Mikey Likes TV

I imagine history will look back on Rosie O’Donnell’s brief tenure at The View as a solar eclipse of crazy – if history looks back at all. She burned bright and fast, and anyone who stared directly into The View over the last couple of months was either mesmerized or blinded. Rosie’s ignorant tirades masquerading as progressive thinking proved to be more than just the yin to Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s uninformed, conservative yang – it provided the tabloids with more fodder than anyone could have ever expected from Barbara Walters’ estrogen-soaked jaunt into daytime.

But is there really much life left in The View with so many empty seats, and so few options for viable replacements? This morning Rosie delivered her best expression of Melinda Doolittle shock as Joy listed off the media outlets who’d been discussing the news of her departure – as if she just doesn’t see the big deal. Nothing is more repulsive than feigned modesty, especially when it comes from professional panderers. Alas, if it were any other day, I would probably linger on the topic myself, but there are far more important matters at hand.

This morning marked the highly anticipated return of Regis Philbin after his six-week, surgery-induced hiatus. A staple of my morning routine for as long as I can remember, the last month and a half without him was made worse by the string of awkward choices to fill his seat (with one outstanding exception). But now he is back, looking no worse for the wear, and possibly sporting some newly lifted eyes as well.

David Letterman was on hand to receive Regis’s bizarre adulation, and their mutual cardiologist stopped by to explain the procedure he performed on the two of them. Before they lingered on the topic of his mortality long enough to actually get poignant, five men dressed as Regis appeared onstage to perform a dance to The Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive” – reminding us all why there’s really no point in watching past the show’s opening twenty-minutes.