A Hilarious Start for Oprah Winfrey's 21st Season on ABC Daytime

The 21^st season of The Oprah Winfry Show started out with Oprah, Gayle, and over 3,000 miles of road between

Santa Barbara, CA and New York, NY . It's Oprah as you've rarely seen her: pumping her own gas, impersonating herself, and screaming at Gayle's incessant singing. If the first show is any indication, this season should be a lot of fun!

This summer, Oprah Winfrey had a bright idea: I'll go on a road trip with my best friend Gayle and we'll do it like "regular people" with no star treatment for 11 days. They started out in a good mood, with Oprah driving away from her Santa Barbara home thinking of a popular jingle in her childhood which encouraged viewers to travel the in a Chevrolet.

In homage to that jingle, they drove off in a red Chevy, headed for Las Vegas, NV to spend the night. Little did Gayle know that Oprah had not pumped her own gas since 1983 and little did Oprah know that her best friend Gayle could sing every song on Heartsong radio for over 3 hours. Add to this the fact that Oprah admits to having "merging anxiety", problems with driving over bridges, driving with music playing, and driving over unpaved roads. Oh, boy!

While Oprah is screaming and throwing up her hands, the audience is cracking up. Gayle and Oprah have become the next Oscar and Felix, the black female Odd Couple. It was impossible not to laugh as first Oprah is rescued by a young male fan as she pumps gas in the Mojave Desert and then she misreads the pump and thinks that it took $29 to fill her tank. Gayle gently informs her that the tank took 29 gallons to fill and that the price was $127 dollars. Unfortunately, as Oprah planned to "rough it" for the trip, she did not bring $127 dollars! It was absolute hilarity to watch Oprah Winfrey, who is reputed to be worth $ 975 million dollars (according to Forbes Magazine's Top 400 Rich List), scrambling to put together the money to pay for her expensive gas.

The comedy continues as Oprah goes through the regular entrance to the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. We quickly learn why there is a special private entrance to hotels such as these as paparazzi and fans show up and for the rest of her stay, policemen and security guards follow her around to make sure no one approaches her.

The show was thoroughly entertaining and realistic. While several serious episodes follow during Oprah Winfrey's opening week, no one will be able to forget the site of Oprah in her headphones and reading her book trying to ignore Gayle's off-key singing or Oprah standing in front of the gas station not knowing how to put in the gas pump. If she makes another Oprah TV show highlights DVD, this episode has to go on it!

The fun is not nearly over. For the next few weeks in September/October, Oprah will show more clips of her road trip with Gayle. You can also view snippets of the trip on Oprah's website. And since Oprah generally keeps information for months on her site, you'll be able to pull up quotes and clips for the rest of the year! 5 Stars for the start of The Oprah Winfrey Show's 21^st season.