It’s a recession - and that means layoffs. Even huge powerful conglomerates like NewsCorp have had to lay off workers. And it’s even hit famous people. Now, rumors are swirling that my favorite daytime show, The View, might be forced to let their most recent cohost hire, Sherri Shepherd, go because of budgetary reasons. Although Sherri has had her bad moments (not knowing the earth wasn’t flat, asking noted atheist Bill Maher if he had ever tried talking to God), I find her pleasant most of the time. If she says something kind of dumb, she doesn’t get all Elisabeth Hasselbeck about it and go on the defensive and start squawking about how she’s being oppressed or something.
I’m kind of torn on the whole “Should they lay off Sherri?” thing. On one hand, the show has been doing some painfully off-key segments about “saving money” lately, and it would be kind of nice to see the economy have an actual effect on the show. And while I like Sherri, she’s probably the most expendable of the bunch, and maybe she could get written into more scenes on 30 Rock. And if she gets fired, maybe she could write a tell-all book about what really goes on backstage…
Are you afraid of losing your job? In this unstable job market, I don’t think it’s out of line for anybody to have that particular worry. And if you suck at your job and only got it because you are a conservative former reality show contestant who is willing to parrot Republican talking points, then you should be even more concerned about the threat of firing. Elisabeth Hasselbeck of “The View,” who just so happens to be a conservative former reality show contestant who parrots Republican talking points, has come up with a brilliant strategy for staving off her inevitable firing/descent into irrelevance. She keeps getting knocked up! This morning, she announced she’s expecting her third kid.
Continue reading ‘tip of the week: the hasselbeck technique’
Even if you’ve never watched the show, you’ve probably heard of The View, the AM ladies-only chatfest led by veteran journalist Barbara Walters. And if you have heard of it, you’ve probably heard about it in the context of one of the catfights or political disagreements on the show. Here’s the thing that bugs me: I don’t care if the hosts like each other or not, I’m tuning in for some interesting (and occasionally thought-provoking) television, I’m not tuning in to hear about how much these five combative coworkers supposedly care about each other (although not about their show’s production assistants).
You are not legally required to love, or be best friends, with your coworkers. All you have to do is work together in a civil and polite fashion. If you happen to really like each other and want to hang out outside of work, that’s cool, but certainly not a must. What bothers me is that Barbara Walters can’t just say that the women of The View come in and do their jobs every day and then go back to their lives, she has to insist as loudly as she can to anyone who will listen that the View cohosts are all BFFs who engage in constant spontaneous group hugs and get each other presents on Valentine’s Day.
Continue reading ‘why ‘the view’ drives me crazy’
Being a PA on a TV show means you might get called on to run any number of random errands. However, one assistant on The View really had to go above and beyond the call of duty last week. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the worst interviewer on television, was going to do a “hot topic” segment about how she disapproves of some stores carrying low-cut panties for little girls. [Elisabeth has a two-year-old daughter, Grace.] That meant a poor PA–who happened to be male–had to run around Manhattan kids’ stores trying to find a pair of this low-cut underwear that Hasselbeck could hold up during her segment. He managed to find a pair, but I’m curious how many stores thought he was a creepy pedophile and followed him around the store?
The worst part of this whole ordeal? The only reason this story is known is because the cohosts talked and laughed about it on air during a special “backstage on The View” episode. It figures that a woman who was basically handed a major network broadcasting job despite her only TV experience having been a contestant on a reality show wouldn’t understand the value of the hard work other people do in order to make her stupid self look good.
Rosie O’Donnell used to be the Queen of Nice, and then she was the woman who fought on air with airhead cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View. But is Rosie making up with Elisabeth? According to The National Ledger, Rosie had her assistant call chichi baby boutique Petit Tresor to order a baby gift for Elisabeth, whose second child is due any day now.
To slightly reword a quote from Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Assistants are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
When Michael Jordan was an undergrad basketball star at the University of North Carolina, he majored in Geography. What about Tim Hasselbeck, better known for being the husband of View harpy Elisabeth “Rosie Hater” Hasselbeck than for being a third-string quarterback for the New York Giants? When he was an athlete at Boston College (where he met the missus), Tim majored in Administrative Studies.
Welcome to STA, Tim! If your team finally gets tired of paying you to sit on the bench, you can always fall back on your administrative career. We’d be happy to let you join our assistant ranks, although we’re sure the pay is a little less than you’re accustomed to.