The Rosie O'Donnell Show 

Like many, I absolutely loved this show when it debuted. Rosie's sweet, energetic, and friendly personality won over viewers and lit up the screen. The set was bright, colorful, and cheerful. And her passion for things such as Broadway musicals, Barbara Streisand, and old TV shows made you love them too. I was in college at the time, and would watch this during summer breaks and before I went to class. It was the first show I watched every day. It was a refreshing antithesis to the Jerry Springer-type shows that were popular at the time.

And then Rosie stopped being nice and started getting political. While I respect other people's beliefs, even if they differ from my own, Rosie had a decidedly lack of civility when she expressed them on her show. Following the Columbine incident, she could have used her bubbly personality to cheer people up and give them hope for a better world. Instead, she decided to use her show as her own anti-gun platform, even going so far as accosting Tom Selleck about the NRA in that infamous segment. I remember watching that interview as it aired, and had to change the channel mid-way because I couldn't watch it anymore. People didn't watch Rosie to hear political debates. They watched her to escape from the world. When Rosie lost sight of that, her show went downhill and lost viewers.

Coincidentally or not, it was when she decided to come out as a lesbian that her opinionated side really began to surface and change the show for the worse. (The gun incident was just a taste of what was to come.) It kind of made me wonder whether her sweet personality at the show's start was all just for show. She kind of came off as superficial. Who was the "real" Rosie?