Vicki Lawrence Hopes Her Show Can Help FOX

Her makeover for the ailing "Fox After Breakfast" franchise debuted Tuesday (9 a.m.), but the host of "The Vicki Lawrence Show" would be a great guest for anybody's daytime talk show.

"I had a hit talk show. I just wasn't working for the right people," Lawrence said. "It was `Rosie' before Rosie."

"Vicki!", which was nominated for an Emmy Award in its freshman year, followed Lawrence's success in "The Carol Burnett Show" troupe and "Mama's Family." It folded in 1994 after two seasons of "creative differences."

"Everybody reads that the show was canceled, but basically I was fired," Lawrence recalled. "I went through the anger, the guilt, I even went through a period of depression. Me! It was a horrible thing, because there is nothing that anybody who loves you can say to pull you out.

"The kids are grown, you don't have any plans. You don't even know what day it is. You just want to sleep. You get up, but all you want so say is, `Can I go back to my cocoon?' "

Speaking engagements helped her recover. "My fans were probably the most therapeutic thing for me," she said. "We're all going through a lot of the same stuff together."

Then, two Valentine's Days ago, her husband, Al Schultz, introduced her to a 7-week-old black Labrador retriever named Hannah.

"If it weren't for Hannah, I believe I'd weigh 900 pounds and live at the Betty Ford Clinic," she said.

"Al told me, `I didn't like the lady that came out at the end of

that talk show and I hope she doesn't come back.' "

The offer to take over "Fox After Breakfast" came when she and Al were preparing to sail their 70-foot sloop, Vicki, across the Pacific. "I said to Al, `This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,' and I kept packing for Hawaii."

But she agreed to meet with Fox executives, and they prevailed. "They said, `We would like you to go to New York and save the franchise.' I said to Al, `I think we're moving to New York.' Then I cried."

"Hannah walked up with her ball in her mouth and said, `Come on, let's play.' "

So it is, her life and household are somewhere en route to New York.

"My family is everywhere and that's kind of hard," Lawrence acknowledged. "But the kids are out of the house. They're grown and it wasn't as complicated as it could have been.

"My daughter said, `Mom, think of this as your semester abroad.' "

Her new Fox show, she said, "is the talk show I always wanted to do. Nothing dysfunctional. Just entertainment, information and fun - and not necessarily in that order."

She asked Fox "to move some furniture around" and add a studio audience.