitate to make it known that she doesn’t give a hot burp what other people think of her. And need I add that the numerous award-winning actress, comedian, author, activist, moderator and co-host of The View also has a star on Hollywood Boulevard? Kudos to this woman who is not afraid to be herself. She has her own style of dressing and living and doesn’t care whether we like it or not.

I’m just saying — if ever there is a perfect example of not judging a book by its cover, Whoopi is it. And who knows (I say tongue-in-check) perhaps my quasi-apology will bring me another ticket offer. Time will tell.

By the way, if you would like to take a peek inside Whoopi’s home view the Slideshow.

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What Women Want: Tickets

Women learn at an early age that some things require patience – like waiting for Santa Claus, reaching our 18st birthday, and getting tickets for a live television talk show.

There are a few tricks that might get a wannabe audience member into the studio:  stand-by and use chutzpah like the now ex-Salahis; implement a write-in campaign with the determination of a president running for a second term; or sign-up on the show’s website and wait — with the patience of Job. There is another way to get tickets; not just for a live TV show, but for just about anything. It is the ultimate trump card:  have connections. It works for me!

My affinity for quality talk shows began in the early days of Phil Donohue, but my favorite contemporary program is The View. I will tell you about the arrival of my long-awaited opportunity to be an audience member on The View, but first let me share some of my past live studio experiences.

In the early 1980s, I was twice an audience member at The Carol Randolph Show, which was broadcast locally on CBS. Then, on one spring morning, as my son, daughter, and I were enjoying our favorite week-end activity – roller skating in Rock Creek Park – we were filmed by the crew of the weekly TV program Saturday Magazine. The show was producing a feature about single parent families, and my children and I were part of the live studio audience when the segment aired on WTOP in March 1983.

Audience members at live talk shows get the opportunity to see their favorite hosts and celebrity guests in person, as I did at The Carol Randolph Show. Lou Rawls was the singing guest on one show that I attended. Millie Jackson was the other. I visited briefly with both in their dressing rooms. But enough of my horn-tooting, you want to know how to get your own studio tickets, don’t you?  Here is the deal.

If you don’t have a friend who works with the show to hook you up,

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One Woman’s View of the Women on “The View”

“Take some time to enjoy The View.”  That is the signature sign-off line on the popular morning talk program that has broadcast for 14 seasons.  Two Baby Boomers, two Generation Xers and one Pre-Baby Boomer make up the diverse group of five engaging women who regularly co-host the ABC morning talk program The View

Before I continue, let me interject that I am not hooked on television, and therefore am definitely not a soap opera or game show junkie, but I confess that I do enjoy looking, listening, and learning from the talking heads on The View, a program that is informative, entertaining, and is always laced with a healthy dose of humor. 

Some might argue that women in general are competitive, catty, drama queens who dislike other women, but I believe that many devotees of The View – men as well as women – would ask, “What’s not to like?”  If I were a paid TV critic, I might not be writing this blog, but since I am not, I am free to give my two cents on the women of The View, as well as a little background on each of them.  A devoted fan, I give the show two thumbs up and five stars.    (Click continue reading to see more.)         

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