The ACME Rosie O'Donnell Show Page

The Rosie O'Donnell Show History

Daily Guest Appearance Lists
1st Season (1996-97)	3rd Season (1998-99)	5th Season (2000-2001)
2nd Season (1997-98)	4th Season (1999-2000)	6th Season (2001-2002)

Her adoption of Parker was the primary reason Rosie O'Donnell decided to suddenly veer her career from film and Broadway to daytime television. “I wanted a job that allowed me to spend time with him. I wanted him to sleep in his own bed every night so he’d have consistency and stability in his life. I knew this job would be a lot of hours, but it would also give me the luxury of being a hands-on parent. There’s only one hour a day that I need to be totally focused, and that’s when I’m on the air. Other than that, he’s always with me or nearby. He’s just part of the routine here.

“You know, people thought I was kidding when I said I want to do a Merv Griffin/Mike Douglas show. They're like, "you're kidding, right?" and I'm like "no." I love that show. I used to run home and watch it with my grandmother and my sister. I loved . . . Steve and Eydie were my heroes. I'm a big nerd, you know?”

“I tried to make a show that an eight-year-old kid could watch with his mother and grandma that would entertain everyone.”

Said former Co-Executive Producer Hillary Estey McLaughlin, “Rosie had the rare combination of a keen self-awareness, confidence and honesty that people universally respond to.”

“You know when you go on a roller coaster and it clicks up and then right after the last click before you go into the whoosh? That’s what I feel [the moment before she walks onstage for the show]. It’s almost like when the audience member was doing the opening announcement, I hear the click and then I just go for the ride. It’s the one hour I don’t have to think in the day. It’s like free time, like a kid in nursery school where you get a one-hour nap. The one hour I’m there, I don’t have to think of anything else. I just have to be in the moment.”

Rosie admitted to borrowing a lot from Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore. She also followed in the footsteps of Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Jay Leno. During practice shows in early June 1996 she even tried doing an opening stand-up monologue, like many of her predecessors. But Rosie just didn't feel comfortable with it. She and her staff came up with the idea of jokes taped inside a newspaper and magazine and "to the desk," but even that was done less and less until she felt comfortable with a purely ad-libbed opening segment, called “chuffa.” Rosie's at her best when she just takes a topic and wings it, so eventually she spent most mornings telling personal anecdotes.

Unlike most of her talk show counterparts, Rosie was not one to bring up any subject that might cause her guests to squirm in their seats. "There are issues that celebrities don't want to bring up and I can understand why. And I won't do it, in the same way that I wouldn't want an interviewer to do it to me. But then there are certain situations, for example ... if you book O.J. Simpson, you're not going to talk about his football career. But you know what? I would never book those people, so I don't get into that problem."

But that doesn’t mean she was always nice to everyone. Wrote Ken Tucker, television critic for Entertainment Weekly: “I find that she can be kind of snappy and sarcastic and disagree with the guests in a completely polite, we're-just- here-talking kind of thing without devolving it into a shouting match.” When Whitney Houston canceled her appearance on the show (Oct 30, 1997) at the very last-minute, Tucker said Rosie "certainly for days on end ragged on Whitney Houston for canceling and was clearly irritated and didn't let her feelings be hidden about that."

As an interviewer, Rosie become a master of guiding the conversation, particularly when there was a book or movie to promote. When the time was right, she smoothly holded up the book or mentioned the clip that needed to be shown.

When she needed to stir things up a bit, Rosie had several topics that she routinely falls back on. She often brought up a guest’s children, something few other talk show hosts ever discussed until Rosie started doing it. If she learned that a non-singing guest had ever sung before, as in a school musical production, then she encouraged them to sing something on her show. When Rosie prodded Lucy “Xena” Lawless to sing, it resulted in an offer from the producers of Grease! for Lucy to appear in the show on Broadway. If the conversation turned to food, Rosie was quick to ask the guest’s preference for snack foods and whether they like Drakes’ Ring Dings, Yodels and other products. Finally, if the guest had ever appeared with or even simply met one of Rosie’s idols, especially Tom Cruise or Barbra Streisand, this gave her another fitting topic for discussion.

Rosie and her writers were continually trying to find themes and gimmicks that utilize recurring guests or members of her staff. Early on, there was Listen to Iman and Florida restaurant reviews from Mort and Sylvia Drescher. Then came hair care tips from David Evangelista, which was soon followed by household tips from Lenny [Wechsler] the Cameraman. None of these lasted very long. Iman and the Dreschers did their shtick three or four times, and then were rarely heard from again. David’s and Lenny’s bits were placed in the time capsule Rosie used at the start of the second season to retire things she and her fans had grown tired of.

Before the start of the second season, it was announced with great fanfare that Paula Poundstone would be a “roving reporter” providing regular videotaped features for the show. Rosie gave her a video camera, and for her September appearance she showed a funky cross-country travelogue reminiscent of a schoolgirl’s “what I did last summer” essay. Then she traveled to Dallas in October, where she utterly failed to capture the magnitude of the State Fair of Texas. November’s report took her to Atlanta. Response to Paula’s segments must have been dismal, because she was never heard from again. While all of this harks back to Steve Allen’s man-on-the-street interviews with regulars Tom Poston, Louis Nye and Don Knotts on the original Tonight Show, it seemed that Rosie never could find useful segments that featured her staff or other celebrities.

But there were things that did work. Rosie's craft and cooking segments were consistently entertaining. Audience participation segments were often hit or miss, but they, too, remained popular. Through the years she added guest quizes, mystery guests and even wild animal segments, the latter two seemingly intended to bring out the worst in Rosie. But by the third season Rosie had hit her stride. While the show became more predictible, it was also more comfortable to regular viewers who tuned in.

Show Development Timeline

November 18, 1995 - Rosie O'Donnell, Dennis Leary and Dana Delaney were in Philadelphia. Daily Variety reported the trio had completed principal photography on Wide Awake -- a comedy for Miramax.

November 21, 1995 - Comedienne and actress Rosie O'Donnell was joining the talk show wars. O'Donnell signed a deal with Warner Brothers Television for a daytime chatfest. Daily Variety reported that several other television studios were bidding for Rosie's services.

December 1, 1995 - Rosie O'Donnell would be speaking for Carnie Wilson. Warner Brothers Television decided to replace Carnie's talk show with a new offering by Rosie. And rather than waiting until next fall, many believe Rosie will be pinch-hitting this summer.

January 12, 1996 - Rosie O'Donnell's talk show was getting the green light. Daily Variety reported that the show had been sold to ABC and NBC stations in four of the top five markets in the country, which meant it would be seen by more than 50 percent of television viewers in the U.S. Rosie was set to debut in mid-June.

May 28, 1996 - Two weeks of practice shows began. These shows were done with the clock as if they were the real thing, with guests, audiences, commercials and everything. At least two of these shows were aired as “repeats.”

June 10, 1996 - The Rosie O’Donnell Show premiered in syndication with an approximate 90% US coverage. However, many markets got the show on hard-to-find UHF stations and at hard-to-find times. The Philadelphia station aired the show around 2am, after the late movie.

Jun 13, 1996 - Just when you thought talk shows were dead, Rosie O'Donnell comes along. The actress's talk show premiered with a 4.4 rating and a 16 share. That's the highest first-day rating for any talk show in the last 10 years.