Dear Barbara Walters,I'm Your ManI Want A Place On 'The View'...and a coffee mug
by Wendel James Potter
September 30, 2007
It's my view that I should be hired as the first male co-host on 'The View'.
You're probably familiar with The View. It's Barbara Walters' television dream child that brings together four female personalities (actually, five when Barbara herself joins in the fun) to collaborate and collide on the daytime airwaves.
This lethal mix of hormones and hypertension tends to create controversy that makes what they call "good television". That is translated into High Ratings. Which, of course, is then translated into Big Bucks.
Lately, it translates into leaving Barbara constantly on the lookout to fill a vacancy at The View's round table. Somebody's always making an exit.
The View has been in production since 1997. It's 10-year and still-running run has seen the girls-only panel morph and transform like a chameleon on LSD.
Joy Behar, a brash talking New York comedienne, is (with the exception of Barbara) the only seemingly stable player in the show's vast stable of players. Joy has been with the show since its inception. Her roots in The View's family tree seem to have taken a deeper hold than all of her "view" sisters who have come and gone, either to branch out or wither away on the vine.
The View has been represented over the years by comediennes, journalists, a lesbian, the young, the old, the beautiful, the thin, the heavy, the intellectually outspoken, the idiotically outspoken, the outspoken for the sake of being outspoken, the liberal, the conservative, the White, the African American, the Asian. We have seen the likes of Meredith, Debbie, Lisa, Star, Rosie, Elisabeth, Sherri, and Whoopi.
And, of course, Barbara. There has been quite a view from the bridge of The View.
About the only view lacking here is that of The Man. The View needs a man.
The View needs Wendel James Potter.
I think I'm up to the task. I'm ready to apply for the job. Surely there will soon be another opening. So:
Dear Barbara,
I am a 55-year old freelance comedy writer living in a little house on the prairie in Nebraska and I would like to be considered for a job as the first full-time male co-host on The View.
I realize this would be a departure from your discriminatory practice of employing only women on your show. However, I am savvy enough to realize that not allowing men to host The View is actually rooted in your dark, psychologically driven attempt to lash out at the late Harry Reasoner for being such a son of a bitch when you co-anchored the ABC Evening News with him 30 years ago.
Ol' Harry didn't think a woman should be sitting at the anchor desk. You proved him wrong. He went back to CBS.
Well, Ol' Harry was just being Harry. Now he's dead. Bury the hatchet, Babs.
I'm not Ol' Harry. I'm Ol' Wendel. Let's you and me be friends.
As a co-host, I would be representing a new view on your program, that of the American male. Until now that view has been displayed mainly on sports shows and commercials for jock itch medicine. It's time for a Man to sit down at your table!
Me and your ladies. I think it would be a good fit. As long as my jock itch isn't causing me to scratch.
I would also get a kick out of having my very own The View coffee mug.
Let me know what you think about my suggestion for such a radical change in your show's structure. I can certainly see us making good television together. Which translates into making Big Bucks.
Your friend,
Wendel James Potter
P.S. Would the coffee mug be a perk or would the cost be deducted from my first paycheck?
Now I will wait to hear back. Who knows? One of these mornings, you just might tune in your television to The View and see Barbara, Sherri, Elisabeth, Joy, and Wendel.
Personally, I don't think Whoopi's gonna make it. But that's just my view.
Copyright 2007 Wendel James Potter
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