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I've always liked Vicki Lawrence, and she seemed very natural hosting that talk show.
90’s Daytime Talk Shows
- Thread starter Carrie Fairchild
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Phil Donahue: Trailblazing talk show host dies aged 88
Across a career spanning several decades, Donahue was considered the "king of daytime talk".
www.bbc.com
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Phil Donahue: Trailblazing talk show host dies aged 88
Across a career spanning several decades, Donahue was considered the "king of daytime talk".
Very sad news. I remember his show being among the first daily talk shows I watched back then. He wasn’t really my favorite host from that time for some reason but my appreciation for him as being a great host came much later. I always felt he conducted his show with class and respect for his guests and the audience.
Yes Phil Donahue had class and he did treat his guests with respect. I enjoyed watching him and all of the other talk shows. The ones today don't have audience participation. Don't know why. Maybe because on occasion you get rude people in the audience.
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Chat shows can be totally scripted and choreographed via teleprompter and cue cards, but the minute you introduce unpredictable elements like audience participation, the shortcomings of the host may be put on full display. If they can't respond to the unscripted moments in an authentic way, the show and its host will lose credibility. So rather than risk such a mess, they just have the host stick to their script.
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Going international with the celeb led talk shows, Britt Ekland hosted one in Sweden in the early 90’s. There isn’t much about it online but one of our Swedish Tellytalkers like @tommie may be able to enlighten us?
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There's not much to tell really. Bara med Britt went on the free-air channel for a bit and didn't last. The end.
Britt's music career is more interesting though:
It's a private party... and not EVERYONE... can COME!
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I’m familiar with her Do It To Me (Once More with Feeling). I think Private Party may have been its b-side.
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Yes, but it's better than the a-side, isn't it?
Thank you for the analysis and response.
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I think it's worth remembering that 90210 also had gone into syndication at the time and was relatively successful, especially since they could tag the first four seasons as "The Brenda Years" which led to a lot of curiosity. They were absolutely thinking that Carteris' show could be successful that season. Looking at the show below they were definitively leaning into the trashy aesthetic.
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Any germans here? What was your favorite on german TV?
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Rejoice! The spirit of the 90’s daytime talk show does live on, in the form of Karamo Brown. His show Karamo appears to be the successor to Maury (which Karamo used to guest host on), complete with DNA results, phone unlock reveals & the usual family dramas (“my stepmother stabbed me with scissors, so I want my father to divorce her”). It’s been on the air since 2022, yet I’ve somehow missed it up until now but I will start indulging soon. Has anyone else watched it?
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Give it to a gay guy to understand why people actually watched these shows.
Silly ethics that have gotten in the way for most of them to give us the good stuff (human misery, so we can feel better about ourselves) we want.
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On 14 January 2026, ABC is airing the first of a three-part series, DIRTY TALK, about those infamous 1990s talk shows.
