January 26 - Ellen DeGeneres

Image courtesy NBC.com

On this day, in 1958, Ellen Lee DeGeneres was born in Metairie, Louisiana. Shortly after her parents divorced in 1974, Ellen's mother remarried and they relocated to a small town on the western edge of Texas called Atlanta. Her older brother Vance stayed in Louisiana with their father. She graduated from Atlanta High School in 1976, returned to Louisiana to begin attending the University of New Orleans, made it through one semester and dropped out. She began working a variety of jobs, doing anything from clerical work in a law firm to being a waitress, all the while performing as a stand up comic wherever someone would give her a microphone.

By 1981, Ellen had made enough of a mark on the local comedy scene that she was working as the emcee at Clyde's Comedy Club in New Orleans. She began touring nationally and, in 1984, was named Funniest Person in America by Showtime. As the Nineties began, Ellen supplemented her stand-up career with appearances in (mostly) forgettable movies like Goodbye Lover and Mr. Wrong. It wasn't until she hit the small screen that she truly became a household name.

Image copyright Fox

In 1989, Ellen landed a one episode role on the Fox sitcom Duet. When Duet was cancelled shortly thereafter, her character from that episode became a recurring character on the spin-off show, Open House. The second show only lasted one season, but was great exposure for Ellen. Two years later, she landed a role on the ABC sitcom Laurie Hill. That show only lasted five episodes, but Ellen was generally praised as being the single bright spot. When the producers of Laurie Hill created another show in 1994, These Friends of Mine, they included her as one of the four friends. By the end of the first season, Ellen was clearly the most successful character on the show so focus was shifted to her and the show itself was renamed Ellen.

Image copyright ABC

Ellen itself was a modest hit that ran for five seasons. The highest ratings it ever got for a season put it at the number thirteen show but it was nominated for a slew of awards in those years. Ellen herself was nominated for everything from Golden Globes to SAG Awards including the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy four out of the five seasons. The series won the Satellite Award and GLAAD Media Award for Best Comedy in 1988. The thing Ellen is remembered most for, though, is its fourth season. Ellen had come out as a lesbian on Oprah in April of 1997. Naturally she felt it was important that her television character do the same thing. ABC agreed and the show experienced a surge in popularity leading up to the coming out episode. I would argue that the string of shows where her character danced up to and around the big announcement are some of the funniest episodes ever on television. Then the fatal episode actually aired.

Image copyright Disney

Ellen crashed and burned, in my opinion, for two reasons. While ABC (and its parent company Disney) should be lauded for green lighting the first sitcom with an openly gay lead, once they had that show, they no longer knew what to do. They got scared of backlash and began running a parental warning before every episode, not something that bodes well for a comedy. They also became super sensitive (and highly defensive) towards any criticism. I know this was all pre-Will and Grace but the network executives clearly got a bad case of buyer's remorse. The ultimate reason Ellen was ultimately cancelled though was that following the coming out episode, it became a whole lot less funny. It limped through an entire fifth season with rapidly dwindling ratings. Disney had clearly lost interest in it as well, as they didn't do hardly any promotion for it and seemed pretty relieved when they could finally pull the plug in 1989.

Image copyright Disney

After another try at a sitcom in 2001 that only lasted eight episodes, Ellen changed tactics in 2003 by joining a growing list (at the time) of celebrity hosted daytime talk shows. The main difference with The Ellen DeGeneres Show, of course, is that it's still on the air (and still as popular as ever). Her talk show won a total of 25 Daytime Emmy Awards in just the first three seasons (it has a total of 59 now). Almost universally heralded as a bastion of good will in the wasteland of television, the show has garnered legions of fans and made Ellen one of the most beloved celebrities in existence, with a YouTube channel consistently in the top twenty. She's hinted that her run as Queen of Talk Shows may come to an end in 2020, but we'll worry about that later.

Ellen cemented her place in the Disney family in two big ways after the demise of her sitcom on ABC. One was as the star of the revamped Universe of Energy attraction at Epcot, Ellen's Energy Adventure (the Audio-Animatronic of her alone will live on in infamy). The second was when she voiced the befuddled blue tang, Dory, for Pixar's 2003 classic, Finding Nemo. Ellen won that year's Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first time a female had won for voice work. 13 years later, she returned as Dory for the delightful (and even more successful) sequel, Finding Dory.

What will Ellen do once her talk show wraps up? Probably anything she wants. She recently returned to stand-up with a special on Netflix after a 17 year hiatus. She's hosted multiple awards shows including the Emmys three times and the Grammys and the Oscars twice. She's currently acting as producer on several upcoming projects. If we're lucky, we might see her return in another theme park attraction or Nemo sequel. Or she might just relax for the rest of her life with her wife, Portia. But I think that's about as likely as Dory getting Nemo's name right.