We can always count on the ladies of “The View” to dispel interesting morning chatter, whether it’s insight into world events or just gross TMI about their bathroom habits. This morning, we were able to enjoy (I use that word loosely) both. Read and be enlightened. Or something.
Barbara Walters was MIA, leaving just Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd to hold down the fort. Thankfully, they were up to the job. Or at least they talked a lot. On the recent BlackBerry meltdown, Joy Behar was able to find a conspiracy angle. “Isn’t it a coincidence that Steve Jobs died and now the Blackberry is on the fritz? Just saying. He passed away and now his opponents are going down.” I’m thinking that the BlackBerry hasn’t been much competition for anyone since 2005, but that’s certainly one way to look at it.
Because “The View” is always about, well, the personal views of the co-hosts, Elizabeth Hasselbeck pointed out that the international inability to receive e-mails hit home. Sort of. “We had a field trip that was canceled yesterday, so anybody who had a BlackBerry didn’t know that it was canceled, so little things did have little hiccups yesterday, but the good news is that anybody who had was supposed to get in touch with somebody yesterday but just forgot had a great excuse.” Well, that’s a relief. As long as the only hiccup was a missed field trip for some wealthy kids in Manhattan. Phew!
The Hot Topic discussion about the BlackBerry brouhaha somehow devolved into pooping privacy. Notably, it didn’t take long to get there, either. In short, Whoopi Goldberg prefers to keep her cell phone turned off so that she can defecate in private. “I like to sit on the can, I want my business. I want to do what I have to do.” She then helpfully demonstrated what we can only guess is her pooping expression. Personally, I think she needs more fiber in her diet.
You’d think the conversation might end there, but no. Goldberg had more to say on the topic. “The toilet is for you to go in and be Zen and drop your thing, not for you to be talking to other people. Just crack the door if you want to talk to somebody.” If you’ve been thinking about staying at her place, just consider yourself warned.
Next on the roster was a look at Ashton Kutcher’s supposed mistress taking her story to the tabloids. The conversation became hopelessly garbled and confused, which at first I suspected meant my TV was acting up, but no, that’s just how Sherri Shepherd’s mind works. “With Joe the Plumber, I don’t think it would be as magnified if it was a celebrity,” she said, apropos of nothing. Don’t ask me how Joe the Plumber got mixed into the equation, but he did, and no one was even discussing politics.
Goldberg took personal offense to the idea that this woman (and another who had written a book about her dalliance with Anthony Weiner) would profit from their behavior. “In my day, there were times when I drank perhaps a little more than I should have and ended up in situations that perhaps I should not have. Because someone else had an agenda, I had to pay the price. Financially, because there were no phones.” To translate, this means there were no cell phone cameras to document behavior and it was just their word against hers. I think. I don’t speak fluent Whoopi.
Hasselbeck felt the need to pop in with, “The guys with high profile, are they thinking that a woman out there wouldn’t want to take advantage of a situation that even seemed like something could have happened?” Again, I don’t speak fluent Hasselbeck, so you’re on your own with that one.
Finally, it was time for one of the co-hosts to overshare. “I went out on a date with somebody a few years ago, he was a bad boy, real attractive, and he stood me up. I was gonna go tear his car up” Shepherd said. “I was out there in LA, I’m serious. I’m a ‘Waiting to Exhale’ kind of girl. I was gonna tear his car up really bad… Niecy Nash, my girlfriend came and left work, and told me you’re gonna have to call Barbara Walters because they’re gonna arrest you. And I said I don’t care. She talked me down.”
Joy Behar helpfully cut in. “A word of advice for you, Sherri? Don’t call Barbara.” I suspect that’s actually pretty sage advice, really. Just a guess, but I’m thinking Walters doesn’t really like for her co-hosts to be felons.
The next Hot Topic on the table was the story of how comedian Judy Gold had been unable to sell a sitcom based on her life as a lesbian single mom. This is another conversation that took an odd tangent. For Shepherd, it was a chance to dwell on the sitcom’s golden days. “If you go all the way back, you’ve never seen lesbian characters [on TV]. Jack Tripper, I know we got the Brady Bunch, Alice’s don’t ask don’t tell kind of character… she had a manly kind of presence on Brady Bunch, all I’m saying.” Thank you, Sherri Shepherd, for exposing the relationship between Alice and Sam the butcher as a big, old fraud. Though that does explain why they never seemed to be in much of a rush to get hitched.
Another Hot Topic was how a woman is suing an airline for flying into turbulence. This was only of note because Goldberg, a notoriously nervous flyer, shared this information. “The last time I had turbulence I wet my pants. And I’m getting on a plane tonight.” Given that Goldberg does all those nifty ads for Poise pads, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised when she wets her pants anytime, but still, it’s just more than I ever wanted to know.
The rest of the show offered only a few memorable bon mots from our golden girls. On the Conrad Murray trial, an expert suggested that the doctor never should have talked to police, using the phrase, “Talk to the man, end up in the can,” which inspired Shepherd to squeal, “We’ve gotta make T-shirts!”
When Chynna Phillips and Tony Dovolani, recently ejected from “Dancing with the Stars,” appeared on the show, all Behar really wanted to discuss was Kate Gosselin, a former partner of Dovolani’s. “Is she the worst dancer you’ve ever had or not?” Not surprisingly, Dovolani sidestepped the question, as he has this thing called tact Behar may be unfamiliar with.
The show closed with a segment on buying coats for under $100, which the co-hosts tries to act excited about, though they’d probably only use a $100 coat as a floor mat or maybe a lobster bib. And so concludes our visit with the lovely ladies of “The View,” though never fear — every weekday promises more insights just like these.