{"id":92551,"date":"2024-04-28T21:54:23","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T04:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=92551"},"modified":"2024-04-28T21:54:23","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T04:54:23","slug":"joan-ellen-and-rosie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2024\/04\/28\/joan-ellen-and-rosie\/","title":{"rendered":"Joan, Ellen and Rosie"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1997, Joan Rivers <\/strong>told me she was writing a book.  \u201cIt\u2019s gonna be about how I lost my entire fortune…TWICE!\u201d  She called it, Bouncing Back: I\u2019ve Survived Everything…and I Mean Everything…and You Can Too!  <\/em><\/strong>I told her a better title would have been, Don\u2019t Let This Happen To You<\/em><\/strong>.  Lose a fortune once, shame on them.  Lose a fortune twice, shame on you.  I was reminded of this apropos of Ellen DeGeneres<\/strong>\u2019 return to the standup stage.  Her first show took place last week at Largo<\/em><\/strong> in West Hollywood, which is housed inside the lovely Coronet Theatre <\/em>\u2013 literally blocks away from my unpretentious Beverly Hills (adjacent) abode.  \u201cFor those of you keeping score, this is the second time I\u2019ve been kicked out of show business,\u201d said Ellen.  Here\u2019s the punch line: \u201cEventually, they\u2019re going to kick me out for a third time because I\u2019m mean, old, and gay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let me remind you how we got here.  I know people disagree with me regarding the sitcom, but it was not cancelled because she came out.  It was cancelled because people stopped watching.  And, in my humble opinion, people stopped watching because the show became unfunny.  Yes, some will argue that the network wasn\u2019t behind her.  The bottom line is showbiz will overlook anything if you\u2019re making money.  As for her talk show, it averaged over four million viewers a day at its peak.  After reports of a toxic workplace, it dropped to just over a million.  Again, money talks.  Trust me, nobody ever said Johnny Carson <\/strong>was warm and fuzzy.  People from Ellen\u2019s staff had conflicting experiences with her.  It\u2019s interesting to look at her DJs.  Her first, Scotty K<\/strong>, was dismissed without notice after a few months.  He rebounded by marrying Sean Hayes<\/strong>.  Tony Okungbowa <\/strong>stayed the longest \u2013 on and off for about eight years.  \u201cWhile I am grateful for the opportunity it afforded me, I did experience and feel the toxicity of the environment.\u201d  That is contrasted by tWitch<\/strong>, who replaced him.  \u201cObviously there\u2019s some things to address, but from my standpoint and from countless others, there\u2019s been love.\u201d  On the other hand, he killed himself.<\/p>\n

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Before Ellen started telling people to be kind to one another, Rosie O\u2019Donnell <\/strong>was the Queen of Nice<\/em>.  While she has many critics, we never heard complaints from any of Rosie\u2019s employees.  About a year ago, she tossed her hat into the podcast field with Onward<\/em><\/strong>.  I enjoyed it, but it was never an effortless fit.  Like so many comedians, Rosie is at her best with a live audience.  The long-form interview with a single guest was very hit-or-miss, so I wasn\u2019t surprised when Rosie announced she was ending the show.  She said she\u2019d like to find a way to incorporate live interaction with the audience.  Like they\u2019ve been doing since…oh, I dunno, the advent of radio!  If Seth Rudetsky <\/strong>and Billy Masters <\/strong>can find a way to do live shows that also work as podcasts, it can\u2019t be that hard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1997, Joan Rivers told me she was writing a book.  \u201cIt\u2019s gonna be about how I lost my entire fortune…TWICE!\u201d  She called it, Bouncing Back: I\u2019ve Survived Everything…and I Mean Everything…and You Can Too!  I told her a better title would have been, Don\u2019t Let This Happen To You.  Lose a fortune once, shame<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92560,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92551\/revisions\/92560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}