Today I want to talk about love.
I want to talk about appreciation, and gratitude,
and all the important things that we should all
be talking about all the time.
First of all, I want to say I love my audience.
I love my viewers.
I am grateful to each and every one of you watching at home,
Pam in Topeka , and Julian in Tampa,
and Steven in Fort Lauderdale.
I don't have time to name everybody today.
I want to thank some other people that I'm
very, very grateful for.
And that is my staff.
[APPLAUSE]
They can't really-- you can't see them
because they're pointing in this direction.
But there are 260 people who work here.
I love each and every one of them.
I am so proud of what we do here.
We put out the very best show that we can every single day.
We never settle we never say, oh, that's good enough,
let's just do that today, even though sometimes it
may look like that.
I'm sure you're thinking they gave up on that segment.
But no, we try.
We really do.
We do our best.
So I want to say thank you to my staff for working so hard.
Because of COVID, we've been working with a skeleton crew.
Very few people are here.
Most staff is at home working.
And I know that's hard for all of you at home.
I can't wait for everybody to be back here.
My staff has supported me through some really tough
times.
And after 18 years, we are a family.
[APPLAUSE]
Your support for me means everything to me.
You lift me up.
You make me laugh when you see I'm having a hard day.
I appreciate you more than you'll ever, ever know.
This show has been on the air for 18 years,
and it's really because of all of you.
Very, very few shows go on this long.
[APPLAUSE]
So to be working and doing the show is as many years
as we have, you all should feel really proud of what
we accomplish every single day.
And our goal every day is to make people laugh,
and to be able to forget about whatever
is going on in the world, whatever may be upsetting you
and your family, or whatever.
And at the same time we love helping people.
So, we make you laugh, we entertain people,
and we help people.
We like to call it an enter-help-ment show.
I just made that up when I say we like to call it that.
That was just a--
I realized that, that was what we do.
So I want to shout out some people specifically
who have been here since day one for 18 years, Ron and Liza
from our audio crew.
Ron and Liza, there they are.
[APPLAUSE]
Liza puts the mic on me every single day.
It's possible that she's had her hand up my shirt
more than Portia.
Ron, every time you come out and mic an audience member,
and I joke, and say, oh, he doesn't work here.
You laugh every time even though I say it all the time.
Our camera operators have been here since day one.
David, Chip, Tim, Donovan, Paul.
[APPLAUSE]
Sometimes I pretend not to know your names as a joke.
But trust me, I know all of your names.
I just don't know which is which.
Claudia, our audience producer, has been here
from the beginning.
She works so hard no matter how hungover she is.
Claudia is on it!
On it!
Dave St. Amand, our performance coordinator,
started filling in part time in season two.
He's been here now full-time for 17 years,
not that we hired him.
It's just that he just keeps--
He keeps showing up.
We're like, OK.
Do we pay him?
I don't know.
Betsy, you have been on teleprompter since day one,
and I really--
Scroll please.
--love you.
You're the most beautiful woman in the world-- you,
Betsy you put that in there.
Kellen, Heather and Laney are my crew, my glam crew
who helped me look this way.
You should see me not with them.
It's just, it's horrible.
Patty has been holding my cue cards for 18 years.
Her arms must be sore.
I would like to mention all 260 of you.
But more than anything, I want you
to know how much I appreciate all of you,
and how proud I am of this show.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
And before I bring him out, I want
to say something about tWitch.
He is more than a co-executive producer.
He is my friend.
I just love him so much.
And he brings so much positive energy, not just to the show,
but to me.
We are very--
I just love him.
And I also love the way he dresses.
And I also think that he happens to be a good dancer.
Please welcome my friend tWitch.