I’ve never seen a complete episode of “The View,” but that doesn’t mean I’m not familiar with Joy Behar. After all, she was doing stand-up comedy for more than a decade before she teamed up with Barbara Walters, Meredith Viera, Star Jones, and Debbie Matenopoulos in 1997. (Plus, she’s also in my favorite underrated Woody Allen movie, “Manhattan Murder Mystery.”) In recent years, she’s been stepping out on “The View” to sit on for Larry King on occasion, so it’s not too surprising that the folks within the CNN family would consider her worthy of hosting her own show. What’s more impressive is that she’s opting to do “The Joy Behar Show” for HLN – formerly known as Headline News Network – while still keeping her seat on “The View.”
Still, you’d think that we could’ve managed to wait at least a question or two without asking if we’d be seeing any of her colleagues from her day job on this new gig.
Behar took the question in stride, replying, “I’m sure we’ll have them on as guests here and there. They have great stories, great opinions. I love having my arguments with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. We might be able to even do it over there for a segment or so. And Whoopi, we know, has tremendous opinions about everything, and a philosophical way of looking at life that’s kind of unique. And, of course, Barbara is a living legend…as she likes to remind us. Well, we remind her, actually. And Sherri Shepherd is coming along and doing great over there. So all of them, I think, would be great.”
I couldn’t help but notice, unfortunately, that there’s the same kind of uncertainty around what we can expect from this show as there was around Star Jones’ ill-fated Court TV series. When Behar was asked about the format, she spoke almost exclusively in generalities.
