The Caroline Rhea Show
| The Caroline Rhea Show | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Talk show |
| Written by |
Cathy Ladman Joe Toplyn |
| Directed by |
Debbie Miller Caroline Rhea |
| Presented by | Caroline Rhea |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 195 |
| Production | |
| Location(s) |
NBC Studios New York, New York |
| Running time |
60 minutes (with commercials) |
| Production company(s) |
Travail D'Amour Productions Inc. Telepictures Productions |
| Distributor | Warner Bros. Television Distribution |
| Release | |
| Original network | Syndicated |
| Original release | September 2, 2002 – May 21, 2003 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | The Rosie O'Donnell Show (1996–2002) |
| Followed by | The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003–Present) |
The Caroline Rhea Show was an 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.
Format
In many ways, The Caroline Rhea Show was similar to the more-successful Ellen DeGeneres Show; both 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 Rosie'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...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", which the audience often sang along to, particularly in vocalising 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. Former David Bowie guitarist and musical collaborator Carlos Alomar was the musical director for this program.
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.)