“The View” crew trolled Sara Haines by putting baked goods, yellow Jell-O in her mugs: 'I thought someone peed'
Discussions on international affairs and presidential elections will have to wait: Sara Haines just dropped a major bombshell about what's really inside her (sometimes multiple) mugs resting on The View's Hot Topics table.
Joining executive producer Brian Teta on the show's recently expanded Behind the Table podcast, the six-season cohost admitted that her first double-mug slay happened because she was sick on set and needed one vessel with hot liquid and another with cold liquid, but it snowballed into a massive, all-encompassing troll that eventually involved the show's crew.
"The mugs did catch attention, and I didn't want to ruin that," Haines told Teta in Wednesday's episode of the podcast, with the producer responding, "Because everyone was having fun with it, I think it might've been me initially who said throw a third mug out there."
As audience curiosity grew over the contents of Haines' mugs, the 45-year-old revealed that Teta proposed setting Haines up with one small and one large mug at the table, as well as cups with logos for different programs.
ABC Whoopi Goldberg and Sara Haines on 'The View.'
"You started having producers bring in old-season mugs. You produced the hell out of this one part of the show. The joke started as us joking with the audience as they talked about the mugs, but then the crew ended up punking me. Every day there was something in that mug," Haines remembered. "One was yellow Jell-O that hadn't even solidified, so it looked like a weird juice. I thought someone peed in a mug. I thought, They can't do that, can they? I was like, sniffing it. They've put baked goods in there and I had to identify it by scent. They also made me play a game once where I had to act like a bird on set in commercial and not tell anyone what I was doing."
Teta also recalled that he ditched the mugs during a more somber segment, but moderator Whoopi Goldberg wouldn't have it. "One time I took them all away for a serious moment, and then Whoopi slid her mug over to yours," Teta said.
As a final maneuver in the last stretches of Mug Gate, this week's launch of season 27 of the show introduced a new set of mugs for the cohosts, which include drawings of each of the panelists — including a depiction of Haines holding two mugs in her hands.
ABC
The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/PT on ABC, followed daily by new episodes of Behind the Table on most podcast platforms.
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