The Oprah Winfrey Show
John Thompson 
I was an audience member of The Oprah Winfrey Show when she used to have a restaurant - The Eccentric - and my friend and I ate there during an Oprah-themed trip to Chicago.
Were you a regular Oprah viewer?
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 88 | March 29, 2022 2:47 PM |
So much American commentary has gone unsaid since her show ended
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | October 4, 2021 3:41 AM |
Oprah themed trip to Chicago eh? I want to be friends with OP.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | October 4, 2021 3:43 AM |
[quote] Were you a regular Oprah viewer?
No, I had a life.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | October 4, 2021 3:44 AM |
There's some Oprah 25 episodes on youtube
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 4 | October 4, 2021 3:44 AM |
I watched in the later years when they started airing a repeat of the show at like 1 AM or so.
She did have a lot of interesting stuff on. Stupid that she gave it up for her "network" which somehow still exists despite no one even knowing where to watch it or what shows they have on.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | October 4, 2021 3:46 AM |
[quote] [R3] and yet here you are
I did type HAD.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | October 4, 2021 3:48 AM |
I remember going to her gift shop. My friend has an Oprah snow globe.
Another friend bought one of the chairs from her studio when it closed down.
I gave up any possibility of tickets to her show many years prior to its end. You had to know someone or if you were very lucky, the concierges at hotels would hook up randos.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | October 4, 2021 3:51 AM |
I would love to have copies of the shows when she and Gayle went cross-country. I can't find anything more than a few clips on Youtube.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | October 4, 2021 4:30 AM |
The battle she had with Inyala ultimately ending in forgiveness was epic TV.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | October 4, 2021 4:32 AM |
I don't miss the porn on VHS that I threw away, but I do miss the complete Oprah-n-Gayle Road Trip I had expertly recorded without commercials
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | October 4, 2021 4:47 AM |
[quote]I don't miss the porn on VHS that I threw away, but I do miss the complete Oprah-n-Gayle Road Trip I had expertly recorded without commercials
Ditto. But when I put it on dvd I neglected to finalize the disc. Because of that, it will not play on any other player.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | October 4, 2021 5:05 AM |
They went on another road trip
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 13 | October 4, 2021 5:15 AM |
There was an episode involving a mother (Caucasian lady) whose son had been murdered. The man (black) who killed her son was in prison. I don't think he was on death row, but may have gotten life without parole.
Anyway, the lady went into the prison and met the man who murdered her son. She told the murderer: if you knew my son, I know you could not have done this. (Murderer and son did not know each other before the murder.) She put her head down on the table and cried. I think she reached out for the murderers hand or something like that.
The murderer said, after the meeting, that he had never felt so much love in his life as he did in that room (with that lady).
I wish I could find that episode. It really touched me.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | October 4, 2021 5:22 AM |
My mom watched it every day when I was growing up. As a budding gayling I of course watched with her.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | October 4, 2021 5:23 AM |
In the early episodes, Oprah's voice is surprisingly high-pitched. There was an episode where she had on a bunch of neo-Nazis and allowed them to give their points of view. They kind of ran her over. She said she decided, after that episode, that she would never again give people like that a platform.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | October 4, 2021 5:34 AM |
Oprah did a look back at an interview she did with JFK Jr.
She kept commenting about how he made her nervous and her voice was so high pitched that it drove her crazy now to listen to it.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | October 4, 2021 5:36 AM |
Oprah cries when surprised by Mary Tyler Moore
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 18 | October 4, 2021 5:38 AM |
The Oprah/MTM thing is one of the few times you see her humanity, see her cry and see how important Mary was to her.
The sad thing is that she was LIVID with her producers for surprising her, and I remember hearing a few heads rolled over it.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | October 4, 2021 1:33 PM |
Oprah themed trip to Chicago?
MARY!
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | October 4, 2021 2:13 PM |
I watched Oprah every day after school through my entire childhood. My parents thought TV rotten children’s brains, but they would both be at work at the time so I got away with it.
The episodes that stuck with me were the surprise from her grade school teacher growing up (who said she thought Oprah was as cute as a freckled pup), the Little Rock Nine episode, Toni Morrison saying it’s important for a parent to let their child see how much they love them (“do your eyes light up when they walk in the room?”), when Oprah helped a daughter surprised her dad with the Temptations, and “never go to a second location.”
Despite Oprah’s constant falling for spiritualist BS (The Secret…ugh…) and other hucksters, I will always love and admire her willingness to actually listen to people and hear what they were desperate to try to communicate. She is extraordinary talented.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | October 4, 2021 2:20 PM |
Oprah and Gayle's camping trip had some good moments
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | October 4, 2021 3:55 PM |
"Run On" is begging for a club mix
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | October 4, 2021 3:57 PM |
No, It was shown mid afternoon on the least watched terrestrial channel (CH4) here in the UK in the mid 1990's and it then went to a satellite channel with even less viewers.
Jerry Springer was way more famous, they even wrote a real Opera about him.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 24 | October 4, 2021 4:04 PM |
Does the UK have trashy shows like Jerry Springer? With all of the tabloid stories published in the UK, you'd think so.
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | October 4, 2021 4:14 PM |
Jerry Springer was shown on one of the main network channels (ITV) and had a massive following.
He also guest presented a lot of UK shows and even had a talk show.
[QUOTE] After a few years of his U.S. talk show being broadcast in the UK, ITV approached Springer, who temporarily co-hosted This Morning with Judy Finnigan in March 1999[44][45] and again in 2000. In summer 1999, ITV made 12 episodes of the UK-based version of the series, Jerry Springer UK, filmed at the same studios as his US show.
In September 1999, Springer made a pilot for a Letterman-style talk show for ITV called Jerry Springer on Sunday. The show received good reviews and ratings and a further four episodes were commissioned to be broadcast in May 2000.[47] Five were actually broadcast during May and June 2000 under the name Springer.
The series was picked up by Channel 5 and renamed Late Night with Jerry Springer. Two series were made in 2000 and 2001 with 16 episodes.[48] While working for Channel 5 In 2001, he was the host of the UK version of Greed, and a stand in host for The Wright Stuff. On April 16, 2006, Springer was the guest host for the opening show for the third series of The Friday Night Project for Channel 4 and guest hosted Have I Got News for You on December 12, 2008. In 2007, he was the host of Nothing But the Truth, the UK version of Nada más que la verdad.
Springer covered the 2016 United States presidential election for ITV's Good Morning Britain.
In 2016, 2017 and 2018, he guest hosted three episodes of the BBC's The One Show with TV host Alex Jones.
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | October 4, 2021 4:26 PM |
Who cares what the UK thinks about Oprah? The US was her main audience anyway. Jerry Springer wasn’t as popular in the USA as Oprah was. He was more popular with British people? Ok.
You guys like beans on toast too. No accounting for taste.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | October 4, 2021 4:32 PM |
Oprah' s early shows were very good, then she tried to be saint Oprah. Are the few houses she built still there? Her African girls school had very public molesting problems. The Gayle mess is why I don't watch CBS morning news. Did Oprah get her the job? The Harry and meghan debacle, looking for her last 15?
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | October 4, 2021 4:43 PM |
Peak Oprah, feeling her Linda Lavin oats.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 29 | October 4, 2021 4:51 PM |
Whenever I see Gayle on vacay at Oprah's Hawaii house, I wonder why she would want to put herself through the brutal daily grind of live morning TV, getting up at 3am and all the scrutiny.
I would want to be Oprah's house sitter and dog walker.
| by Anonymous | reply 30 | October 4, 2021 4:52 PM |
She's no songstress but O can carry a tune.
Interesting that despite her studio being so close to the Green Line el, they shot this video in what looks like Wicker Park.
| by Anonymous | reply 31 | October 4, 2021 4:55 PM |
She was good in the beginning and showed a lot of humanity. She changed so much with all her money and not in a good way.
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | October 4, 2021 4:57 PM |
She said later she regretted singing the theme song and making a music video for it
| by Anonymous | reply 33 | October 4, 2021 4:59 PM |
The worst is when she flaunts her "friendship" with Horseface Julia Roberts. They act like insufferable assholes together.
| by Anonymous | reply 34 | October 4, 2021 5:00 PM |
Her recreation of the Mary Tyler Moore opening theme at R18 is one of the best things she's ever done
| by Anonymous | reply 35 | October 4, 2021 5:00 PM |
In the 80’s I preferred The Phil Donahue Show.
| by Anonymous | reply 36 | October 4, 2021 6:03 PM |
There really should be an Oprah opera, r24.
| by Anonymous | reply 37 | October 4, 2021 6:14 PM |
I watched sometimes after work. I'll never forget when the summer break was over one year and she walked out thin shocking everyone.
| by Anonymous | reply 38 | October 4, 2021 6:16 PM |
Her best shows were the ones where the guests stayed at The Drake Hotel and the final image of each show swept you up in the glitz and glam of Chicago at night
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 39 | October 6, 2021 5:06 AM |
I wish Oprah had given me free stuff
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 40 | October 6, 2021 6:16 AM |
My mom was a housewife and when I would get home from school around 4pm, she would have a glass of wine while watching the Oprah. I never really thought about it, but now I am giving her the side eye. I've watched some Oprah episodes and enjoyed them. Now, I find her such an insufferable cunt that I can't be bothered to care what she has to say.
| by Anonymous | reply 41 | October 6, 2021 6:21 AM |
Yeah Oprah used to be one of those people who had a real natural warmth and empathy to her. She seems to be almost an entirely different (and very unpleasant) person now.
| by Anonymous | reply 42 | October 6, 2021 6:48 AM |
I used to watch her pretty regularly in my early 20s. Knock her all you want—I get it—but she had some crazy compelling shows back in the day.
| by Anonymous | reply 43 | October 6, 2021 10:57 AM |
What r43 said.
I'd catch only an occasional episode, but still, "Hairdresser Break-ups" will remain embedded in my memory.
Some hairdresser-client relationships were repaired once Oprah gave the opportunity for them to clear the air with each other, but others stayed down the drain.
| by Anonymous | reply 44 | October 6, 2021 11:10 AM |
[quote]She seems to be almost an entirely different (and very unpleasant) person now.
Oprah is barely seen on TV anymore, she may have one or two interviews a year that actually make a headline. So what is your basis for saying she is now unpleasant?
| by Anonymous | reply 45 | October 6, 2021 12:27 PM |
Was Oprah ever really a pleasant person?
| by Anonymous | reply 46 | October 6, 2021 2:36 PM |
I liked her fat wagon show. Then she stopped drinking bariatric shakes and here we are.
| by Anonymous | reply 47 | October 6, 2021 2:43 PM |
Before she became spiritual-based, one memorable show's promo in the early nineties:
"MAN-STEALIN' SIS-TAHS! Next, Oprah"
| by Anonymous | reply 48 | October 6, 2021 2:52 PM |
I don't know, R46. But it was once the impression she gave off. And chill, R45. I don't know Oprah personally and no one is claiming I do. I'm just relaying the impression I've gotten of her (she still pops up, especially in her magazine and with various TV specials, social media etc.) which is one of a person who has gotten too used to having things exactly her way. Which isn't surprising, at this point I would be more surprised if any billionaire managed to avoid such a fate. She doesn't seem as warm anymore in her demeanor, either. There is an imperiousness there, that I suspect comes from being the highest-ranked and richest person in most gatherings, and that wasn't there in her talk show heyday (or, if it was, she cared to hide it then).
| by Anonymous | reply 49 | October 6, 2021 11:17 PM |
In 1992, Oprah was a pleasant person. She greeted everyone in the audience after the show back then, and you could line up and talk to her for a minute or so afterward if you wanted to. We talked about how much we liked the food in her restaurant and she was very easy to talk to and conversational.
| by Anonymous | reply 50 | October 7, 2021 3:02 AM |
I should dress up for Halloween as Oprah.
| by Anonymous | reply 51 | October 7, 2021 3:12 AM |
Oprah’s greatest strength is her listening and conversational abilities (the famous Oprah “I see you, I hear you”). People were willing to open up to her about previously undiscussed topics because she was willing to listen, and for the most part she was super open-minded (how she got into trouble with hucksters).
Now that she’s retired from her show we have hardly any opportunities to see that skill on display. So all we see is her more materialistic side—which she has always had also!—which makes people think she is now unrelatable. But she never really claimed to be relatable, she’s always told the story of how she made herself into a billionaire and has always been open about loving her luxurious life after growing up so poor that her grandmother dressed her in feed sacks.
| by Anonymous | reply 52 | October 7, 2021 3:01 PM |
She’s still unmatched. That Sussex interview made headlines for weeks.
| by Anonymous | reply 53 | October 7, 2021 3:23 PM |
Didn't Gayle borrow a pair of Oprah's panties when they both worked at a Baltimore tv station. They got caught in the rain storm, Gayle, stayed over, and they became best friends.
| by Anonymous | reply 54 | October 8, 2021 7:49 AM |
What the world needs now, is Oprah. Sweet Oprah.
| by Anonymous | reply 57 | October 23, 2021 4:29 AM |
R36 me too! Here they aired back to back, Phil at 3 & she at 4. Phil’s shows were more intellectual & hers were more touchy-feely. I liked her more near the beginning; once she “lost” the weight, I didn’t like her show as much (even after she gained it all back & more).
| by Anonymous | reply 58 | October 23, 2021 4:49 AM |
No, but not being from the USA I remember the first time I ever heard of Barack Obama was on her show in mid 2007.
| by Anonymous | reply 60 | November 7, 2021 3:30 AM |
No one is the same after making $1 Billion dollars. Look at how much Kim Kardashian has changed in the last decade. You have to change. You can't stay the same person after coming into that kind of money. Your orbit changes forever.
This thread has a lot of crabs 🦀 in a bucket types posting on it.
| by Anonymous | reply 61 | February 6, 2022 6:30 AM |
Oprah would have shut up a lot of the anti-vaxxer suburban moms
| by Anonymous | reply 63 | February 6, 2022 6:36 AM |
Oprah's 15 minutes are over, except the media doesn't get it. She became a laughing stock when she wired her teeth together to lose weight and she did lose. Her body must not have looked good cause TV Guide used Ann Margarets full length picture and put Oprah's head shot on it and put it on the cover. Weight Watchers owner Oprah has soiled the companies reputation, she just can't keep the weight off.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 64 | February 27, 2022 8:18 AM |
I remember that episode R14 and watched it when it first aired. I believe the episode was about forgiveness. Like you, I was also amazed at that woman's capacity to forgive the man who murdered her son. Her visiting the murderer in prison, reaching out her hands to him and then weeping for her son as she forgave was some powerful shit indeed. It reminds me of the saying that forgiveness is healing for the forgiver more so than the forgiven. I'm trying to remember the other stories featured on that episode. There might have been a young mother who forgave the drunk driver who killed one of her kids or I could be confusing that with a different episode.
The JFK Jr. interview is so frustrating to me R17. Oprah was no nervous that she wouldn't shut the hell up. She kept talking over Jr. and interrupting him which was a shame because I would have really liked to hear more of his thoughts on his life. That was a missed opportunity.
Another memorable episode featured a White man who identified as Black because his paternal grandmother was Black and she raised him. He wrote a book about his story. I thought it was so bizarre that this lily white guy - who looked like he could be Oprah's tax accountant, was married to a lily white woman and had two lily white kids - isentified as a Black man because of the one drop rule. It just goes to show what a stupid construct race actually is.
Just a side note: I actually didn't watch Oprah religiously because I was busy with school and extracurriculars. But on the rare occasion I got home early enough to watch, I did enjoy it. It was kind of an institution during its 25 year run.
| by Anonymous | reply 65 | February 27, 2022 10:24 AM |
[quote]Jerry Springer wasn’t as popular in the USA as Oprah was..
Oprah was popular with fraus of certain age, but Jerry was way more popular among teens/twentysomethings. I was in high school/college in the '90s, and he was always on in the rec room TVs. Though Oprah started out trashy in the '80s (she was Peg Bundy's fave TV show), in the '90s she was considered a square by many young people when she overhauled her show and became some 'spiritual mystic..' Housewives ate that shit up, but not high school/college kids.
Incidentally, one of my cherished memories of my grandmother was visiting her one time in the late '90s. She was watching Jerry Springer, which surprised me. I asked what the topic was and she said, "Gorgeous Amputees." I thought, "Bizarre, but I don't put it past this show." However, when the show came back from commercial, they flashed the topic on the screen and it was "COURAGEOUS amputees." I corrected my grandma and we both had a hearty laugh. 😂
| by Anonymous | reply 66 | February 27, 2022 10:28 AM |
^^^ Haha, funny story. I wouldn't put it past Jerry to have a "Gourgeous Amputees" segment either.
| by Anonymous | reply 67 | February 27, 2022 10:35 AM |
[quote] Oprah would have shut up a lot of the anti-vaxxer suburban moms
You get a vaccine! You get a vaccine!
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 68 | February 27, 2022 11:43 AM |
I actually knew a hot guy in college who had an artificial leg (he lost the one he was born with due to frostbite; winning a bet wasn't worth it). Anyway, I'm always fascinated with Oprah from roughly 1987-1993, when she's famous but not yet queen of the universe.
| by Anonymous | reply 69 | February 27, 2022 12:22 PM |
OP? Sit. Down. I was a fucking GUEST on The Oprah Winfrey Show!
| by Anonymous | reply 70 | February 27, 2022 4:15 PM |
Did her restaurant offer enormous bread baskets?
| by Anonymous | reply 71 | February 27, 2022 4:19 PM |
I remember an episode where Oprah had a woman on whose teenage daughter had been stabbed to death by the daughter’s ex boyfriend. Oprah had arranged for the murderer to be on the show via satellite, because the mother was desperate for some answers.
The main question she had was: how much did her daughter suffer when she was being killed? Instead of giving any sort of answer the kid (he was about 20 I think) rolled his eyes and whined, you’re not the only one who lost someone. My mother lost her son, because I’m in prison. The coldness of the reply made the mother just break down and sob. Oprah reached out her hand and said, from what I have been told, a person goes into shock and does not feel pain.
Whether or not that’s scientifically accurate I have no idea, but the way Oprah said it was so empathetic and compassionate for this poor woman. That episode has always stayed with me. It was just so intense.
| by Anonymous | reply 72 | February 27, 2022 4:32 PM |
I watched her regularly in the mid-90s cause my mom always had it on while she was making dinner. But I stopped watching once she started becoming a snake oil salesperson and pushing Dr. Oz and "Dr." Phil on the masses.
| by Anonymous | reply 73 | February 27, 2022 4:42 PM |
I never watched her. Ever. & now, on youtube, I watch her celebrity interviews. She’s good with them.
| by Anonymous | reply 74 | February 27, 2022 5:00 PM |
I love Oprah. I don't ever want to meet her because in my mind she is so critical to my youth/development and to her I am sure I would just be an annoying fan. She was virtual therapy for millions who did not have access to it.
| by Anonymous | reply 75 | February 27, 2022 5:00 PM |
Her Lance Armstrong interview made me a fan of her as an interviewer.
He came in looking for a reinvention with the Angel Network Oprah. But she opened the interview with a series of yes/no question and exposed him for the psycho he is in 2 minutes without any Barbara Walters style “Gotcha!” questions, no faux naïvety nor mock incredulity. Oprah knew the tone the situation and the man called for and she was masterful.
| by Anonymous | reply 76 | February 27, 2022 5:29 PM |
Part 1 of the Lance interview.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 77 | February 27, 2022 8:15 PM |
I miss Oprah's After-Oscar show in the Kodak Theatre the day after. She would have broken down the slap heard 'round the world for us blow by blow - and brought Will to tears
| by Anonymous | reply 78 | March 29, 2022 5:48 AM |
OP, I haven't seen that video in two decades. I'm LMAO and repulsed by that insufferable cunt simultaneously.
| by Anonymous | reply 79 | March 29, 2022 6:01 AM |
The clips that never make O's website & YouTube page are the bulk of her shows from her trashy years in the Mid 80s to the very Early 90s. She was fun but no better than Geraldo & Sally Jesse Raphael. The holier than thau, greater purpose BS didn't start until the Mid 90s.
| by Anonymous | reply 80 | March 29, 2022 6:09 AM |
I was at the live recording when she was in Australia. Not the episode when Hugh slammed into a pylon.
| by Anonymous | reply 81 | March 29, 2022 6:38 AM |
I was on Independent Studies the year the show went national, I even remember talking to my teacher about her. I watched her every day at 4 (Donahue, my preferred show, came on at 3, it was a great double feature).
Coincidentally, I lost about 40 lbs the year I watched Oprah, during her “fat” years. Yet when she lost her weight a few years later, I held it against her & liked her a lot less.
Eventually I stopped watching when she did too many makeover shows & when she adopted all of those gurus (Phil, Suze, Bob Harper, etc)
I would watch her here & there during her last year, & after she was off air I really missed her.
One of my favorite shows was her experimental race-allegory one where she divided the audience by eye color. They announced at the outset that it wasn’t real, but I missed the disclaimer & watched the whole thing & started believing terrible things about blue-eyed people (ie my dad). All of a sudden, everything bad about him made sense! I felt so foolish when the show ended & they explained again it was just an experiment to see what people would say about “the other.”
| by Anonymous | reply 82 | March 29, 2022 7:03 AM |
She had two studios exact duplicates with I believe a tunnel between them. She tape like five shows a day and that would be the week's work. But then she'd have to edit them, because she was hands on, often being the last to leave the building at night. It must've been exhausting.
| by Anonymous | reply 83 | March 29, 2022 7:58 AM |
There’s a rather obscure but very illuminating (and a bit vicious) article by Bill Zehme for the late, great Spy Magazine. It’s hard to track down, if you don’t know about it already. Back in the day, before Oprah got huge.
December 1986 issue. Starts on page 30. If you’re at all interested in Oprah, it’s worth it to search it out. Here, I’ve done most of the work for you already:
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 84 | March 29, 2022 9:06 AM |
I learnt the biggest lesson in my life from Oprah/ Maya Angelou, 'When some one shows you who they are, believe them(the first time)'
| by Anonymous | reply 85 | March 29, 2022 11:58 AM |
You’re welcome, Zemen. It was written a long time ago - 36 years!! - and it’s interesting to see that person described as she was then. (And Stedman!)
And I still have the same feelings about her; admiration and eye-rolling. She’s one of a kind, that’s for sure.
| by Anonymous | reply 87 | March 29, 2022 2:43 PM |
Her early days were interesting. Before she became quote, unquote OPRAH.
| by Anonymous | reply 88 | March 29, 2022 2:47 PM |
