God I loved that, including the digital short. They could have made it a dirty Poehler/Parnell-style rap so easily (which, okay, still would have worked), but they didn’t. Like others, I could have used a Golden Girls sketch (there was actually a sketch ages ago where Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sank were members of an all-male club that got together and dressed up as the Golden Girls). Because, even if the whole thing was due to hipsters subsisting on a healthy diet of irony, that show was damned – and dirty – and it holds up really well.
Dur hurr hurr. It sure is funny when an old lady says a dirty word.
I’m not upset that they went there, but disappointed that that’s pretty much all they did. What a waste of a huge comedic talent.
The census taker thing was pretty funny, though.
Amen!
I agree. It had it’s moments. But it was too much of “hey, here’s a sweet, little, old lady saying the word motherfucker (nudge, nudge), you can’t believe we went there can you (nudge, nudge).”
On a scale of 1-10, I’d give the episode as a whole a 5.
It is when it’s Betty, because she looks like the quintessential sweet old lady/grandma. From Cloris Leachman, it’s not so funny, because she’s kinda haggy and she looks like dirty words come naturally to her.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Betty isn’t looking for work and she definitely wasn’t looking for the SNL gig. They had to convince her to do it.
ETA: I agree that writers need to find another schtick for older actresses, something that lets them keep some dignity. But I don’t know what it would be. There’s an old saying – “Getting old isn’t for sissies” – it’s true, and I’d like to see old people in situations that reflect that. But I don’t know how to make it funny.
Actually I wanted to underscore how wrong you were.
Sometimes it’s good to have double special inside info.
Have a super special nice day!
I thought it was a great episode of SNL - and it got the highest ratings for SNL in 18 months! (Highest ratings since Ben Affleck hosted with John McCain on the show and Tina Fey as Palin)
I’m not surprised they didn’t do a Golden Girls sketch since two of them have died in recent years and Rue McCLanahan is recovering (pretty well I understand) from a stroke. Betty and Bea Arthur famously did not get along so any jabs at Dorothy may have been seen as in really poor taste.
I was disappointed they didn’t have a walk on from Lou Grant, however. (Actually, other than Ted Knight aren’t all of the key players from that show still alive?)
Unless one of them died recently (which a quick check on Wikipedia says ‘no’), I think so. (Interestingly, Knight was the second oldest in the cast, next to White - Asner always seemed a lot older than everyone - at 80, he’s actually younger than White (89), Knight (would have been 86), and Leachman (84). He’s older than MacLeod (79), Moore (73), Bulifant (72), Harper (70), and Engel (61).)
What I would have liked to have seen was a MTM/GG crossover sketch…or two. Where White played her character from one show in the other - Sue Anne and Rose were such opposite characters, I think it would have been funny.
But I’m not an SNL writer, so…
My understanding is that when she was cast on Golden Girls she was to play the Rue McClanahan character- the narcissistic sexpot- while Rue’s character was to be the naive sweet homebody (although I’m guessing they’d have made her southern as opposed to Minnesotan due to her thick accent). Rue and Betty decided to switch because both felt their characters were to close to roles they’d already played (Betty thought Blanche was close to Sue Ann Niven and Rue thought her character was too similar to Vivian on Maude). It worked.
Interesting…and I agree it definitely worked out for the best, both for the actresses and the characters.
(It would have been hilarious, in completely the wrong way, though, if Bea Arthur had also decided that Dorothy was too much like Maude and convinced Estel Getty to switch.)
Betty White has always worked blue. She’s looked like your sweet old grandmother since she was 40 years old, and she’s played on that for humor at least that long. I remember what she used to say and get away with on Match Game in the 70’s. Her Sue Ann Nivens character on the Mary Tyler Moore show was the nice, sweet-sounding old lady who always had raunchy one-liners.
She was Bob Saget before Bob Saget was born.
Betty White has never had trouble getting work in Hollywood. And she’s never had to try to look young and thin to do it. She’s made a career on her own terms - one of the most successful careers in TV history. She’s no has-been trying to re-invent herself. She just finished a 3-year stint on Boston Legal, and immediately made a movie after that. And now she’s got a new TV series.
I think Betty White has the best response to that.
Or, you know, she might think it’s funny. She’s a comedian.
One of my favorite Betty White memories is when she was a guest on Password many years ago- I don’t remember if it was before or after her husband was no longer the host and I don’t remember the exact details but I remember the other celebrity was Lucille Ball and the password was ‘tassels’. It went something like this:
Betty’s clue was to say ‘strings’ while putting her hand on one of her boobs and twirling her forefinger in front of her nipple like a stripper’s tassel. The audience went crazy, but the contestant guessed the wrong answer.
Lucille Ball asked “What’d she say?” and the host (Bert Convy or Allen Ludden) said, through laughter, “strings” while doing the same gesture. Lucy fell out, then said “decorations” while doing the same gesture with both boobs and both hands. Her contestant got it.
So Betty made Lucy do double nipple twirls on daytime TV 30 years ago.
Glad you find that kind of “humor” funny—I will be glad to send you 8 dollars that you can use to have some old lady in your neighborhood piss and shit in a coffee can for you, if you are in need of more big laughs…
I’m sure Betty White gets WAAAAY more than $8 to shit in a coffee can. She probably wouldn’t even consider it for under $300.
I haven’t found the Password clip (and as mentioned it’s been almost 30 years since I saw it so the details are probably different, but she definitely did the tassel twirl), but the host was Tom Kennedy and the guests were her, Lucy, Desi Jr., and Dick Martin. (Not that clip but that grouping on YouTube.)
For the record, I’d fuck Betty White. And I’d let her piss and/or shit on me, if that was her thing.
I should add that I have no issue with Betty White specifically----She is most certainly free to do whatever she wants to do, and I am sure she is not laying awake at night worrying if I (or anyone else for that matter) find it distasteful. The Mary Tyler Moore show was before my time, and I really only know Betty White from The Golden Girls, which I watched a few times as a kid. I did not watch last nights SNL, so I am talking in general terms here…
My point is that there is currently a trend of having elderly people on various TV shows and movies (Letterman started this many years back with Larry “Bud” Melman) saying and doing outrageous, vulgar, often degrading things, solely for the shock value, all in the name of humor.
I don’t see this as humorous, and in some cases find it to be a form of exploitation—These are my personal opinions, and I dont expect everyone to agree.
Humor is subjective, and if some find humor in this kind of thing, more power to them.
Was there ever an episode of Golden Girls in which sex wasn’t a major plot point? And Sophia was one of the raunchiest characters in prime time (though prime time in the 1980s wouldn’t allow what late night in 2010 will).
Speaking of naked Betty White, does anybody believe this1940s nude pic is her?
Wait, when you said “I honestly believe that Betty White would pull down her pants and urinate and defecate on live TV if it was asked of her, in a pathetic attempt to stay with it,” that’s just “general terms”? How much more specific could you have been?