Life is Rosie

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Rosie O' Donnell should be blushing from head to toe.

It isn't enough that Newsweek magazine dubbed the standup comic-turned-actress- turned-talk show host the "Queen of Nice."

Since her daily, star-studded gabfest, "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" (weekdays, 3 p.m., KLAS Channel 8) premiered in 1996 to the highest ratings of any daytime talk show in the past 10 years, other talk show hosts have opted to follow O'Donnell's docile cue.

Unlike most of her television counterparts, O'Donnell is not one to chat about any subject that might cause her guests -- who have included Tom Cruise, Barbra Streisand and Elton John -- to squirm in their spotlighted seats.

"There are issues that celebrities don't want to bring up and I can understand why," O'Donnell, who performs her standup act at Caesars Palace tonight and Saturday, told Radiance magazine last year. "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," she said. "But you know what? I would never book those people, so I don't get into that problem."

O'Donnell's goal, she said in Radiance, is to "bring back the kind of show that I grew up watching -- the kind of show that brought the entertainers that I loved into my living room everyday.

"I don't think I'm trying to save TV, or to be the antithesis of sleaze TV shows. I'm just trying to do Merv Griffin for the '90s."

And by all accounts, she's succeeding: For the November 1997 "sweeps" ratings period, "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" tied "The Oprah Winfrey Show" for first place in Nielsen's Las Vegas household ratings. ("Live With Regis and Kathie Lee" finished second, while "The Jerry Springer Show" and "Sally Jessie Raphael" tied for third among talk shows.)

Meanwhile, in recent television seasons, some programs have toned down their mudslinging ways (see "The Jenny Jones Show" and "Ricki Lake") while others (bye-bye Richard Bey and Gordon Elliott) bit broadcasting dust.

And a gaggle of new, "nice" talk shows are perched to claim their time slots.

One of them will reunite America's most beloved siblings, Donnie and Marie Osmond, who hosted a self-titled variety show in the '70s. Another, which puts comedian Howie Mandel behind the desk, is set to air this fall.

Rest assured that Rosie's apparent ripple effect hasn't gone unnoticed by television insiders.

"Those (talk shows) being introduced next year ... are being described as family-friendly entertainment vehicles, celebrity-driven, not nuts and sluts," explains Janeen Bjork, senior vice president and director of programming at Seltel, a New York company that represents television stations in ad sales and program purchases.

O'Donnell's success, Bjork says, sent a message to producers. "There is room for nice, there is room for fun, there is room for music, things that a couple of years ago were assumed were not cool."

In recent years, the "theatricality" of talk shows -- jilted lovers, feuding families, fistfights -- have been their draw, she says.

"So as an industry, there was the assumption that that's where we were going ... and you got all of those 'Ricki Lake' clones. For 20 years, the mantra has been, 'There's no room for Merv (Griffin) and Mike (Douglas) and Dinah (Shore-type shows),' that variety shows don't work," Bjork says.

Mass appeal

"Rosie immediately spoke to women," Bjork continues. "When she put her ankle on top of the desk to show her tattoo and she said, 'Oh my gosh, I haven't shaved. I'm so embarrassed,' it was like (talking with) a girlfriend."

Or the next door neighbor. "I think she does sort of represent the everyday, normal kind of person," says Beth Arky, senior editor of TV Guide. "She doesn't have a supermodel look. She looks like your average American ... and that makes her appealing" to viewers.

The rotund O'Donnell told Radiance: "I'm not your average movie actress physique. I'm not the usual celebrity size. And I think that people who like to see images of themselves reflected back feel strongly connected to me."

John Keisewetter, television critic for the Cincinnati Enquirer, calls O'Donnell "an original. She's doing something that hasn't been done in daytime talk shows ... in more than a decade and its refreshing, it's good clean fun.

"People like Montel Williams or Ricki Lake or others can soften up their goofiness," Keisewetter says, "but they're still a different critter than what Rosie's doing."

Nevertheless, trash TV has not yet met its demise, evidenced by the glaring popularity of "The Jerry Springer Show," where most guests are greeted with a left hook rather than a handshake.

In the November sweeps period, Springer, the former mayor of Cincinnati and television commentator there, ranked second behind "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and ahead of O'Donnell nationally.

Keisewetter interviewed Springer shortly after the ratings results were released. "He was kind of mystified by the high ratings, too," he says, "but noted that he was the only one left that was really doing the outlandish stuff. If this is what a certain segment of American viewers want, they're gonna tune him in."

Not talking trash

But does O'Donnell's avoidance of all things controversial make her less edgy than the competition? Ken Tucker, television critic for Entertainment Weekly magazine, doesn't think so.

"I wouldn't want (O'Donnell's show) to have the kind of 'Jerry Springer' or 'Jenny Jones' edge, where it's a lot of freaky guests and trying to prod people into having arguments," he says. "I don't see her as having any less edge than Jay Leno.

"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 Houton cancelled her appearance on the show last-minute, Tucker says O'Donnell "certainly for days on end ragged on Whitney Houston for cancelling and was clearly irritated and didn't let her feelings be hidden about that."

Tucker also calls O'Donnell's regular inclusion of numbers from Broadway productions on the show "innovative."

"She's pushed all of these Broadway shows, shoe-horned them onto the tiny stage of hers ... which gives the rest of the country a look at what's happening on Broadway that they would never otherwise see, so I think that's pretty admirable," he says.

O'Donnell, who hosted last year's Tony Awards telecast, delivering its biggest audience in a decade, will return as the show's host once again, on June 7.

The one bone Tucker has to pick with O'Donnell is the extraordinary support she typically lends to her guests' endeavors.

"I think she kind of goes over the line sometimes," he says, pointing to a recent show on which actor Samuel L. Jackson appeared to promote his flick, "Jackie Brown."

For the interview, O'Donnell donned a cap emblazoned with the movie's title. "When she gets behind something, it's like a commercial endorsement as opposed to having any kind of distance from the product that's being pushed," Tucker says.

Ironically, that gushing over guests is one of the things that's won over O'Donnell's viewers, critics say.

"I do think she comes across as a genuine fan," Arky says, "and as genuinely interested in the people she brings on."

Says Tucker: "She thinks of herself so much as a fan and she identifies with the audience as opposed to setting herself up as a star.

"They see her going ga-ga over Tom Cruise or Barbra Streisand ... I think that her audience really loves that about her," he says. "It's easy for somebody at home to say, 'That's the way I'd be if I was behind the microphone at the desk and got a chance to talk to my hero.' "

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