Rosie O'Donnell is hoping to do what most people in television think is impossible — revive the variety show.
And, while she looks to Carol Burnett and Sonny & Cher for inspiration, she's also patterning "Rosie Live" (7 p.m., NBC/Ch. 5) after "The Ed Sullivan Show" — a franchise that debuted 60 years ago (and went off the air in 1971).
"'Sonny and Cher' was fantastic. 'Carol Burnett,' 'Donny and Marie,' 'Shields and Yarnell,' 'The King Family' — I watched them all," O'Donnell said in a teleconference with TV critics. "And it was the O'Donnell tradition to just sit around, and everyone — my Nana and my dad, and when my mom was alive — everyone would watch them together. It was a huge event in our house back when there were (only) three channels."
Whether it works or not, you've got to admire O'Donnell's courage. "Rosie Live" will be just that — a live music/comedy/variety hour on network television, telecast from New York's Little Shubert Theatre.
(Live in the Eastern and Central Time Zones, that is. We'll see it on a one-hour tape delay in Utah.)
O'Donnell will open the show with a production number that features Liza Minnelli; her other guests include Alec Baldwin, Ne-Yo, Alanis Morissette, Kathy Griffin and Jane Krakowski.
While O'Donnell's last television gig — her nine months on "The View" — created a number of controversial headlines, "Rosie Live" is not that kind of show.
"We're going to be using celebrities just to entertain, to have fun. To come, to play, to sing a song, to do a skit, to tell a joke. And it's going to be a throwback, really, to the time when those shows were hot and were absurdly entertaining," O'Donnell said.
It's taken O'Donnell quite a while to get "Rosie Live" on the air.
"This is the same show I've been pitching since 2002, a nighttime live variety show," she said.
And, finally, NBC decided to give it a try. Tonight's hour is a live pilot. If the ratings are good, NBC will order more. If not, well ... this is network TV. But O'Donnell is confident.
"Well, I think the timing is right," she said. "I think the economy has made it so that people are staying home more and (are), sadly, unable to go out. And to give people an hour to forget about their troubles, to have an hour of fun, laughter and singing and dancing — no politics, no arguing, no talking about controversial things. Just a fun one hour to get around the TV with everyone in your family and laugh.
"And that to me, I think, is needed now, and we've seen everything else."
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com