Whoopi Goldberg to Join 'The View'

Whoopi Goldberg will join the chatty women of The View this September as the show’s permanent moderator. Barbara Walters announced the news yesterday during the program, and Goldberg jogged down the aisles of the studio high-fiving audience members. “This is such a big old thrill for me,” said Goldberg. The 51-year-old comedian and actress will replace Rosie O’Donnell, who made headlines for feuding with billionaire Donald Trump, and who left the show after an on-air dispute with panelist Elisabeth Hasselbeck over the Iraq war.

Wow, great news for Whoopi—now she gets to be the show’s token paranoid, angry co-host, said Stuart Heritage on HecklerSpray.com. It’s really a win/win situation for everybody. The View can still “maintain its mix of left-wing aggrandizing and shrieking creationist right-wing nonsense,” Goldberg gets a high profile job with a fat salary, and viewers get to guess which Goldberg will show up for work: The “reactionary machine-gun comedian” Goldberg? The “philosophical alien bartender of Star Trek” Goldberg? Or the Goldberg who “can make dead people do pottery”?

Whoopi Goldberg is just what The View needs, said Miki Turner on MSNBC.com. Goldberg isn’t afraid to speak her mind, but she’ll certainly be “less forceful and offensive than O’Donnell.” And when she’s on her game, Goldberg will “split your gut while simultaneously challenging the way you think.”

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But Goldberg is likely to hurt The View rather than help it, said Gia Cortina on PostChronicle.com. Her syndicated talk show The Whoopi Goldberg Show was cancelled after just one season, and her sitcom Whoopi didn’t do well either. “Her biggest achievement was Comic Relief,” but she co-hosted that with Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. There’s no doubt that she has talent, but as to whether or not she’ll cut it as a daytime talk show co-host, “her record may say no.”