Why Rosie, Why?
Did any of you see Rosie Live last week? For those of you who were unaware of it, Rosie Live was Rosie O’Donnell’s attempt to revive television’s classic variety format.
For much of television’s first 30 years, variety was a staple of prime-time television: Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett, Andy Williams, Jackie Gleason, Sonny & Cher, etc. Rosie O’Donnell grew up with the format,
and felt that with the success of pseudo-variety shows such as American Idol and America’s Got Talent, the variety show was due for a return.
Boy, was she wrong. At least in HER version of “variety.”
Rosie Live was a bomb in the ratings, and deservedly so. This was no Carol Burnett Show… no Sonny & Cher Show… it wasn’t even the Starland Vocal Band Show (a sorry late-70s CBS summer-replacement variety show given to a one-hit-wonder group)! Rosie tried to cross the Ed Sullivan Show (a single host simply introducing music, comedy, and dance acts) with both the Carol Burnett Show (comedic sketches and some music) and a Broadway show.
The results were disastrous. The hour was, at best, painful to watch.
I’ve been a fan of both the television variety hour and the 90s Rosie O’Donnell Show… but my former affection for these could not ignite within me even the slightest appreciation for Rosie Live. The opening act with Liza Minnelli was poorly produced and (apparently) not even rehearsed! And did anyone besides me notice that the audio in the HD version of Rosie Live was woefully, painfully out of sync?
Further indignities foisted upon the viewers of Rosie Live included appearances by Alec Baldwin, Conan O’Brian (can’t beat a pie in the face!), and a horrendous closing number featuring Gloria Estefan and Rachael Ray. It was all bad. So bad. So bad it was BAD.
If Rosie had stuck with either a Carol Burnett Show format or an Ed Sullivan Show format, then she might have had something. The potential was there. But by so self-servingly interjecting her Broadway persona into the hour, Rosie managed to kill off the variety show for a long time to come.
That is, until the Osbourne Family variety hour premieres on Fox next month.
For much of television’s first 30 years, variety was a staple of prime-time television: Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett, Andy Williams, Jackie Gleason, Sonny & Cher, etc. Rosie O’Donnell grew up with the format,
and felt that with the success of pseudo-variety shows such as American Idol and America’s Got Talent, the variety show was due for a return.Boy, was she wrong. At least in HER version of “variety.”
Rosie Live was a bomb in the ratings, and deservedly so. This was no Carol Burnett Show… no Sonny & Cher Show… it wasn’t even the Starland Vocal Band Show (a sorry late-70s CBS summer-replacement variety show given to a one-hit-wonder group)! Rosie tried to cross the Ed Sullivan Show (a single host simply introducing music, comedy, and dance acts) with both the Carol Burnett Show (comedic sketches and some music) and a Broadway show.
The results were disastrous. The hour was, at best, painful to watch.
I’ve been a fan of both the television variety hour and the 90s Rosie O’Donnell Show… but my former affection for these could not ignite within me even the slightest appreciation for Rosie Live. The opening act with Liza Minnelli was poorly produced and (apparently) not even rehearsed! And did anyone besides me notice that the audio in the HD version of Rosie Live was woefully, painfully out of sync?
Further indignities foisted upon the viewers of Rosie Live included appearances by Alec Baldwin, Conan O’Brian (can’t beat a pie in the face!), and a horrendous closing number featuring Gloria Estefan and Rachael Ray. It was all bad. So bad. So bad it was BAD.
If Rosie had stuck with either a Carol Burnett Show format or an Ed Sullivan Show format, then she might have had something. The potential was there. But by so self-servingly interjecting her Broadway persona into the hour, Rosie managed to kill off the variety show for a long time to come.
That is, until the Osbourne Family variety hour premieres on Fox next month.
posted by TV Boy at 10:00 PM
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