What you see is what you get

DEGENERES. Thrives on unpredictability, daring and an irreverent view of life.

Fans of Ellen Degeneres can now catch her talk-magazine show on its 12th year on the 2nd Avenue channel, at 7 a.m., 12 noon and 9 p.m.! Most TV stars would quickly overstay their welcome if they were as readily accessible ‘round the clock, but Ellen is a happy exception to that rule, as her long-running success and popularity on the tube indicates.

How does she do it? Very simply, she works really hard and creatively to keep her fans delighted. She doesn’t take their patronage for granted, and hires the best production people to come up with both zany and substantial concepts to keep her show fresh and “surprising.”

Aside from all that effort and involvement, Ellen has made millions of viewers trust and love her, because she’s the real deal and expects to be taken, positively or negatively, as herself. —What you see is what you get!

She “came out” as a lesbian many years ago, when it was really risky to do so for TV comedians and personalities like her. Producers warned her that it could turn out to be a suicidal move, career-wise, but her honesty impressed viewers, and ended up making her a bigger star than ever.

If you watch her show on a regular basis, you’ll know that it thrives on unpredictability, daring and a madcap and irreverent view of life. Nothing is sacred as far as the show is concerned—and that includes Ellen herself, who is sometimes enthusiastically and raucously spoofed by her very own employees! They take their cue from her self-deprecating attitude, and her penchant for laughing at herself.

But, there’s much more to “The Ellen Degeneres Show” than just fun and games—she dotes on supporting a wide range of pet advocacies, like exceptionally gifted child performers, LGBT issues, “underdog” but deserving political candidates, animal rights—etc.!

But, Ellen makes sure that everything is done in a completely accessible, “just-folks” way, so that “ordinary” viewers can understand and relate to complex issues and see how they affect their own day-to-day existence.

A really disarming “Ellen” touch is for the host or one of her assistants to appear uninvited at people’s front doors and join them at whatever they’re doing at all hours of the day or night. Other people who do that would be regarded as rude or even dangerous, but Ellen’s fans welcome her like the outrageously fun “relative” she’s become to them, after all these zany years.

Ellen Degeneres has become as comfortable as an old pair of bedroom slippers, so watching her show three times a day isn’t such a crazy and over-the-top idea—at all!

New chapter for KC

KC Concepcion has come back from an extended stay abroad, and she looks really good—and ready for a new and hopefully better chapter in her career, if not in her private life. Given her top-of-the-line show biz genes and “lineage,” she should be a bigger star than she has in fact become, no thanks to some wrong moves and unproductive detours in the past.

Being an artist, she “thinks with her heart,” which has been great for her performances, but not for some of her personal relationships, which have adversely affected her career.

In time, those erratic experiences—and the exits from the scene that they periodically provoked—led to her being regarded by some as an easily distracted and “defeated” performer, which is no way to sustain a consistently high-flying stellar career.

That was really too bad, because somewhere along the way of all those ups and downs, she had developed her performing skills to an admirable level, occasionally even winning awards for her versatility and bida-kontrabida portrayals.

So, now that she’s back and ready to write a new chapter in her decade-long career, KC should finally get a grip on her “appear-disappear” tendencies, really grow up and stay. No more impulsive exits when the show biz scene and her private life become too emotionally hot to handle, and no more self-punishing detours that adversely affect her image as a reliable professional.

She’s proven that she has what it takes to come up with even more vital and powerfully insightful portrayals, so she owes it to her talent to finally focus on it.

Feedback

A reader shares tantalizing trivia about stars’ real names: For instance, did we know that the lovely and gifted Bea Alonzo’s real name is—Philbert Angeline Ranollo Fagestrom?

Before he became Dennis Trillo, the GMA 7 contract star was privately known as Abelardo Dennis Florencio Ho!

More: Alma Moreno was Vanessa Laxamana. Verni Varga’s real surname was Mabugat, while Gina Alajar’s was Alatiit!

Before they joined show biz, Patricia Javier was Genesis Canlapan, Rica Peralejo was Carla Ligot, Mr. Fu was Jeffrey Espiritu, Papa Jack was John Gemperle, Vice Ganda was Jose Marie Viceral, Coco Martin was Rodel Luis Nacianceno, Jessy Mendiola was Jessica Tawile—and Heart Evangelista was Love Marie Ongpauco—!