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Monday, May 10, 2010

Happy Mother's Day, Motherf**kers!

Well, it's official, 88 year-old Betty White is hotter than ever. White hosted "Saturday Night Live" over the weekend and helped the show to garner it's biggest ratings since November 2008. A campaign began on Facebook a few months ago by White's fans in an attempt to convince the show's producers to let Betty host "SNL", and it worked.
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We watched most of the show, and we came away with two thoughts. The show, "Saturday Night Live", itself, is still breathtakingly bad. The writing is horrific, and the cast is oddly without a great deal of comedic talent. But Betty White showed off comedic skills which have been honed by sixty, yes, sixty! years of television work. White is so gifted as a comedian, both in timing and delivery, that she has the rare
ability to evoke laughs from even the most mediocre writing. We found ourselves laughing at the show for the first time in thirty years, but then we realized it wasn't the show that was making us laugh, it was Betty White.
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(betty white as sue ann nivens)
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Betty White also reminds those in the television industry who are obsessed with the idea that only youth matters, both as performers and as a demographic, that in the end, talent matters. And sometimes the veterans of the business are the ones with the real talent. We sincerely hope the current cast members of "SNL" were in the wings during White's sketches, and seriously taking notes.
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One television critic said today that he also enjoyed White's performance, but thought that her performance was too "blue", (i.e. dirty). Really? Has this critic ever watched "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"? Betty White's "Sue Ann Nivens" was one of the dirtiest characters in the history of television. Whole subplots revolved around man-hungry Nivens' horny dirty talk and her attempts to get Lou into bed. Please. Betty White is no stranger to performing blue. She also posed in black lingerie in some R-rated cheesecake photos in the 1940's. This woman is not a prude.
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Betty White first appeared on television in 1949, and soon formed a production company with writer George Tibbles and producer Don Fedderson. She produced and starred in her first sitcom in 1952, "Life with Elizabeth", for which she won her first Emmy Award. As a producer of her sitcom, not only was Betty one of the first women on television, but also the first to have complete control of her show, both in front of and behind the camera. Betty White is not just one of the most gifted comedic actors in television history, but she's also a pioneer of the television industry itself.
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With Betty White's success on "SNL", now the fans of Carol Burnett are starting a campaign for her to host the show, but many are already saying that the badly produced, badly written show is "beneath Carol Burnett's stature". True, but never underestimate the need for a performer to perform. We're guessing that if asked, Burnett would take the job. She'll probably want to bring along some of her own writers, but she'll do it.

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