I, for one, will never watch his late night show again!
This is more my read. She says in the article that she grew up loving Letterman, and there she is, finally on the show, and he messes up her name. I think it was a gaffe, but it can feel pretty deflating when someone apparently doesn’t know enough about you to pronounce your name correctly. In the moment, in her shoes, with her apparent reverence of Letterman, I could absolutely see how that might feel humiliating to her, intentional or not. I mean, I sometimes get irked when people who should know better spell my last name as -sky instead of -ski in emails or, worse, in published print. Being a star on national TV and then getting my name mispronounced by one of my idols could also be seen as quite annoying and feeling humiliating. (I’m not saying HE humiliated her; rather the entirety of the experience felt humiliating.)
I don’t think you understand which direction it’s working here.
Maybe! The whole story feels like a big shrug to me. As noted earlier, it looks like someone grabbed one anecdote from a larger story and turned it into clickbait as though this is story-worthy by itself.
Here’s what Minnie Ripperton (Maya’s mother) called her (at 3:25):
You would think my name - Dennis or Denny or Den or D-man would be easy. But heck, even my wife calls me, “Daniel” most of the time. And I wrote out my name as Denny for some reason at a bar years ago and the barmaid called me, “den-yay”. She still does. But I go with it. Phhff. It’s just a name.
As for my awareness of current TV stars, you are correct, sir. Haven’t watched broadcast TV in decades. I’m strictly a history channel, car show, Pawn Stars, Gold Rush, American Pickers kinda guy. I can give you an analysis of maybe 20 different gold sluices (and I invented two new types) but I have to think if you ask me who is the President and couldn’t name anyone on Saturday Night Live.
No, you can add me to that list. I never heard of her. To me “Maya” is an ancient Mesoamerican civilization, and the only “Rudolph” I know is a red-nosed reindeer.
It’s spelled “Maya Rudolph,” but it’s pronounced “Throatwobbler Mangrove.”
I know of her and am aware she is a comedic actor but I’ve never watched her on SNL and primarily know her name from seeing it in print. So if it’s not an obvious pronunciation, chances are I’d get it wrong.
People may know her as The Judge on The Good Place.
I’m 99% sure that when Dave did that bit at the Oscars, he was remembering a 1962 New Yorker piece by Thomas Meehan called “Yma Dream,” summarized by the magazine as follows:
In this dream, which the writer has had on the night of the full moon for the past three months, he is giving a cocktail party in honor of Yma Sumac, the Peruvian singer. Since all of his guests seem to know him rather intimately and do not know one another, Miss Sumac suggests that he introduce the guests only by their first name. The guests are: Ava Gardner, Abba Eban, Oona O’Neill, Ugo Betti, Ona Munson, Ida Lupino, the young Aga Khan, Ira Wolfert, Ilya Ehrenburg, Eva Gabor, & Uta Hagen. Complications arise when he has to make the introductions. “Yma, Uta; Yma, Ava; Yma, Oona; Yma, Ona; Yma, Ida; Yma, Ugo; Yma, Abba; Yma, Ilya; Yma, Ira; Yma, Aga; Yma, Eva.” Miss Sumac
becomes annoyed. The circle of guests move menacingly toward the writer. When the bell rings & it is the Polish concert pianist, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, the dream ends.
The piece is much funnier than this description, as you can see in this video of Anne Bancroft performing it.
[Meehan was a frequent collaborator with Bancroft’s husband, Mel Brooks.]
This seems to me a ridiculous summary of US culture, then and now – “everybody in the country” didn’t know who she was, I think it would be a miracle if it hit 10%.
One might expect better of Letterman, but I gather that was not the point of the original story, and even so, maybe he has better things to do (like millions of other Americans) on Saturday night than to watch that pitiful and pitiable show.
I know who Mason Rudolph is, but this is the first time I’ve heard of Maya Rudolph.
Don’t be humiliated, Maya! We love you, whoever you are.
Now this thread can be the virtue signaling fest it was set up to be. Be loud, be proud, tell us how much you have no idea who Maya Rudolph is. I bet most of you don’t even own a TV.
I’d bet you’d be totally wrong.
That’s a weird take, If the thread is based on how unlikely it is that Letterman is unaware of her name pronunciation it seems relevant for people to say if they’ve never heard of her.
Personally I’ve seen “Bridesmaids” and was aware of her but wouldn’t have a clue whether it was “may-a” or “my-a”
Is this the new fangled entertainment thing I hear people talking about? I’m still working on perfecting my Banraku puppets for their first performance.
[Moderating]
That’ll be a Warning for threadshitting.
That is one of the funniest pieces ever. Meehan makes it work by building it slowly and adding one name after another to the pile. It’s a crescendo in words.
Meehan is mostly known for his work on Broadway, but he wrote enough humor to fill a book, titled, naturally, Yma, Ava; Yma, Abba; Yma, Oona; Yma, Ida; Yma, Aga…and others. It’s very good.
I doubt I knew who she was back then, but Letterman’s job as TV talk show host was, at the very least, to be able to pronounce the names of his 2 or 3 (I’m guessing here) guests.