To me the daytime talk show went downhill when she added the craft corner segment, or whatever she called it.
The fact of the matter is, all comedy has a kernel of hostility in it, and when Rosie pushed the queen of nice thing on the daytime talk show it was a drastic shift from her standup days. I know, because I saw her in a tiny club years before she was out, or had adopted her first kid. She was caustic, and hilarious.
I believe that she left the talk show once she had completely painted herself into a corner with the niceness thing. She went back to how she really is, which FREAKED so many people out after they had considered her their personal avuncular friend who came into their living room five days a week and showed them how to do fun things with yarn and a glue gun while shooting Koosh balls at them.
A separate point from this is that variety show is a dead language, like Latin. It can't be revived, no matter how rosey the colored glasses some people wear to look back at the memories of variety show pleasures of the past.
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