The Caroline Rhea Show

The Caroline Rhea Show is a short-lived American syndicated variety/talk show hosted by actress and comedian Caroline Rhea. It premiered on September 2, 2002 and ran until May 21, 2003. The show was regarded as the successor to The Rosie O'Donnell Show, in that Rhea was hand-picked by Rosie O'Donnell as her replacement and had hosted the last few weeks of Rosie prior to her show launching.[1]

The Caroline Rhea Show
GenreTalk show
Written byCathy Ladman
Joe Toplyn
Directed byDebbie Miller
Caroline Rhea
Presented byCaroline Rhea
Country of originUnited States
Original language(s)English
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes195
Production
Production location(s)NBC Studios
New York, New York
Running time60 minutes
(with commercials)
Production company(s)Travail D'Amour Productions Inc.
Telepictures Productions
DistributorWarner Bros. Television Distribution
Release
Original networkSyndicated
Original releaseSeptember 2, 2002 (2002-09-02) –
May 21, 2003 (2003-05-21)

Format

In many ways, The Caroline Rhea Show was similar to its predecessor The Rosie O'Donnell Show and the more successful The Ellen DeGeneres Show; all three programs were daytime talk shows that were run like nighttime talk shows, with monologues and house bands and celebrity (and sometimes non-celebrity) guests.

Unlike with O'Donnell's daytime show where an audience member opened the show, by announcing the day's guests, Chip Zien was the announcer of the show announcing "Live from New York, it's The Caroline Rhea Show! On today's show: [names of guests]...Here's Caroline!" The first five words, "Live from New York, it's," mimicked the opening tagline to Saturday Night Live, produced in the neighboring Studio 8-H. The show's intro song was Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline",[2] which the audience often sang along to, particularly in vocalizing the three beats after the song's eponymous line and chanting "so good, so good" in response to "good times never seemed so good".

Production

Like its predecessor, The Caroline Rhea Show was taped in Studio 8-G at NBC's Rockefeller Center Studios in New York City. The show's house band was led by trumpeter Chris Botti.[3] Former David Bowie guitarist and musical collaborator Carlos Alomar was the musical director for this program.[4]

Some stations that aired Rosie also aired Caroline Rhea, but some (like WABC-TV in New York, which gave the former Rosie spot to The Wayne Brady Show) aired the show at an undesirable late-night time slot.

Most television markets which had aired the show replaced it with The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which was offered by the syndicator of both Rhea's and O'Donnell's show, Warner Bros. Television's Telepictures division. (New York station WLNY-TV, which was a secondary carrier of both series, added Ellen while WABC did not; it was instead given to WNBC.)

References
  1. Moore, Frazier (November 3, 2002). "Rhea brings talk, laughter and a love of pink to daytime TV". Arizona Daily Sun. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  2. O'Dell, Cary (October 14, 2002). "The Caroline Rhea Show". PopMatters. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  3. Ellis, Amy (July 26, 2007). "Caroline Rhea at Foxwoods". Hartford Courant. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  4. Oei, Lily (September 5, 2002). "'Rhea' in tune with Alomar". Variety. Retrieved May 2, 2019.


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