'Rosie Live'
TELEVISION REVIEW
Rosie O'Donnell's variety show makes a lame TV debut.
Two words: Dancing food. "Rosie Live" ended with dancing food. There's nothing else to say, really, except perhaps, Liza Minnelli. "Rosie Live," shot in New York City, opened with a little song and dance from Minnelli, who rose to the stage as if from the grave to sing a duet with O'Donnell, in a luminous white suit, complete with fetching Broadway hat. Liza, we love you, we will always love you, but there is no shame in retirement.
In between we were treated to Harry Connick Jr. in a Santa hat, Conan O'Brien taking a pie in the face and Jane Krakowski singing about all the free stuff audience members would get. Some of the items were pretty swell, but I'm here to tell you it wasn't enough. Rosie made jokes about the slimming-undergarment Spanx, Alec Baldwin appeared in a jacket two sizes too small with weird Einstein hair -- neither of which were part of a gag. Clay Aiken strolled over from his "Spamalot" gig on Broadway to participate in the world's most painfully long gay joke ("What was the other thing we have in common?" Rosie mused. "Oh, yeah, we're both Gaaa . . . briel Byrne fans."), and Alanis Morissette sang a song referencing the 12-step program in front of, I kid you not, an endless loop of geese flying through a sunset.
Flying geese! There are not enough free video cameras or White Castle burgers in the world to make up for that. And what about the viewers at home? Where are our new cellphones and Whitestrips?
Rosie, Rosie, what on Earth were you thinking? Were you thinking camp? Were you thinking this will be big and brassy and so-over-the-top even the dancing cupcakes will be irresistible? For those of us who are Rosie fans, who think "The View" will never quite recover from her departure, who think her desire to resurrect the variety show is a great idea, disappointment does not even begin to describe it. For weeks now, NBC has seduced and tantalized with the promise of a cross between Carol Burnett and "Sonny and Cher." And this is what we get? Rosie in a glitter top having Baldwin speak into her cleavage and making jokes about her weight? Someone get ahold of Tim Conway, stat.
