Happiness is a new TV show for Donita Rose

DONITA Rose. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

From time to time, we’ve been citing Donita Rose as one of the TV talents we miss seeing on the small screen, where her rare combination of beauty and a good heart are sorely missed.

Well, we’re glad to see that, after a rather long hiatus, Donita is back on TV by way of the new GMA 7 show (11 a.m. weekdays), “Basta Everybody Happy.”

The 30-minute talk-magazine show is co-hosted by Alessandra de Rossi, Chef Boy Logro and Gladys Reyes. Its upbeat format puts a deft spin on its post-programming, “The Ryzza Mae Show,” the pint-sized host of which is famous for her own “signature” admonition, “Bawal ang sad.”

True enough, “Basta Everybody Happy” does its darnedest to put a smile and slap-happy grin on viewers’ faces with its bright mix of features and guests. On its first telecast, for instance, the main guests were the “graduates” of the very first edition of GMA’s “Starstruck” talent search. Impressively, most of them were all present and accounted for, from top winner Jennylyn Mercado to Mark Herras, Yasmien Kurdi, Dion Ignacio etc.

At the moment, Jennylyn, Mark and Yasmien can still be seen regularly on the tube, and Dion and Nadine Samonte are occasional guest performers on different shows. And, let’s not forget that Cristine Reyes was a part of the group before she moved over to ABS-CBN, where she’s now a certified lead player. That’s a pretty good showing for successful “graduates” as TV talent tilts gomost of the others produce only one or two graduates who remain visible stars for at least a couple of seasons.

Instructive

The “Starstruck” alumni had a really fun time touching base with one another, but it was also instructive to see how the batch’s less-popular products “projected” themselves in the course of the long group feature.

There was palpable regret over the fact that their career prospects hadn’t panned out as well as Jennylyn and Mark’sbut also a proud refusal to call it quits on their ever-flaming dream of stardom!

The new show should be complimented for coming up with such a unique feature on its first telecast, and we hope that its subsequent features will be similarly eventful.

As far as the hosting goes, however, some of the show’s four cohosts didn’t have much to do on the first telecast, like Chef Boy and Donita. We’re informed that, in other telecasts, they’ll take case of the “cooking portion,” since Donita honed her cooking skills during her long absence from the small screen. We hope that their “chef-sous chef” combination will be as droll and entertaining as it bids fair to be.

Now that Donita is back on TV, she should lose a few more pounds to really get back to “fighting” trim. She’s as lovely as ever, so we hope that, after a few more tweaks in this direction and that, she’ll be back on TVto stay!