Rob Dauber is the executive producer for The Wendy Williams Show. Already in its second successful season, Windy City Times traveled to New York for a Nunn on One with the man behind the curtain.
Windy City Times: Behind every great woman is a gay man, and you've had a successful run.
Rob Dauber: Yes, I've been lucky to work with some very amazing women, and my last three hosts were Rosie, Oprah and Martha Stewart. And I feel really lucky. You know, I grew up in a house with very strong women. When my mom met Martha, she was at that point in her mid 70's and said to Martha, "You know why Rob can work with strong women like you? " Martha kind of looked at her and my mother said, "Because I'm the original…" and she used the B-word, and my mom's an older woman so it's funny, and Martha's like "uhhh". But I guess I grew up in a house with very strong, smart, opinionated women, and so I've learned from an early age to respect women in a completely equal way. It's like sometimes even weird for me to talk about that, because I don't even think of it as an issue.
WCT: How is marketing this show? It's so different than Oprah.
Rob Dauber: I think that every successful talk show that has launched is based around a personality. And the show is built around that star's personality. With Oprah, her show has gone through obviously lots of changes. It's definitely morphed over the 25 years it's been on the air to being the beautiful polished show it is today. But I look at Rosie, like Oprah—it's an extension of her, of her interests and her likes, her dislikes. So Rosie's shows, and Martha's show, are extensions of them. I look at this show as a total extension of who Wendy is. We built this show around her. Wendy gave us the bones, for 22 years she had been hosting shows on the radio, and really honed her skill with hot topics and with Ask Wendy and the celebrity interviews. And we really took all the best things that Wendy had done for herself over the years and kind of melded them together into a television show.
WCT: And congratulations on a second season!
Rob Dauber: We're really, really happy! And I'm confident that this will be a show that's around for a long time.
WCT: Do you have any things you want to change for the next season?
Rob Dauber: I look at every show as a constant state of growing. If we decided this is exactly what our show is, and we decided not to change anything, we'd be stupid. Every show has to go through little metamorphoses, here and there, and we're looking at certain things we want to do, and certain things that have worked really well this year that we want to do more of, and certain things that we may not do quite as often.
We're going to make some changes. One of the things we know is our show is really entertaining, and one of the things our viewers say they really love are some of the segments where not only does Wendy give advice but also where we have Dr. Linda Stork and Dr. Lisa Masterson, and people like hearing some of the information that those doctors would give. Not that we're going to have doctors on a lot, but we're paying attention and making sure that our viewers are not only entertained but they can also take away some good useful information.
WCT: I was thinking about one of those pink couches…
Rob Dauber: Here, I'll give you a sneak peek. [ Shows picture of the season-one set. ] For season two, we'll open things up a bit. We're a New York based show but we don't really show that much of New York. We haven't taken that much advantage of showing we're from New York, and so next year, our set is really going to showcase that a bit more.
WCT: It would be nice if she was able to also visit some other cities too.
Rob Dauber: We would love to come to Chicago. See, I'm from southern Illinois and I have a lot of friends in Chicago, and we all love it there. It's the best city to ride your bike! When I lived there during Oprah, I lived downtown in a corporate apartment they had, but then in the winter, when I would go walk my dog, a chocolate lab, I'd be in the park by this corporate apartment, and it would be snowing, and I would not see one person. Then I'd come back in the elevator and I'd see people looking at me, and I knew why. People weren't out there, I was totally covered in icicles.
WCT: Have you had a favorite episode on this season or a favorite guest?
Rob Dauber: That's a hard question. I think my favorite moments with Wendy are when she really feels comfortable and free enough with the guest to really open up, and share some things. Like with Celine Dion this morning, when they were talking about Celine's desire to have another child, and Wendy shared a really personal story about her promises to God if he gave her a child. To me, I really like those moments with Wendy and, at the same time, I really just love when Wendy is just naturally funny.
One of the very first times when on the show she moved her wig and nobody in the audience was expecting it, or another time in an "Ask Wendy" segment and an older woman who was just starting to wear wigs asked Wendy about it. And she said when she's being intimate with her husband, she's so afraid it's going to fall off. And Wendy proceeded to show her how she keeps her own wigs on: You need to make a little pony tail with your hair here, another little thing over here and make one in the back, gather your hair, put it in rubber bands and that clips inside your wigs. And then she literally clipped it on, started moaning and thrashing about and showed how the wig wasn't going to come off. Moments like that make Wendy who Wendy is.
Wendy Williams has just begun her new season, airing locally at 11 a.m. weekdays on Fox. Please check wendywilliamstvshow.com for details of listings. To read a past interview with Wendy Williams, visit NunnontheRun.com and www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com .
