`THE ROSEANNE SHOW' WANTS YOU, GIRLFRIEND.

Byline: Keith Marder Daily News Television Critic

She screamed, she whispered, and she grilled a dead-on fake Linda Tripp (called, for legal purposes, Linder Tripp). The one thing Roseanne didn't seem to do during the premiere of ``The Roseanne Show'' was speak in a regular voice.

The syndicated talk show, which airs 10 a.m. weekdays on KNBC (Channel 4), debuted Monday with Roseanne hoisted over the audience in a cherry picker, sprinkling rose pedals and flinging Polaroid pictures she took of herself down to the audience from her perch in the bucket.

She did a monologue and the Tripp comedy sketch, gabbed with guests and had a singer like other talk shows. But Roseanne also dealt with issues of parenting and child-rearing while trying to be uplifting and inspirational.

``Roseanne'' tried - maybe a little too hard - to be all things to all people. All people, that is, except men.

One thing is for sure: Attracting male viewers is not a major concern.

Sure it's a daytime show, and the audience is primarily made up of women, but this show takes it too far. ``Roseanne'' couldn't be more squarely aimed at women if you put a target over 51 percent of the country.

Roseanne's gal pal Whoopi Goldberg was her first guest. The two sat on animal-print chairs, talking about Goldberg's 8-year-old movie ``Ghost'' and plugging her new job as the center square on ``Hollywood Squares'' (which is produced by ``Roseanne'' producer King World). Talk eventually turned to the fact that both women were once welfare mothers.

Roseanne joked that it would have cost $7,000 for the rights to show Goldberg in ``Ghost,'' so the clip was skipped and, in a fine comic turn, a sketch artist was brought on to depict scenes from the film.

Then they moved on to ``issues.'' The two debated the Ken Starr report, often shrieking and talking over each other.

Goldberg told the tale of when she found out that her 14-year-old daughter was pregnant and that she didn't get mad because ``sex is a wonderful thing - how could I be angry at her for having it?''

Roseanne said if it were her daughter she would have beaten her (butt).

The anecdote ``coincidentally'' led perfectly into the show's next segment.

After the commercial break, the statistic that every 26 seconds another adolescent gets pregnant popped on the screen, and three invited teen-age mothers (one with a second child on the way) were brought out.

Roseanne and Goldberg sat at the edge of the stage and talked to - no, whispered to - the three moms, counseling them. The women were given the $7,000 Roseanne said the show saved on Goldberg's movie clip, and she asked the three moms to act as each other's support group and check back in a month.

To punctuate, with an exclamation point, that this is for and about women, Sandra Bernhard, whose lips make her look like Mick Jagger and whose moving-only-from-the-waist-up dancing style resembled Tina Turner, belted out an earthy ``I Am Woman'' as Roseanne, back in the cherry picker, threw her a batch of flowers.

Women love flowers, you know.

But as for the show, women may have problems loving it because, ironically, it may be aimed too squarely at them.