Image Credit: Rob Kim/Getty Images; Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Some new folks are headed to Cleveland: Comedienne Sandra Bernhard and talk-show maven Kathie Lee Gifford have recently signed on to guest star in the upcoming third season of TV Land’s original comedy Hot in Cleveland, EW can exclusively confirm, and we’ve got some details about their roles.
Both women will actually be appearing in roles with which they’re rather familiar. Bernhard is set to play the love interest of Melanie’s (Valerie Bertinelli) lesbian sister, which hearkens to the role she played on Roseanne years ago. Her episode has yet to be scheduled.Â
Meanwhile, Today fourth hour host Kathie Lee Gifford will appear in the show’s Nov. 30 premiere as the host of Cleveland’s local talk show, The Babble, which the self-obsessed former soap star Victoria (Wendie Malick) is hoping to join as co-host. In fact, Victoria gets wind that The Babble is looking for a Rosie O’Donnell or Sara Gilbert type for the show and makes a play to become a permanent host on the show by announcing her recent, drug-induced marriage to Joy (Jane Leeves) as a way to make a splash. Gifford mentioned her Cleveland guest role on Today last week, when she said she was reading the script and “had to go to the ladies room, it was so funny.”
The first part of Hot in Cleveland‘s third season — that’s expected to be 12 of the 22 episodes ordered — will premiere Nov. 30 at 10 p.m. and will be followed by the series premiere of new sitcom The Exes, which is about three divorced men who live together (Donald Faison, Wayne Knight, and David Alan Basche) and their divorce attorney (Kristen Johnston) who lives across the hall from them.
Cleveland‘s third season will focus on whether Elka (Betty White) will indeed stay with Fred (Buck Henry), who she was supposed to marry in the season finale before learning that her first husband (played by Don Rickles) was still alive. It will also delve further into the backstories of Joy, Melanie, and Victoria. Family, too, is a big theme, as Victoria’s daughter, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Melanie’s son, played by Joe Jonas, are both set to return.
Tanner on Twitter: @EWTanStransky
Read more:
‘Hot in Cleveland’ returns to TV Land: You know what’s more fun than watching it? Being there!
‘Hot in Cleveland’ season finale: Betty White on the lam!
‘Hot in Cleveland’ returns strong
Can’t stand Sandra Bernhardt! But I’ve always been a fan of Kathie Lee, she’s great with Hoda on the Today Show! Never watch Hot in Cleveland though, no reason just don’t watch it.
Bernhard looks like a dude an old dude. Kathie Lee still looks hot!
OMG! I was thinking same thing! Sandra Bernhard looks more like a man than Chaz Bono! lol
Tanner! Just wanted to correct you. The man Elka was going to marry was played by Buck Henry. Don Rickles played her first husband who came back from the dead.
“The Babble” – yep, that’s a pretty spot-on description of what we’ve got to offer here.
If you’re tired of marginal and suvioboly steady improvements, let’s make sure they all get paid $10/hour and move on.Personally, I think we should cut off aid to all of these people until they show respect for some basic human rights life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, freedom of speech & religion, and right to property.I’m not saying that we should force them to change, just not support them in their fundamentally flawed political structures.
I’ve never been able to see Hot in Cleveland because I don’t get TV Land. It seems like they get an awful lot of guest stars on the show. Sometimes when shows do that, it seems like overkill and they’re trying to do anything to get people to watch.
The show is actually laugh-out-loud funny. They do cast the guest stars very well. It isn’t like they just throw them in there because they’re famous. It’s more like they write the parts and then look for the right person to fit the role.
Jeremy, you can watch them all on tvland.com i do because i dont have cable. the shows are available the day after they air and you can get several shows at once. Betty White is awesome. Enjoy!
Ugh. I’d rather see these stars former castmates from other shows show up as guests like Bonnie Franklin did last season. Maybe Mackenzie Phillips, Pat Harrington, Laura San Giacomo, David Hyde Pierce and Peri Gilpin? I’d love to see the interaction with these stars as totally different characters.
@Ben – Peri Gilpin already guest starred on the show when Victoria went to LA to do the show with Susan Lucci. Just an FYI in case you wanted to look it up.
This show is surprisingly VERY FUNNY!
i’m excited to see Joe Jonas again!!!!
This kind of thing is good for Kathie Lee; she has a good sense of humor about her public persona and likes to do roles that satirize it.
talking about tv reunions,how about one from valerie bertinelli’s other tv show touched by an angel,a reunion with roma downey.
I think they both will be great episodes, I think Joy should get some Joy in some of the shows she suffers enough from Elka, and the Drop the Soap Star’s ill treatment of her. lol
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In the show, Ella (Betty White’s Character) is the Polish caretaker of the home. Wendie Malick’s chacarter initially doesn’t like the house decor but then comes around to it. I doubt seriously in real life an elderly woman like Ella would decorate a living room like this above.