Entertainment

‘GIVE’ O DAMN

JUST when you were sure there weren’t any other ways to make chicken soup out of chicken scratch, along comes “Oprah’s Big Give,” an “Apprentice” for the unselfish. As in most things Oprah, it will make you weep with sadness and with happiness. The woman’s a genius at being able to wrench these emotions out of the most jaded among us. OK, I mean me.

Yes, there are the usual bunch of hand-picked contestants with good hair who compete with one another to see who can grow a fortune out of seed money of $2,500. In this case, however, the contestants are looking to grow these fortunes to help others out of hopeless situations. They don’t know that the winner among them will win $1 million.

On Sunday night’s premiere, the 10 winning contestants are informed via phone by Oprah that they have been chosen out of thousands of applicants to play the giving game. This comes as a giant surprise to each of them, which is bizarre. Didn’t they notice the film crew in their homes? Seriously, now.

That aside, the contestants include a West Point grad, a singer, a disaster relief worker, a woman who became paralyzed in a car accident, a beauty queen and a 22-year-old dot com millionaire.

Hosted not by Oprah, but by her favorite celebrity decorator, Nate Berkus, there are also three judges who fire one or two kind-hearted givers each week. They are “Naked Chef” Jamie Oliver, NFL star Tony Gonzalez and Chris Rock’s wife, Malaak Compton-Rock. And that’s the hitch. It’s like competitive altruism. Isn’t that an oxymoron? In a way, there’s something wrong about it. It’s like, “You are a lousy do-gooder! Get out and stop doing good!”

The 10 contestants are broken up into five teams, which raise money to help their assigned needy cases. There is a woman who works with disabled people who wants a rec center; a new widow with two little girls whose husband was murdered while working at Home Depot; a homeless woman with two teenage children; a young man who grew up in South Central with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical school student loans; and a wounded Iraqi veteran.

The teams get out there and do some remarkable fund-raising, and, in one case, when all else has failed, they get in touch with Jamie Foxx, who gives them $50,000.

Think “The Apprentice” meets “Extreme Home Makeover” and you’ve got the heartwarming “Oprah’s Big Give.” All shows together equal more Sunday-night tears than a feelgood Lifetime movie marathon.