TVSquad

I don't usually post gossip show clips, but I'm doing this for two reasons. One, I find it funny that two 70s icons are going after each other over their weight loss programs. And two, I can't imagine Ted Koppel doing this story when he was on Nightline. (Full Nightline segment here.) Bertinelli calls Osmond's Nutrisystem food "crappy," while Osmond wonders why a 49 year-old would want to be in a bikini. (For the record, I think Bertinelli looks great in a bikini.)

Kirstie Alley is coming back to the small screen and Oprah's got her. Harpo Productions has signed Alley for future TV projects. It could be a sitcom like Fat Actress, it could be a talk show, like the one she shopped around last year, but in whatever format, Harpo will be behind it. One definite possibility would be for Kirstie to appear in a show on OWN, the new Oprah Winfrey Network, which used to be Discovery Health Channel.

We seem to be in the middle of a Valerie Bertinelli renaissance.

First Bertinelli signed up with Jenny Craig and is the new spokesperson (bye-bye Kirstie Alley), then she became a correspondent for Rachael Ray, then she released a memoir, and then she made the inevitable appearance on Oprah. She was also on Larry King Live earlier this week and when he asked her if she would like to do a talk show, she didn't say "hey, I already have one!" but that must have been the case, because she has one. Bertinelli has signed with CBS to develop a new talk show for the 2009-10 season.

First she lost all that weight on Jenny Craig, and now she might gain it all back.

Actress Valerie Bertinelli is joining Rachael Ray. She'll be a celebrity content buddy, doing stories about food and family and being a working mom. Her first show will be tomorrow, October 23. Bertinelli will report from New Orleans, where she'll give women a guide to Monday Night Football and cook gumbo.

I've always liked Bertinelli. It's about time she's back on television in some way. I hope she gets her own series. Something tells me that she'll be more likable than Ray on her appearances on the show, though "celebrity content buddy" has to be one of the most annoying titles I've ever heard.

It looks like Kirstie Alley may have a post-Jenny Craig career after all. The Emmy Award-winning actress will head the cast of Fox's comedic pilot The Minister of Divine. Alley will play a renegade-turned-preacher who returns to her small hometown as a woman of the cloth. The show is based on BBC series The Vicar of Dibley.

Feel free to insert your own joke about ministers counseling the faithful on the caloric content of the Saturday night fish fry, but I've got faith in Alley. She came back from Look Who's Talking. She can come back from the Oprah tankini dance. I feel like Alley may age into one of my favorite female archetypes - the "I don't care what you think of me," "seen it all" dames of the Elaine Stritch, Kathleen Turner and Kiki and Herb mold. Technically, Kiki's a drag queen, but you know what I mean.

About a year ago, Kirstie Alley went on Oprah to tell her and the audience why she had ballooned to over 220 pounds and how she managed to drop 55 pounds. Remember that at the same time she decided to become a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig and start losing the weight, she starred in a self-parodying Showtime series Fat Actress, so her chubbiness ended up being quite profitable for her.

Now she's lost a total of 75 pounds, and is so proud of her new figure, the 55-year-old Alley is going to appear on the show again this afternoon... in a bikini. Think about this: not many 55-year-olds would appear on a national TV show in a bikini to begin with, much less one that has just lost the equivalent of a 25-inch TV off their bodies. I'm sure some of the leftover flab has been nipped and tucked by talented doctors, but going out there in a bikini is pretty brave, even for a ballsy woman like Alley.

Alley talks about her weight gain and loss, and her Oprah appearance, in this Life magazine inteview. The details of what she ate to get to her maximum density is pretty scary, even to a hefty eater like myself.