Before her Sept. 5 debut as the new moderator of ABC's The View, Rosie O'Donnell heeded some advice from her admittedly nervous partner, Kelli Carpenter O'Donnell. In the daytime talk show's "Hot Topics" segment, says O'Donnell, "I was going to say, 'And now my thoughts on the current Administration.' Just as a joke. But Kelli's like, 'It's not funny. Don't do it. They won't laugh. Barbara will panic.' And I'm like, 'Okay...'" Kelli needn't have worried. By the show's first commercial break, Walters and fellow panelist Joy Behar were giving Rosie high-fives; Elisabeth Hasselbeck contributed a fist-knock. "This is a woman who is used to doing it all herself," said Walters after the taping, referring to the hit talk show that O'Donnell gave up in 2002 for a life of family-focused downtime. "And now she had to make sure she included each of us, and she did that seamlessly—and that's not easy."

Our Critic's Verdict
by Tom Gliatto

For her first day, Rosie O'Donnell was full of big-gestured showbiz energy. This was the old talk show Rosie, the Queen of Nice. She gave away a cruise to the entire audience, made funny faces, even belted out a fragment of a nutty song about Barbara Walters trying to Google. But maybe a smidgen of news-anchor gravitas would help. When the gals tried to hash over the headlines, most notably the death of animal adventurer Steve Irwin, the conversation never took hold, and the news dribbled away. I missed Meredith Vieira, who's taking her perpetual look of amused and keen curiosity over to Today. The View needs more than good-time Rosie. Maybe that will come.

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Welcome Gifts
At show's end, Simpson wheeled out this cake highlighting O'Donnell's hits and misses on Broadway before she joined The View.

The card that came with this bouquet (left) reads, "Dear Rosie, Congratulations. We are so happy for you. Have a great show. Love, Tom & Kate." "He's a classy guy," O'Donnell says of her friend Cruise. "I love him."