Joy Behar is back on “The View” Tuesday — two years after ending her initial 16-year run. (She’s guest-hosted several times since.)
“I originally said I wasn’t interested [in returning] but they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” she jokes. “It wasn’t for financial reasons. A lot of people in the press made it sound like it was about money. It’s more about the way the show is going and the way I saw myself fitting in.
“You can’t underestimate the new people behind the scenes and what it means to the show,” she says, referring, in part, to new executive producer Candi Carter, who just replaced Bill Wolff. “I’m very happy with this team — they’re very smart and hip, really enthusiastic and are into comedy. I want the show to be fun the way it used to be.
“It’s also a political year — and I want to be there.”
Behar returns to a drastically different show — at least in terms of her co-hosts. Two seasons of chaos find den mother Whoopi Goldberg (the one constant) sitting at the table with Behar, Michelle Collins, Raven-Symone, Candace Cameron Bure and Paula Faris. I asked Behar if there were any off-air run-throughs with the new cast. “There were no rehearsals — this isn’t a play,” she says. “I’ve always said ‘The View’ … is a rotating cocktail party. Now I’m talking to Raven instead of Sherri (Shepherd), and Paula Faris and Michelle instead of Elisabeth Hasselbeck. They’re nice girls and lovely people.”
Behar says she was persuaded to rejoin the show by “View” consultant Hilary Estey McLoughlin, who called Behar on her cellphone. “I was in Provincetown [Mass.] minding my own business, in the middle of Commercial Street, and she convinced me,” she says. “That was three weeks ago, or even less. It got thrown together very quickly.”
Last, but not least…
I checked in with standup comedian Rod Man, winner of last year’s “Last Comic Standing,” who’s returning for Wednesday night’s season finale (10 p.m. on NBC) to meet with the final five contestants.
Winning the show last year “has had a tremendous effect” on his career, he says. “There are more people coming to the shows and the audience has changed; I now get people who knew me before ‘Last Comic Standing’ and new fans who only know me from the show. It’s a good mix.” He’s also got an NBC sitcom pilot in the works. “It’s based loosely on my life, with me moving back to my hometown and taking care of my momma and brother and sister and wife and kids,” he says. “It’s a family show, which is what I’m about at the end of the day. It should be pretty funny” … Zachary Kiesch has joined Ch. 5 as a general assignment reporter. He was most recently at WRC in DC … Todd Robbins will host “True Nightmares,” a new series premiering Oct. 14 (10 p.m.) on ID. It looks at true stories that spawned urban legends like the boogeyman (you mean he doesn’t really exist?).