Whoopi Goldberg Jokingly Warns Audience as The View Goes Live Without Writers Amid Major Strike

The View went live on the air Tuesday, despite a lack of writers working on the show due to the Writers Guild of America strike.

The WGA’s 11,000 members went on strike at 3 a.m. EDT Tuesday, which immediately disrupted production on a myriad of television shows and movies.

“Okay. So you know how we’re always talking about how we’re very different than most other shows,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said. “As you know, there’s a writers’ strike going on, so we don’t have writers. So you’re going to hear how it would be when it’s, you know, not slicked up. Okay?”

Joy Behar emphasized, “We don’t have writers today. We usually do have writers. Not like we never have writers.”

“That’s ’cause you’re not listening,” Goldberg shot back.

“That’s why we need writers!” Alyssa Farah Griffin quipped.

The last WGA strike started in November 2007 and lasted for 100 days into February 2008.

Union leadership said they tried hard to avert a strike this year.

“Though we negotiated intent on making a fair deal … the studios’ responses to our proposals have been wholly insufficient, given the existential crisis writers are facing,” WGA said in a statement.

The rise in streaming services has meant a loss of income and job opportunities for writers, according to WGA. In addition, the union says many writers can’t make a living by writing alone and are forced to work several jobs to make ends meet.

The entertainment studios’ negotiating committee released a statement about their disagreements with the Guild.

“The primary sticking points are ‘mandatory staffing,’ and ‘duration of employment’ — Guild proposals that would require a company to staff a show with a certain number of writers for a specified period of time, whether needed or not,” the statement said.

At one point during The View Tuesday, Whoopi Goldberg turned to Executive Producer Brian Teta and asked, “Since we don’t have writers, what do you think is next?”

In addition to daytime shows, other shows impacted by the strike include those hosted by Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Stephen Colbert; as well as the weekend comedy staple Saturday Night Live.

At the end of the show, Goldberg addressed the audience:

We’re thrilled you came out to see us. We’re thrilled you watched us. We hope you weren’t too freaked about the fact that we have no writers. We did a show anyway because we want to keep everybody employed, and we want to do our best, and we support our writers, because we know what they’re going through.

Watch the clip of The View above.

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