Bill Maher Recommends Insane Asylum for Sherri Shepherd on ‘View’ Appearance Gone Awry

After Bill Maher sat down with TV Guide last month to rip into Sherri Shepherd’s religious beliefs, we figured his days of guesting on The View had been put firmly behind him. Imagine our surprise, then, when some crafty producer booked Maher for a slot on today’s View to promote his new (to the world outside Claremont) film, the controversial, religion-debunking Religulous. Would sparks fly?

Lord, yes. Things came to a head at the end of Maher’s segment, when Shepherd asked the skeptical Maher whether he had ever spoken with God. Needless to say, he had not, and when Shepherd replied that she had, Maher recommended a stint in Bellevue. As Whoopi Goldberg hurriedly threw the show to commercial, a grinning Elisabeth Hasselbeck clearly exulted in the fact that for once, she wasn’t the controversial one. Who needs a “cooling off” now, eh, Babs?

• The View [ABC]