Opposite Ends of the Talk-Show Spectrum

He’s still a little bit rock ‘n’ roll, she’s still a little bit country. Together, they’re still bland after all these years.

There are worse things than a pair of sherbet cups named Donny and Marie hosting a daytime talk show. They’re as genial as siblings can be, after all, and with 11 kids between them project an affection for family that warms the camera.

Some of us will take them any morning over Regis and Kathie cloying Lee, whose ponderous hour thuds wearily opposite the new “Donny & Marie” in Los Angeles and is mandatory for every huckster with a sale to make. And take them over another syndicated 9 a.m. competitor, that huge pain in the artifice, Sally Jessy Raphael, who can take her practiced sanctimony and do you know what.

Yet that’s about it.

Not nearly as lovable as Donny and Marie is Roseanne, another new talk-show host seen here weekday mornings. The other difference is that Roseanne won’t render anyone comatose.

Credit the Rosie O’Donnell-nourished backlash against mean-spirited talkers with enabling Donny and Marie and others to get their own kinder, gentler, celeb-heavy hours on the air as an homage to when all talk shows were chips off a “Tonight Show” block dating from Johnny Carson taking over as host in the early 1960s.

There is no TV format better tailored to our entertainment-driven culture than the old-fashioned talk show that uses up celebrities like Sally Jessy’s teary guests do tissues. As noted by social critic Neal Gabler, celebrities themselves become entertainment in the U.S., not because of what they say or do, but just by being seen. They’re often not required to do much on talk shows, in fact, except move down one spot on the couch to make room for other celebrities.

You can understand space on this TV bandwagon going to irrepressible Roseanne, whose own 10 a.m. talk show has gouged a distinctive niche in daytime since arriving in September a week before “Donny & Marie.”

Although chilled out a bit, Roseanne is still crabby after all these years. You would have thought the camera was a shrink when she confessed to it Friday--spilling her own blood like a hemophiliac--that she was “mad at myself” because “I do not like how fast I can react without even thinkin’ my words through.” She reminded herself to “increase the peace,” not hate.

This self-pummeling came in an apology from Roseanne for making nasty comments about “Inside Edition” anchor Deborah Norville during her recent Paula Jones chat, which followed Norville’s own TV interview with Jones.

“I’m so sorry, Deborah Norville, please forgive me,” said Roseanne. As far as mea culpas went, it wasn’t as stunning as Jimmy Swaggert prostrating himself on TV after being found with a hooker. But she sounded more sincere than Swaggert, and was more persuasive than Bill Clinton when he came clean on TV about Monica Lewinsky.

If Roseanne is memorable, Donny and Marie epitomize the TV hypothesis that anyone famous with lips--in this case, four being better than two--merits a talk show. After all, it was only a season ago when moody, mumbly, misbehaving Dennis Rodman briefly had his own talk show on MTV, solely because of his notoriety.

Because he’s so exotic, even Rodman can command your attention in short spurts before you inevitably get an urge to nuke him. A few moments with Donny and Marie, though, and your lids feel like manhole covers.

Their show is occasionally endearing, as in Monday’s tender interview with a couple and their daughter, a terrific young woman who, defying the stereotype of Down’s syndrome, had been named her Utah high school’s homecoming queen.

More typically, though, talk on “Donny & Marie” far exceeds communication.

Instead of a true picture, what you usually get on all talk shows are performances for the camera. It’s just that Roseanne is better cast for the role of real than are Donny and Marie. Whereas she hemorrhages raw emotion and flaunts her life scars, Donny and Marie are mannered and tightly scripted. Whereas Roseanne projects spontaneity with her guests, every question Donny and Marie ask sounds canned or read from a cue card or prompter.

“Donny & Marie” is often a ringer for “The Sammy Maudlin Show,” a creation of those brilliant old SCTV satirists who had Sammy and his guests take turns fawning over each other. Just as the flattery hits the fan on “Donny & Marie.”

Said actor Lorenzo Lamas Friday about his hosts: “I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking to these two guys. I love these two guys. It’s just a real kick. Thanks so much for having me on your show. I looked forward to it so much.”

Said Marie: “We’re excited about your new show.”

Later came singer Peabo Bryson.

Said Donny: “You have one of the greatest voices. I love your voice. That’s not just patronizing you here. I mean it.”

Said Peabo: “Thanks very kindly. But you know, I have an album of yours . . . that I’d like for you to sign for me later. If you don’t mind.”

Said Donny: “Oh, it would be an honor.”

Said Peabo: “When I listened to you guys on television, it really inspired me to aim for bigger and better things.”

Where were Sally Jessy’s tissues when you really needed them?

Roseanne praises her guests, too, but usually in a different context. On Friday, to Willie Nelson, all bearded and braided and looking more and more like a human rain forest: “Your writing is astonishing.” Then: “Am I kissing your ass too much?”

Roseanne wouldn’t be Roseanne if she were perfect. And she does kiss up at times, as when letting kindly old Jerry Springer get away with portraying his talk show as a sanctuary for “the vast number of people in our society who don’t have all the words.” Oh, please. The same ones he cynically stereotypes by showing them resolving differences only through anger and violence?

And on Monday, there was Roseanne with fashion designer Richard Tyler and his wife, as runway models strutted his slinky collection before the camera. On they came, model after model looking about 16, with bodies so skeletal as to appear malnourished.

“These are the skinniest women on Earth,” cackled Roseanne, as if that were all there was to say in an age when skinny has become an unhealthy standard for so many young females.

On the other hand, no talk-show host but Roseanne would have asked Tyler: “How is it that you’re a designer and you’re not gay and you’re married and everything? How great is that?”

Whatever she meant, you gasped when she said it. And kept watching.