Afternoon Delight Rosie O'Donnell makes daytime TV fun again By JOYCE MILLMAN Illustration by Zach Trenholm Watching TV during the day -- no matter how old you get, or how bad TV gets, or even if you have a legitimate reason for doing it -- can still conjure that delicious, faintly wicked feeling of being at home sick (or faking) while everybody else is at school. Come on, didn't it used to drive you nuts, sitting in the classroom, staring at the clock, knowing that right at that very moment, some lucky kid with strep throat -- or maybe even your own mom! -- was sitting down in front of the TV with a tuna fish sandwich and a bowl of chicken noodle soup and watching "The Mike Douglas Show"? And what if somebody really good was on, like the Lovin' Spoonful or Jerry Lewis, and they got to see it and you didn't? Nowadays, kids who can set the VCR don't have to miss their daytime favorites, and people with nine-to-five jobs can time-shift "General Hospital" and "Oprah" to nights and weekends. But the truth is, that's no fun. Just as "Letterman" doesn't look quite right when you're watching last night's tape in the light of day, daytime TV seems out of sorts in prime time. It's just one of those inexplicable facts of TV life, and Letterman demonstrated it so memorably when he turned an episode of his old "Late Night" into a morning show. He played it straight-faced, but the result was discombobulating and hilariously surreal. Rosie O'Donnell understands all this. Her three-week-old, syndicated, daily talk/variety program -- with its retro animated-Rosie opening (just like "Bewitched!") and schmoozy star-chats and goofy bandleader who specializes in '70s Casey Kasem hits and Rosie's own Nipsey Russell couplets announcing each day's top guest ("It'll be like trick-or-treatin' when we welcome Michael Keaton!") -- channels the spirit of afternoon TV as it used to be -- or at least as it looked to boomers who watched it as kids. (Some TV markets, unwilling to clear a spot for "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" in the afternoon, are making the mistake of running it in the morning or in late-late night.) By now, you must have caught one of the 800 promotional interviews O'Donnell has given (her press agent deserves some sort of prize for blanket coverage) in which she says she modeled the show on "The Merv Griffin Show" and "The Mike Douglas Show," those celeb-worshipping afternoon gabfests she used to watch growing up on Long Island, and how she wants her show to be an alternative to trashy talk shows like "Ricki Lake" and "Jenny Jones," and how she took the gig because it would allow her to spend more time with her adopted infant son. And then there was that Newsweek cover last week proclaiming her "Queen of Nice," which was enough to make anyone think, "Just what we need, the unholy spawn of Jay Leno and Kathie Lee Gifford." Surprisingly though, "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" works, and not because she's so gosh-darn nice and America wants nice now (as the newsmags tell us), but simply because O'Donnell has a clue -- which is more than you could say for some of those other celebrities-turned-talk-show host washouts (Chevy Chase to the white courtesy phone). But, first, a word about Merv and Mike, for the uninitiated. Mike Douglas (who some say was partly the inspiration for Joe Flaherty's Sammy Maudlin character on "SCTV") was a nice, square, Irish-ballad-singing Philadelphia talk show host who somehow got incredibly huge stars to be his co-hosts for week-long gigs. His 1972 stint with John and Yoko -- in the midst of Lennon's fight to resist deportation -- was one of the most bizarre events in TV history, John and Yoko going on about "bag-ism" and John Sinclair while Mike smiled gamely and tried to be hip. Hollywood-based Merv was the bubblier host, gushing and giggling over his guests with indiscriminate ardor, be they Prince Charles, Eva Gabor or Don Rickles. He too inspired an "SCTV" character, Rick Moranis' mutant small town sheriff/talk show host "Merv Griffith." They're considered campy now, but what these guys brought to the party was this: The idea that afternoon talk shows had a rhythm and mood all their own, somewhere between the forced perkiness of the morning shows and the high-energy glitter (and, you'd have to add nowadays, the amped snottiness) of late night. Merv and Mike were middlebrow guys of middling talents who found their niche in the middle of the day. Which, of course, begs the question, Why would anybody aspire to the middle? Whatever O'Donnell's reasons, this is the turf she has staked out, and she does a far better than middling job at it. In the blink of an eye, she has revived a genre and doomed all who will follow her to failure just because they're not Rosie. O'Donnell used to be one of those overexposed (Is it just me, or was she really in every movie made between 1992 and 1995?), vaguely annoying celebrities who have you wondering what exactly it is they do. But it's undeniable that this woman was born to steer a talk show desk into port. "Rosie O'Donnell" succeeds mainly because her personality is so utterly unlike any other talk show host's, night or day. She's tart, but not mean, warm but not gooey, silly but substantial. She's ironic (it's hard not to be when you're 34 and you've got an encyclopedic knowledge of show tunes and TV themes), but not aloof. Watching the amiable O'Donnell bond with audience members and celebs alike, you get a firm sense that -- HELLO! -- there's a real person in there. She listens to her guests, makes them look good and, in return, they allow her to get in some yuks at their expense. Witness the deferential yet playful way she handled Cher recently. O'Donnell brought on her very own Cher doll, did a passable hair-swinging imitation, and opined that Sonny, the Republican Congressman, could "sit 'n' spin" as far as she was concerned, he'd be "pumpin' gas somewhere" if it wasn't for Cher. Then when Cher started hawking weird items from her Sanctuary catalog of medieval home furnishings, O'Donnell grabbed a chain mail lampshade, put it on her head and left no doubt about the dippiness of Cher's new venture. O'Donnell is also the first recognizable modern career mom on daytime TV. She's tired, she has no time for the gym (she hides it under nicely tailored black pantsuits), but when she talks about the kid, it's always with abundant good humor. Compare, please, to that horrific suburban California comedy duo The Mommies, who also have a new daytime talk show (called "Real Friends with Marilyn and Caryl," presumably so we won't know it's them). Marilyn and Caryl's act is based on whining about their kids, their husbands and their thighs; this kind of stuff may have been subversive 30 years ago when Joan Rivers and Erma Bombeck did it, but today, it's just creepy and self-loathing. O'Donnell also provides a welcome antidote to that dread TV malady, Codyitis. Kathie Lee take note: Rosie has not once forced photos, adorable stories or her kid himself on an unsuspecting America. Yet motherhood has not turned O'Donnell into the clean-TV crusader Newsweek would have you believe. Last week, she mouthed the word "asshole" on camera. Her jokes are edgy ("They're planning a sequel to 'Independence Day.' A second group of spaceships come down to be near the mothership. It's gonna be called 'Codependence Day.'") and her ad-libs are cool. When she said that her new haircut made her look like a British boy in a garage band, her inflection was so gutter-perfect ("So, you wanna sta' a band, then?" ), you knew that this is one talk show host who can tell a mod from a rocker. That a show as knowing and intelligent as "Rosie O'Donnell" even exists in daytime TV reflects the change in afternoon viewership -- and the workforce itself. Stay at home moms and kids with sniffles are not the only ones watching anymore. Now, you have to factor in telecommuters and people with home-based businesses who use the TV as coffee-break companionship. And procrastinating writers, artists and all manner of computer-industry freelancers. And people who work nights. And the under-employed. And the downsized. What if you're one of these and you loathe the soaps and the freak shows? "Rosie O'Donnell" is the first show to challenge TV's condescending, entrenched ideas about daytime viewers. But something is astir in the boardrooms -- you can see this new daytime demographic starting to creep into the commercials. For years, ads aimed at women and touting headache and menstrual pain remedies dominated the daytime tube. They're still around, of course, but they're losing ground to the antacids. During "Rosie O'Donnell," it seems every commercial break contains at least one commercial for Zantac or Tagamet or Di-Gel or Mylanta. The strain of family and career, the uncertainty of the job market, are enough to give anyone, male or female, an upset stomach. So no wonder "Rosie O'Donnell" is such a hit. It's like playing hooky from life, one hour at a time. And you don't need a note from Mom.