This is a day as momentous as the moon landing plus the fall of the Berlin wall multiplied by three Live Aids – Rosie O’Donnell’s back on TV!

After spending 17 months in the television wilderness, where she’s filled her time with nothing but failed comeback attempts and screwy pronouncements about other gay celebrities, it’s been announced that Rosie O’Donnell will host a live one-hour primetime show on NBC the day before Thanksgiving.

The show is to be entitled Rosie’s Variety Hour. It’s an accurate name, since the entire show is going to be an hour of Rosie O’Donnell destroying a variety of things that make her angry with a cricket bat – like a bible, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, the headquarters of an anti-abortion lobby group and, as a finale, a 30-storey slime-filled papier mache sculpture of Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Donald Trump holding hands.

It’s so strange to think that Rosie O’Donnell hasn’t been on TV for a year and a half, because she’s actually an incredibly versatile performer.

Just look at the things that Rosie O’Donnell has done in the past – she’s been a stand-up comedian, she’s hosted her own daytime TV show, she’s starred in sitcom and she’s destroyed the notion of Betty Rubble being sexy for about five separate generations. Oh, and she’s the queen of bellowing furious abuse at shrill conservatives, too.

However, it might have been this last one that’s kept Rosie O’Donnell off TV. After her final berserk days on The View, nobody wanted to touch her. The producers of The Price Is Right shied away from Rosie because she’d probably want to change the name to The Price Is RAAAAARGH! and would only ever ask questions about the price of the illegal war that America is waging in the Middle East in both financial and human terms.

But at least Rosie O’Donnell can put all her failure behind her now, because she’s just landed what might be the biggest job of her career – her very own primetime NBC show. EW reports:

Appropriately titled Rosie’s Variety Hour, the special will kick off with a topical monologue and feature celebrity guests, musical acts, comedy skits, and a “giant” giveaway for both the in-studio and home audiences. “This is a dream come true for any performer,” O’Donnell said in a statement. “Old time variety, live from New York with a nod to Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett and memories of Sonny and Cher.”

We’re really looking forward to Rosie’s Variety Hour, you know – we hear that the giant giveaway at the end comes in the form of knowledge, as a giant flashing sign that reads YOUR GOD IS DEAD AND ALL LIFE IS A MEANINGLESS STRING OF EVENTS WITH NO UNIVERSAL CONSEQUENCE.

But, regardless, we’d like to extend our sincere congratulations to Rosie O’Donnell. This is her dream job and, if the special is a success, it’s bound to run forever.

Or until Rosie decides to blurt out some sort of massively controversial rant about something sensitive enough to alienate her advertisers and put an end to the show, at least.

So about three weeks, then.