How Newsday critic reacted to Oprah debut

Here's an excerpt of how Marvin Kitman, Newsday's TV critic from 1969 to 2004, weighed in on the first "Oprah Winfrey Show" in a column that ran on Sept. 10, 1986.

The arrival of a new morning talk show host is always an important event, like a new neighbor moving in next door, somebody you can have coffee with, somebody you'll be seeing a lot of before she moves away (gets canceled or moves to another time slot).

One arrival creating a lot of excitement is Oprah Winfrey, who blew in from Chicago Monday with the first of her daily nationally syndicated shows. She has been doing "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in Chicago for two years, but this is the big test. Will it play in New York, not to mention Scranton and the other 132 cities King World has booked her into?

I've noticed that a lot of people can be excited by somebody who is supposed to be a big deal in Chicago. Until that person falls flat on his or her face in New York.

But Winfrey is terrific.

It takes at least a week for a talk show to sort of clear its throat. But here are a few first impressions:

First, she is a large woman. Not that large, as some of the stories had been saying. They made it sound like you would need a special large screen to see all of her.

But she isn't that big. She is a presence, as I like to say.

What a nice change she is from the usual TV talk show host, who is thin, blond and hungry-looking. Like Kathie Lee on "The Regis Philbin Show."

Oprah is overweight, there is no doubt about it. Like real people. She's not just another pretty TV face. You'll never see her in Jack La Lanne commercials.

But she's super on TV. The best new person I've seen in the morning since Diane Sawyer.

She is loud and boisterous, compared to the thin blondes who are usually soft-spoken. She throws her arms around people. She is always touching them, making contact. It's nice to see a person like that on TV for a change.

Oprah had a reputation in Chicago for being a very outspoken individual, which I guess is very unusual in Chicago or Scranton. Outspokenness is not such a novelty in New York.

She is also very candid about herself. In her opening show, Monday, she confessed that the two major concerns in her life are 1) her thighs and 2) her love life. (That's actually three, but who's counting?)

There had been so much hoopla about the first show, Oprah said in her opening monologue, that she had hives under her armpits. "Should my guests be Mother Teresa, the Pope, Greta Garbo or Don Johnson?" But she had elected to go for what she does best -- everyday people with everyday problems. She wanted to come down to real people's levels.

I hope she does real well. And Oprah can come into my house for coffee any time.