Betty White on SNL

I admittedly am not a huge SNL honk. Typically, my viewings of it consisted of the marathon variety with a bunch of buddies, some booze and some snacks. I, among others, understand when change to a cast has to happen, but a lot of the times, don't have the patience to watch week in and week out as sketch comedy writers/actors work to establish themselves. I've always been of the mindset "just show me the highlights".

Earlier this year, when I heard Betty White was the subject of a Facebook campaign trying to get her to host SNL, my first thought was...why? I had seen a lot of her in Golden Girls thanks to my Mom's religious viewing of the show (even to this day...) and didn't think anything particularly fond about it. I didn't think much of it, but blurbs about it kept showing up around the various sites I read. CNN.com seemingly had something about her hosting almost every other week, but usually inserted into other ideas like "SNL plans Women of Comedy Show".

So, we get to earlier last month and Betty White is all but confirmed and people are going crazy happy about it. A lot of news websites are starting to wax nostalgic about Betty White and use that as a platform to discuss the power of social networking. I still wasn't sure what the big deal was, so I started doing some reading up on her. I knew she was old, but wasn't sure just how long she had been in the business (the answer to that is 70+ years). I also knew I laughed hard when I saw her in that Snickers commercial with Abe Vigoda.

As various news outlets started running more and more clips of her along with her newest interviews, I started becoming a fan. A lot of the reason I did I think relates to how similar she was to one of my grandmothers. No subject was off limits with her. You had to pay close attention or some of the jokes she would make would just go right by you.

What eventually sold me on tuning in to my first live SNL in probably 15 years was her appearance on Jimmy Fallon's Late Night. Typically, as someone ages, things start to slow down and the brain is among them. For her to be 88 years old and playing Beer Pong (even if the liquid in her cups was water...) was impressive to me. On top of that, she actually busted Fallon up with one of those Grandma-esque jokes. Here's one segment linked from Hulu, so I fully expect it to be taken down at some point in the next 3 weeks:



Seriously, at 88+ years old, I can only hope my brain is working a fraction of the speed hers is working if I make it to that age.

Onto the SNL episode itself...

By the time it aired, I had a pretty good idea what to expect. There was going to be lots of perverted old lady humor. Betty White's recent success pretty much revolves around the idea that someone who looks like such a sweet person couldn't possibly say some of the things she says. She certainly didn't fail to deliver on that part.

The skits they did were more or less rehashes of things I've seen them do in the past. Skits like Delicious Dish (think Schweddy Balls with Alec Baldwin), the MacGruber stuff that's been rather prominent since they produced an upcoming movie about it and some variation of a couple talk show format skits that usually end up being boring until the punchline hits.

Where I thought she was at her best was during the Scared Straight skit:



...and the digital short SNL produced:



(Yes, I know that's a stuntman...it's the end that cracked me up.)

A few other notable quotes:

"You know, if I could go back in time, I would lez it up 24 hours. Believe me, one thing I would not miss...

...Balls.

Terrible little things."

On her Mexican son's admission to being gay:

"Aye yi yi...that explains why he doesn't like tacos!"

Anyway, the episode was probably among the best I've seen. There wasn't a huge variation in content from skit to skit, but at 88 years old, Betty White delivered with a near perfect sense of comedic timing that pretty much shows age really is just a number when you compare it to the performances of some of the past hosts I've seen.

There's also a number of Web-only related SNL skits with Betty White available on hulu.com.

Bottom line is this:

This lady is probably one of the last links to a generation of TV stars that really laid the ground work for what we view today. Big props for anyone that took notice of the Facebook page and got the wheels turning to get her into the spotlight at least one last time. Not that I think she's going to any time soon...you never really know, but the fact that the cast paid tribute in a manner I've not really seen from an SNL show speaks volumes about her contributions to the industry as a whole. She's not necessarily someone people list when they start talking about influences or things of that manner, but she's been around long enough to gain a lot of respect.