DeGeneres shows she’s a talk show natural

Ellen DeGeneres closes out the first week at the helm of her own daytime talk show today at 3 on KNBC-TV Channel 4, and it should come as little surprise that the shakeout cruise has been a smooth one.

You’d be hard-pressed to find any actor or comedian in Hollywood who isn’t convinced they have a talk show in them, but after years of work polishing her gifts in other show-biz pursuits, DeGeneres looks like the real deal here. She’s mastered her timing on a procession of sitcoms, earning a Peabody Award and a writing Emmy for “Ellen,” and has even penned a best-selling book (1995’s “My Point ... and I Do Have One”). But it’s her style as a stand-up that may have been the best predictor for ability in the talk-show realm.

Like Bob Newhart, whose most memorable moments on stage are in his classic phone “conversations,” DeGeneres has a loose, almost stammering delivery that allows the comedy to spill out so casually as to appear to be asides to a pal. And it’s the perfect rhythm for the peculiar rigors of the talk format.

The relaxed and comfortable mindset carries over to the set, which features sofas instead of a desk and guest-chair arrangement, and to the use of a DJ instead of a house band. She opens before the live audience with stand-up monologues, which got shorter and better as the week went on, and finishes it on the couch. Behind the scenes, DeGeneres has gone with veterans Mary Connelly (“Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn”) and Ed Glavin (“The Caroline Rhea Show”) as executive producers, and she’s kept busy all week working the show’s staffers into the mix.

The audience has been predictably adoring, and the guest list has been a pop-culture dream (Jennifer Aniston, Justin Timberlake, Macy Gray), with DeGeneres nimbly keeping the interviews fun and light. The trick will be to keep it going.