Is Rosie leaving or not leaving The View? There were so many loopholes in her farewell address to the daytime TV troops at home the morning of April 24. Anything is possible.
She could leave any time in June. Or sometime next year. Or tomorrow. She's the 800-lb. gorilla on the show, of course, so can do anything she wants. It could be the longest goodbye since Cher's farewell concert series.
Her surprising announcement she was giving up her chair on the most influential daytime talk show after failing to reach a contractual extension agreement made at least one person happy.
Joy Behar, the co-comedian on the panel, put on her best poker face as she heard the joyous news that her rival was cashing in her chips. From the day of Rosie O'Donnell's arrival last fall, it seemed as if she was stepping on Joy's air hose. Two powerhouse stand-up comedians, both trying to be taken seriously as social commentators, looked to me like putting two scorpions in a bottle and expecting them to just get along. On my TV set, Joy's face seemed to turn green whenever Rosie was especially funny.
I will miss Rosie.
She was the best thing to happen to daytime TV since the invention of the ladies with blue hair and sneakers and soccer moms who watch daytime TV. Rosie was the Viagra pill that got The View out of its waning ninth year slump.
Before Rosie, The View made headlines because somebody was making a jerk of themselves. It began with the controversy over panelist Debbie Matenopolous, who did something to annoy Barbara Walters Then there was Lisa Ling, and all the other oddballs who were too good at doing their job of being odd.
The great thing about Rosie is her unpredictability. You never knew when she would be making news with her big mouth. It could be her comments about the big issues like American Idol, Oprah, Donald Trump or the war. My favorite Rosie moment was her taking on the non-enmities like Lindsay Lohan for her behavior on the set of Georgia Rule, Kelly Ripa for her homophobic remarks on Reege's show or Danny DeVito for acting drunk on a visit to The View or Paula Abdul seeming to have three too many on her classical music hour.
The media - which seems to have a permanent hole in its head when it comes to making big deals out of fights stoked by PR people between celebrities who should be declared morally inane - loved the way Rosie took on The Donald in December after he gave Miss USA Tara Conner a second chance. Rosie filled the hole in the head, launching a debate over who is the greater moral authority, she or Trump. Actually, it should have been over who has the bigger ego.
Rosie has an ego the size of Montana. In fact the only thing bigger than Rosie's waistline is her ego. Why do you think The Donald left New York for L.A.? There is not enough oxygen for the two of them in the same city. Their next gigs might be as balloons in next year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
I think Rosie is brilliant as a stand-up comedian because she can be very funny. But I'm not as crazy about her sit-down act, which can be marred by her rants about politics.
She has a tendency to think of herself as the Golda Meir of daytime TV. She is not Golda Meir.
A fascinating sideshow for me has always been watching Barbara Walters on the three days a week she sits on her panel, observing the cast doing their pirouettes. Having created the show in 1997, she sometimes seems like a zookeeper, keeping the wild animals away from each other. Barbara always seems to be especially nervous while listening to Rosie's rants, wondering when she would go too far.
Rosie O'Donnell is the epitome of the television accident about to happen - a Don Imus-type incident. ABC has ducked the bullet so far, a feather in Walters' admiral's hat.
You have to understand that Barbara is the Eleanor Roosevelt of daytime TV. She is a totally different person nowadays than the reporter who chased after Fidel Castro and Anwar Sadat for exclusive interviews. In her senior years, she has become the mother you wished you never had, the social arbiter of good taste and breeding, putting you in your place with a look. It sometimes becomes tiresome, but I still adore her.
Ever since her wonderful experience as co-anchor of The Harry Reader & Barbara Walters Evening News at ABC News (a.k.a., the remake of The Bickersons), she has been involved with one or more hits at ABC for the past 30 years. She has been doing daytime TV longer than there has been daytime TV, or so it seems. She knows what it takes. She has a finely tuned sense of impending doom, knows exactly what is going to turn off the audience. She wants everybody to play nice in the sandbox.
Rosie was the petulant kid who would kick up sand just because it was there. Behind her TV face, Barbara may be very happy with Rosie's decision. The contract dispute is the perfect way for her to get the 800-lb. gorilla off her back.
So will Rosie be around for a month or a year or a day? Predicting what Rosie O'Donnell will do is like predicting the stock market, only it's more risky. She may decide her children need her. She could decide she's fallen in love with The Donald and he's going to leave his third wife for her.
It won't be over until the fat lady sings.