THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 1, 1996 TAG: 9606300322
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: 90 lines
WHILE JERRY SPRINGER introduces his studio audience to a 13-year-old prostitute who has been turning tricks since she was 9, on another channel Rosie O'Donnell talks about bingeing on Doritos and Yoo-Hoo.
Now, she's singing to people watching in western Pennsylvania: ``Give my regards to Pittsburgh.''
While Sally Jessy Raphael on her syndicated talk show delves into the transsexual lifestyle of her guests, Chuck Woolery and Cristina Ferrare on The Family Channel enlighten viewers on how to make terrific-looking no-sew drapes from $2-a-yard discount fabrics.
Now let's see your tomato patch, Cristina.
``Geraldo'' does an hour about teen pregnancy and kids in gangs. On ``Caryl & Marilyn: Real Friends,'' they do a big-hair fashion show.
Can't wait to see the ``Real Friends'' ugly bridesmaid-gown contest.
Daytime TV isn't quite the three- ring circus of shock, humiliation and weirdness it was a few months ago.
To be sure, Raphael is still grabbing for ratings with shows that titillate (``My mate isn't sexy'') and Maury Povich still has his TV sideshow (``Twins with curious sexual tastes!'').
But a swoosh of clean, fresh air is whipping across the landscape of daytime television with the coming of three new programs:
``The Rosie O'Donnell Show,'' seen Monday through Friday on WAVY at 11 a.m. Warner Brothers' executives, including Norfolk-born Dick Robertson, have been feeling the heat from Congress and others for inventing trash talk TV. Warners produces Jenny Jones' show - the show that was so trashy it apparently inspired one guest to murder another.
In response to the bad vibes, the WB bosses put actress/comedienne/ singer/Kmart pitch person O'Donnell in a daily showcase that shouldn't offend anyone and, judging by the early ratings, is pleasing just about everybody.
The show is much hipper than ``Regis & Kathie Lee,'' which is also talk plus music, gossip and an occasional fashion show.
She's fun, if a little loud. She's entertaining. She's unpredictable. And there hasn't been a cross-dressing tattooed truck driver in sight on ``The Rosie O'Donnell Show.''
``Home & Family,'' The Family Channel weekdays at 1 p.m. Even before Warner Brothers was talking to O'Donnell about giving up her busy acting career for a $5-million job on TV, The Family Channel bosses in Virginia Beach and Hollywood were planning an antidote to the talk-show sludge in the form of ``Home & Family.'' This two-hour show is co-hosted by the Chatty Cathy of daytime TV, Cristina Ferrare, and Chuck Woolery, who is Dean Martin-casual on camera.
``Caryl & Marilyn: Real Friends,'' seen Monday through Friday at 11 a.m. on ABC, is one wholesome hour replacing another, ``Mike & Maty.'' Marilyn Kentz and Caryl Kristensen once worked in comedy clubs and later in an NBC sitcom billed as ``The Mommies.'' They are still doing their suffering mothers and wives schtick, but this time it's in the freer format of a daytime talk show.
Here are two other shows for the viewer who believes that daytime talk shows are out of control - with slight reservations about ``Leeza'':
``Oprah,'' seen Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. (and repeating at 12:05 a.m.) on WVEC is TV's highest-rated daytime talk show with 7.9 percent of the audience. Its ratings slipped a bit after Oprah Winfrey's decision in mid-1995 to do uplifting shows, but Oprah still has a hold on a very large viewership. Who else could captivate a national TV audience for a full hour just by having her podiatrist come on and discuss the sorry state of her feet?
``Leeza,'' an NBC show which airs Monday through Friday at 10 a.m. on WAVY, is classier and glossier than its rivals, even when taking up subjects (``Daughters in Crisis'') that exploit the guests. Gibbons, born with a softness that is common to South Carolina women, can be positively genteel when asking edgy questions, such as what ever possessed an 8-year-old girl to trade her bike for crack.
In an interview before she signed on earlier this month, O'Donnell said she does have a mission with her new show - to make viewers forget what a sleazy swamp daytime TV has become. ``It's degenerated into a freak show,'' she said.
O'Donnell has been great - smashing, in fact - in her first three weeks. She belts out show tunes. She does impressions. She rips off one-liners she calls ``groaners.''
The Rosie wannabes are lining up already. Daytime talk shows emphasizing entertainment are in the works for Naomi Judd and Donny Osmond.
Once upon a time, Winfrey was bringing on guests with disturbing stories to tell - giving them the equivalent of an hour's therapy on TV. Then a man visited her show with his wife and mistress, who revealed they both had given birth to his children.
The announcement floored Winfrey.
``We didn't see the bombshell coming,'' she told TV Guide. ``I was ashamed for creating the opportunity for those revelations to happen. People should not be humiliated on national television for the purpose of entertainment.''
Right then and there, TV in the daytime began cleansing itself. Hello, Rosie. Hello, Chuck and Cristina. Hello, Mommies. Glad to see you. ILLUSTRATION: Rosie O'Donnell
WARNER BROS. by CNB