Season 18 will likely go down in history as the least successful season of The View.  All three of the newly-hired co-hosts vanished.  For a while, it looked like Whoopi was going to be on the show all by herself.  Then Raven-Symoné was hired.  Then Michelle Collins was hired.  Then Candace Cameron Bure was hired.  Then Paula Faris was hired.  For those of you keeping count, that’s five co-hosts – the most the show has ever had.  But Candace will also be filming the Full House reboot, and Paula hosts Good Morning America on the weekends.  So they needed some fill-ins.  Enter Stacy London, Ana Navarro, Molly Sims and Sherri Shepherd.  Yes, Sherri Shepherd – one of the few co-hosts in the history of “The View” to actually leave of her own accord.

Then ABC announced that Joy Behar is back.  Not only is she back – she’s back as a permanent host.  How did this happen?  When planning for this revamped panel, the network asked both Sherri and Joy to return.  Both entered into negotiations.  The idea of this rotating slot appealed to Sherri, who still acts and does stand-up around the country.  She was in.  Joy was less than thrilled.  “They’ve come to me, and we couldn’t make a deal.  They wouldn’t really negotiate well enough for me.  And so I said, ‘No, I’m not coming back.’  I mean, if they were giving me a bigger role on the show, and giving me some power to actually make some changes and let them benefit from my expertise after being there for 16 years – but they’re not going to do that, so why would I want to bang my head against the wall?”  A big issue was the money – we hear Joy wanted $3 million for the part-time gig.  The network balked, Joy walked.  Then Barbara Walters went to bat for Behar.  Babs was disgusted with how the show has been run since her retirement, and insisted that Joy be re-hired.  But wait, there’s more.  Because the show will now be live on Fridays, Whoopi will take that day off and guess who will be the moderator?  Joy, that’s who.