What’s in Store for a Solo Kathie Lee?

What can Kathie Lee Gifford be planning to do now that she is leaving Regis Philbin?

Ride the game show wave by reviving “Name That Tune”? Grab some bucks at TNN with a new “Hee Haw Honeys”? Go beyond the Christmas special mode to salute St. Patrick’s Day and the Fourth of July, too?

More to the point, what can Gifford be thinking? She’s got the best gig on the planet right now. “Live With Regis & Kathie Lee” is practically a drive-through assignment, little effort required. And it’s an hour of TV face time every single weekday, syndicated to practically every set in the country.

Since the Manhattan-based show is really, truly live and designed to let its hosts ramble, she can say or do whatever she wants. She can spout, she can pout, she can dish, she can lecture. She’s forever on people’s screens and in their minds and practically permeates the culture, whether people love her, hate her or love to hate her.

She has established such a distinct persona that she’s parlayed it into a WalMart clothing line, infomercials, record albums and several books. She’s big enough for Howard Stern and “South Park” and Broadway and Billy Graham specials.

And she’s leaving this perfect platform to. . . .?

Hopefully not wind up the same as so many other stars who’ve simply “outgrown” their TV jobs. Like that other “South Park” parody, David Caruso, last seen in cartoon form plummeting headfirst to the ground from the heights of a spaceship. (You had to be there.)

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Better Gifford should learn from another daytime diva, Vanna White, who stretched herself to TV movies, dolls and a home-shopping clothing line, but never left her “Wheel of Fortune” base, which turned out to be the only one she could really count on. Or Susan Lucci, whose “All My Children” eminence helps power her outside acting gigs and hair-care product pitching by keeping her perpetually in the public eye.

Gifford probably would argue she’s more versatile, perhaps even more talented than these stars, and she may be right. She’s got real chops as a singer and an actor. And certainly we know more about her personally than about them--she’s made sure of that--so we know what we’d be getting in a different package. Which could be a problem.

She’s part of a consummate dynamic with Regis in their give-and-take format. Even viewers who think she’s holier-than-thou can get a kick out of “Regis & Kathie Lee.”’ They can watch just to rag on her. But as a solo star, she’s another matter. Is her fan base big enough or devoted enough to support that, alone, full time? You can bet she’s lusting after sole stardom; second billing to Regis must have hurt even before “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” made him into a multi. After all, he’s just a funny nice guy. She’s a spirited woman with a mouth, and that’s the key commodity in daytime TV.

So is “Kathie Lee” the next weekday strip for syndication? And what would it look like--a talkfest, a variety show (ask Suzanne Somers and Martin Short if those work), a self-helper? Or is she gunning for prime time--a sitcom proving she can play off her upright image, or a “7th Heaven” family drama? Maybe “The 700 Club”? They took devout Susan Howard off “Dallas.”

Yet, any of these would doubtless entail more time away from the kids about whom Gifford brags so ceaselessly, so maybe she’s just had enough of having it all. She’s got the bucks now, and she’s got the name. Why not take a break?

You’d need one, too, after 12 years of daily Regis-ism. Hey, she could do a radio talk show from home. She’s opinionated enough. And nobody could diss her hairstyle. Look out, Dr. Laura.