Actress Ricki Lake started out as in films that were parlaying her obesity into a novelty. With such films as "Hairspray","Mrs. Winterbourne",and "Cry Baby",and her success on a weekly television series "China Beach" that characters that she portrayed were likable but were surrounded by the insult of obesity jokes. However,the "fat" novelty could only last so long during her stint in television and movies. So from there she lost the weight,but still acting jobs were still scarce at the time. Then in September of 1993,the reality of a lifetime really paid off when she went from second banana in TV and movies to the title of "daytime talk show host". This was a talk show that was hip as well as outgoing making it one of the most successful talk shows of the 1990's,until its demise in 2004 which she killed it.
"The Ricki Lake Show"(Syndication:1993-2004),was a cool concept that provided a fresh face with some innovative topics and some frank and very interesting discussion. The series ran for 11-years and even spawned off several "Ricki" clones that were horrible,which included rip-offs left and right:"Rolanda","The Tempsett Bledsoe Show","Donny", "Bertie Berry","The Danny Bonaduce Show",not to mention "Jenny Jones". It did however went toe to toe against "The Jerry Springer Show",and "Maury" and alongside "Montel Williams" and "Oprah Winfrey" for the battle of the talk show supremacy. During its run on the air Ricki Lake was nominated in 1994 for an Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host. But what made this show great was the guests she had on there and the guests were some of the strangest ever brought out--and you thought Jerry Springer and Maury Povich had all the freaks where all of them show there stuff in front of a studio audience,well all of them did including Ricki Lake.
It was good a awhile until the show got really stale,and went way beyond its expiration date,which by the way the final episode of "The Ricki Lake Show",ended its 11-year run in April of 2004. Some of the guests were re-used in just every segment and so were the topics that were presented as well. One episode dealt with a lie detector test,where this was a repeated process with got boring and stale very quick! The other segment dealt with either musical guests or love and relationship issues and this is what gets me here---Why was it that Sandra Denton(the one half of the 80's female rap group-Salt and Pepa) is on every episode talking about whatever? The other segments dealt with teenagers,child control and strange bedfellows were really killed the premise of the show. Even if you watch the show that she was an actress pretending to be a diva,aka a "fat" diva at that.
What really killed the show itself was the host--Ricki Lake! You can tell when she making expressions in front of the camera to support her guests since she really disgusting in doing so. Basically the producers got themselves a puppet and she was the puppet to do the gestures and so forth just to bring in the ratings. By the way,any person could have done her job,since almost in every segment she was reading off the cue-cards and questioning her guests in front of those cards! By the way,anyone could have done her job and still get paid doing so which she did 90% of the time. This was so idiotic and such,that it is nowadays that daytime television has gone to the days,and so did Ricki Lake's show,when it finally ended up in the dumpster,never to be heard from again since it was going downhill and a rate of speed and in the ratings really quick! That what basically killed off the show,and Ricki Lake's career as a daytime talk-show host.
By the way,where is Ricki Lake doing these days?
"The Ricki Lake Show"(Syndication:1993-2004),was a cool concept that provided a fresh face with some innovative topics and some frank and very interesting discussion. The series ran for 11-years and even spawned off several "Ricki" clones that were horrible,which included rip-offs left and right:"Rolanda","The Tempsett Bledsoe Show","Donny", "Bertie Berry","The Danny Bonaduce Show",not to mention "Jenny Jones". It did however went toe to toe against "The Jerry Springer Show",and "Maury" and alongside "Montel Williams" and "Oprah Winfrey" for the battle of the talk show supremacy. During its run on the air Ricki Lake was nominated in 1994 for an Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host. But what made this show great was the guests she had on there and the guests were some of the strangest ever brought out--and you thought Jerry Springer and Maury Povich had all the freaks where all of them show there stuff in front of a studio audience,well all of them did including Ricki Lake.
It was good a awhile until the show got really stale,and went way beyond its expiration date,which by the way the final episode of "The Ricki Lake Show",ended its 11-year run in April of 2004. Some of the guests were re-used in just every segment and so were the topics that were presented as well. One episode dealt with a lie detector test,where this was a repeated process with got boring and stale very quick! The other segment dealt with either musical guests or love and relationship issues and this is what gets me here---Why was it that Sandra Denton(the one half of the 80's female rap group-Salt and Pepa) is on every episode talking about whatever? The other segments dealt with teenagers,child control and strange bedfellows were really killed the premise of the show. Even if you watch the show that she was an actress pretending to be a diva,aka a "fat" diva at that.
What really killed the show itself was the host--Ricki Lake! You can tell when she making expressions in front of the camera to support her guests since she really disgusting in doing so. Basically the producers got themselves a puppet and she was the puppet to do the gestures and so forth just to bring in the ratings. By the way,any person could have done her job,since almost in every segment she was reading off the cue-cards and questioning her guests in front of those cards! By the way,anyone could have done her job and still get paid doing so which she did 90% of the time. This was so idiotic and such,that it is nowadays that daytime television has gone to the days,and so did Ricki Lake's show,when it finally ended up in the dumpster,never to be heard from again since it was going downhill and a rate of speed and in the ratings really quick! That what basically killed off the show,and Ricki Lake's career as a daytime talk-show host.
By the way,where is Ricki Lake doing these days?