Whoopi Makes 'View' Debut

Co-Hosts Leave Little Room for Show's New Moderator

Shut up, Babs! Knock it off, Joy! Put a sock in it, Elisabeth!

Whoopi Goldberg, the Oscar-winning comedy queen, tried to debut on the syndicated talker "The View" this morning, but she barely got a word in edgeways, what with evil stepsisters Barbara Walters, Joy Behar and Elisabeth "LookatmeI'mpreggersagain" Hasselbeck hogging the microphone and mugging for the camera.

Whoopi is the show's new moderator, taking over where Meredith Vieira left off when she abdicated to take over for Katie Couric on NBC's "Today" show. In between Vieira's exit and Whoopi's debut was The Dark Year, when Rosie O'Donnell sat in the moderator chair, behind the show's new, slick plexiglass desk, haranguing the show's token conservative, Elisabeth, and turning the fluffy chitchat show into her bully pulpit to rail against Donald Trump, Kelly Ripa and whatever had her knickers knotted at the time.

But after just one season, Rosie and the plexiglass desk were tossed. Whoopi's in, the comfy pine drop-leaf table is back and the studio is bathed in warm yellow hues.

Only something goes wrong right away today. Whoopi keeps getting shouted down by the others. Joy, the alleged in-house comic, starts yakking about how she was sick for a couple of weeks and, to pass the time, she imagined that her on-air colleagues were sick, as well. Elisabeth shouts down Joy declaring she'd never do anything so insensitive; Joy snaps back, well, she wishes she, Joy, could get pregnant like Elisabeth, so can it. Elisabeth says she's got two more months to go -- crediting e-mails she's received with that information because, she explains, this is her second child and one can't help but be more blas? about it the second time around. Then she begins to discuss her new "bangs-and-boobs" look. Babs interrupts to trump them both, announcing she has very important friends.

"I have a message to give to you from, just so happens, from the mayor of this city of New York," Barbara simpered. "I would like to read it to you," She told Whoopi, adding quickly: "It's really to me. But it's about you."

Dear Barbara,

When Rosie left, I thought we had an understanding that I was next in line, but the phone never rang. Goldberg -- Bloomberg -- you must have gotten confused and we look so alike.

"He's a good egg. I like him," Whoopi said, at an apparent loss for words.

Joy and Elisabeth began to battle for control of the big screen behind them -- the former torturing us with photos of her soon-to-be-married daughter and fiance, the latter with pics of her very young daughter on a pony. Elisabeth assures us that her daughter "thought she could bring the thing home. We live in New York City. . . . It will never happen . . . but she had fun."

Well, that's a relief.

Whoopi tells Joy that if she really wants to try to get pregnant, she -- Whoopi -- has one good egg left, which she keeps "very safe in the fridge. And, man -- "