Tony Danza's first Talk Show Host episode debuted on Tuesday with  Liza Minnelli, James Gondolfini, Regis Philbin (1/2 Italian), and Ereka Vetrini, late of "The Apprentice", an All Italian Lineup.

Tony Danza is best known for his TV parts on "Taxi" and "Whose the Boss", but he has appeared in  34 movies, and Produced 10 Projects, and is a Singer.

I don't recall even one Italian mobster he has portrayed, or even appearing in one Movie about Italian Mobsters !!

A Talk Show is a TUFF gig, but as well liked as Tony is in the Biz, he may get the guests, but the time slots are clogged, and he is going to have trouble getting into every market, at a decent hour. I'm rooting for him!!!!

A HEAPING PORTION OF TALK SHOW PARMIGIANA

The New York Times
By Virginia Hefferman
September 14, 2004
 

It went by so fast!,'' gushed Tony Danza, the big sweetheart. "It felt like a dream!" The credits were rolling fast on the first episode of "The Tony Danza Show" yesterday morning.

It was all too much. The heart of everyone on the set seemed to swell with that expansive, emotionally sloppy New York love - the narrow but potent emotion associated with Italian-Americans, grandma nostalgia, man-on-man hugs and dreams of making a brand new start of it in the city that never sleeps.

"New York, New York" climaxed the hour, in fact. Performed by Liza Minnelli, no less.

Ms. Minnelli, dressed in black, had throat trouble during her segment on the show, which is broadcast live. A coffee cup - full of water, presumably - was provided for her. The cup was a bit incongruous because this is not a womany, cuddle-up-and-chat kind of talk show. It's far more dancey and huggy. By the time she got up to sing, the cough was under control, though she managed the old song awkwardly.

No matter. This "New York, New York" wasn't meant to be something in itself; it was meant to remind us of days gone by. Mr. Danza opened the show with what he called an homage to his garbageman father: we saw our host arriving on a garbage truck. The father is no longer with us. Mr. Danza's mother, too, has died. "I know they're watching together somewhere," Mr. Danza mused. "I just hope they like the show." Women in the audience - from the neighborhood? - nodded appreciatively.

I had never in my life thought about Mr. Danza's parents, but I too found myself hoping that his parents were together, liking the show. I brushed away a tear. What was going on here?

Frank sentimentalism got a further boost when Mr. Danza showed a home movie of his family's recent trip to Italy. He appeared alongside old aunts and kept running into cousins.

The backdrop on the set included a fragmented and artificial, but splendid, view of the Brooklyn Bridge. If the boxing, acting, singing and dancing that have defined Mr. Danza's show business career suddenly don't work out, he seems to know his way home.

In addition to Ms. Minnelli - who talked about her parents, the magic of show business and her part on "Arrested Development" (a clip of this acid sitcom seemed out of place amid this exuberant New Yorkism, for here Ms. Minnelli is treated as a legend, not a punch line) - Regis Philbin checked in on little Tony. Mr. Philbin, whom Mr. Danza called the "capo di tutti capi," wished the new host luck, and joined him in a corny duet of "It Had to Be You," which they sang to a bewildered woman from Long Island. Rarely is the mention of geography greeted with such enthusiasm: Long Island! Are you kidding me? I went to high school there! Shirley! Near Patchogue! Long Island! Hooray!

Ereka Vetrini, late of "The Apprentice" ("Don't say it, Mr. Trump"), appeared as Mr. Danza's semi-sidekick: she's doing some Vanna White work in a game-show segment, and otherwise laughing at the old folks' jokes. A sharp-tongued, underdressed contestant on "The Apprentice," Ms. Vetrini also has a good-niece side, and she hammed up her Italianness with Mr. Danza, who calls her Vetrini, because, he said, he likes the vowel on the end of the name.

The provincial New York sensibility of "The Tony Danza Show" may provide a sweet nostalgia trip for a day or even a week, but it will never be enough to propel a talk show. It's risky to put this in print, but here goes: Not many television viewers today care about Vincente Minnelli, Long Island trivia or even old Sinatra numbers.

The show did get some relevance with a comic appearance by James Gandolfini of "The Sopranos." Mr. Danza introduced him as the show's booker, and Mr. Gandolfini was shown at a desk issuing extortionate phone demands to would-be guests. He sounded like Silvio talking about Tony Soprano, and that was unnerving, but funny.

Clearly Mr. Danza had called in a favor from Mr. Gandolfini. Suddenly it wasn't hard to imagine a confab of Vetrinis, Danzas, Gandolfinis and even Minnellis cooking up this whole show at the baptism of someone's second cousin. How endearing.

THE TONY DANZA SHOW

ABC, weekdays at 10 a.m.; check local listings.
Directed by Barry Glazer; Jon Redmann, executive producer; Tony Danza, host.

Tony Danza
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001103/