THE VIEW Gets Rosie?

Will The View get Rosie again?

Yesterday's big show biz buzz in the TV world was that Rosie O'Donnell has an offer to return to the popular daytime talk show and join Whoopi Goldberg, the only member of last season who's returning for the new season.  Rosie, a newly slim and recent special Tony Award recipient, has done The View before and caused some controversy with her energetic, outspoken, candid self -- which is good for TV ratings.

Let's face it.  Rosie back on The View could mean an immediate bump up in the ratings.  She does have a following, especially in New York City where The View is taped.  Also, I have a feel The View wanted to get hip and hire a gay regular.  ABC embraced gay characters on Modern Family with great success.  A gay or gay-friendly celebrity seems to be a stock contestant on every season of ABC's Dancing with the Stars.  Think of Chaz Bono, Cher's son who was born a female named Chastity and underwent a sex change.  Carson Kressley and swimmer Diana Nyad, members of the gay community, were popular contestants.  There's Bruno, the show's flamboyant judge.  Sam Champion, network weather anchor, went public about being gay before he left Good Morning America for the Weather Channel.  GMA has the much-loved Robin Roberts who herself came out.  A hot celebrity who's also a lesbian mom would be perfect for The View and that's what Rosie is.  When she was a daytime TV star with her own fun talk show, she generously gave me some time for my live segment when I was a regular on Good Day New York in the 1990s.

Rosie would take care of the gay presence and the fact that network TV craves putting comedians on talk shows with news topics.  I guess because the executives feel the comedians will automatically always have something to say and make you laugh.

I heard on a KNX radio news report that The View producers want to hire a Latina.  In New York City, that will be no problem.   The city is bursting with Latina talent.  The View could have a two-Rosie panel and tap Oscar nominee  Rosie Perez to join the team.  She's smart, savvy, a good actress and very charismatic.  She starred in Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing and got a Best Supporting Actress nomination for 1993's Fearless.

On that same KNX radio newscast out of L.A., I heard that The View is also seeking a conservative.  Here's my idea for that seat:  ABC loves blondes.  It loves celebrity blondes, reality show blondes, news contributor blondes and missing blondes.  That network is fond of blondes whether they've got definite expertise or not.  Why was Jenny McCarthy giving medical advice as a co-host on The View?  I don't know.  But she's blonde!

Did you ever see the Pamela Anderson X-rated adult video she did with rocker Tommy Lee some years ago?  It was available at my video store.  I thought it would be badly lit and only about 5 or 10 minutes long.  It was as long as a sitcom episode and they were in broad daylight.  On a lake in a pleasure craft.  And naked.  I couldn't believe it.  The camera zoomed in on Pamela's private parts.  Let's just say that when I saw "the little man in the boat,"  I'm not talking about Tommy Lee.  I saw stuff only her gynecologist should see.  In Old Hollywood, footage like that would've ruined an actress' career.  She would've had to move to Mexico or Europe.  Not anymore.  Pamela wound up as a contestant on ...Dancing with the Stars on ABC, a network owned by Disney.  How did that happen?  She's blonde!

I suggest a blonde who is conservative and has been a guest on The View more than once.  If she was hired, it would be sort of a reunion with Rosie that would be a juicy publicity angle.  I know Rosie from the late 1980s when we worked together.  We were daily veejays on VH1.  Here we are in a VH1 photo with fellow veejay, Roger Rose.

One of the other veejays was a self-described "Texas deb" and a sweet, pretty blonde named Edye Tarbox.  Edye (pronounced Edie) loved "parties, cute boys and soap operas."  Because she loved daytime TV dramas so much, she was given her own interview show called Soap Dish on which she interviewed soap stars.  I loved working at VH1 and loved our studio crew.  Our set was decorated with sort of an equal opportunity theme for one holiday season.  We had all sorts of yuletide decorations displayed, including a Menorah.  Heck, we shot our shows in New York City.  Edye reportedly refused to shoot her segments until the Menorah was removed.  Word circulated that she, "as a good Christian," could not perform on camera with the Menorah behind her.  It was removed.  And it was put back for my segments.

Roger used to josh Edye because she never read newspapers, news magazines or watched the CNN newscasts in the green room the way the rest of us did.  She liked entertainment and lifestyle magazines.

After VH1, Rosie O'Donnell scored in hit comedy movies and became a lovable, popular daytime TV talk show host.  Edye Tarbox went on to become an anchor for Fox News.  She changed Edye to the initials E.D.  She dropped the Tarbox and kept one of her married names -- Hill.  She transformed into E.D. Hill of cable's Fox News.  Jon Stewart took her to task on The Daily Show after she called the fist bump that then Senator Barack Obama gave his wife, Michelle, a "terrorist fist jab."  E.D. later apologized.

E.D. (formerly Edye) has written books.  In the acknowledgments, she thanked relatives with the last name Tarbox.  That's how I knew for sure she was my former VH1 co-worker.

A VH1 veejay reunion with liberal Rosie O'Donnell and blonde conservative E.D. Hill.  That's my idea for ABC panel on The View.