Really looking forward to the red carpet interview with Victoria Jackson. Hope we get to see that train wreck live.
— John Cole (@Johngcole) February 16, 2015
Sadly, she did not appear. She was busy doing this.
These are the people who are going to be glued to the Netanyahu speech in front of Congress.
Napoleon
I saw some ones list today of every cast member of SNL from worst to best, and she was last. The person who wrote the list said something like “her clueless ditzy idiot character did not wear well and it turns out it wasn’t even a character.”
The Gray Adder
Oh. My. God.
Baud
@Napoleon: I don’t know if I would have put her last based on her SNL stint. Taking account of her post-SNL stuff, absolutely.
Betty Cracker
@Napoleon:
Haha. True.
BGinCHI
Try to measure the distance between her and Al Franken.
Go ahead.
It’s impossible.
Hal
Sometimes I wonder if Victoria Jackson has an undiagnosed brain tumor or other illness because she seems unhinged in her rantings. She reminds me of the obviously mentally I’ll women that used to walk around San Francisco with their makeup applied so heavily they looked like clowns. Or Tammy Faye Baker.
The Ancient Randonneur
I guess her schtick on SNL was the real Ms Jackson.
Fourten
Sure they will turn it on (if they can turn of Duck Dynasty long enough to find C-Span on their UHF dials with their Cheeto-crusted fingers) but it won’t keep their attention, especially when they learn that the PM of a nation they can’t find on a map speaks in a funny accent.
Afterward though they’ll agree with everything Fox tells them they should agree with.
Pogonip
John, did Ginger get to the beauty shop today?
The Ancient Randonneur
@BGinCHI: The difference between countable and uncountable infinity is about as close as anyone will get due to technological limitations.
Violet
Oh my god. I watched the first minute or so. She’s completely nuts. She’s name dropping people who “understand her.” People like Pamela Geller and Sean Hannity.
Adam
It’s surprising how many has-been not ready for prime time players from the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s turned out to be wingnuts. Her, Rob Schinder, Dennis Miller.
Belafon
@The Ancient Randonneur: My middle son would love that comment.
Buddy H
She was the little darling of SNL for about five minutes; people thought she was doing a post-modern satire of ditz. But then it became obvious that she had no other schtick. Just the same act over and over. And then like Napoleon quoted, it became painfully obvious that it was no act.
She combines wing-nut mania with a creepy religious mania…. the sort of person Scott Walker is terrified of offending re: evolution.
Violet
@Hal: There’s a woman in my neighborhood who does that when she’s off her meds. She walks around talking to herself. Well, shouting is more like it. When she gets really bad she shouts at inanimate objects and hits them, like the stop sign. It got a bit scary when she shouted at and hit the stop sign with a heavy branch for about a half and hour and kept telling it she was going to kill it. We had to call the cops.
Buddy H
@Adam: One of the head writers; I can’t remember his name, but he was responsible for a lot of bad comedy in his day. And Joe Piscopo… didn’t he veer into wingnutedness?
boatboy_srq
@BGinCHI: They’re ∞’ apart. Not measurable – but certainly definable.
Bob In Portland
America, Fuck Yeah!
Steeplejack
That video is so far out there that it almost seems like it comes around full circle to be snark making fun of the right-wing nutjobs. But Victoria Jackson isn’t that meta, is she? Jeez.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rob Schneider. I did not know that. Then again, he’s somewhat less relevant as an entertainer and a political thinker than Vitoria Jackson.
I wonder if he was there last night, after Tina Fey’s tribute to Jan Hooks: She should have had a bigger career, definitely a bigger career than Rob Fucking Schneider.
@Buddy H: I think O’Donohue was a Libertarian and became something of a crank late in life. (?)
boatboy_srq
@Violet: Think we could get Ms. Jackson in range of that stop sign? I’m pretty sure it’s not dead yet.
shelley
Maybe Victoria can be a seat-filler for those boycotting Netanyahu’s speech.
Pogonip
Finally! Someone with a worse voice than mine!
So how come she’s famous and I’m not? I can’t sing either.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think Jon Lovitz also went wingnut, or at least anti-Obama.
Buddy H
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No, not O’Donohue. There was a guy, Jim Downey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Downey_(comedian) who was a head writer. He wanted to mock liberals all the time, and wanted to go easy on Bush
Bob In Portland
@Buddy H: I remember his showing up on the Holodeck in STTNG once.
Speaking of windnuttedness, I lived next door to the mother of Rob Schneider for about seven years. Amazing piece of work. Bad ideas are apparently heritable.
boatboy_srq
@Steeplejack: She’s not making fun of them. She is, however, a classic example of why making fun of them is so easy.
SiubhanDuinne
I managed 23 seconds of that clip. Good dog almighty.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
20 more seconds than I did.
Jeffrey Burr
So wonderfully over the top, I forget who played her, was it Belushi?
What do you mean “she was real”?
Iowa Old Lady
Apparently Netanyahu may have leaked details of the US-Iran negotiations. Are we to the point where a significant portion of Congress thinks that’s peachy?
Pogonip
@Violet: Maybe you should just let her assault the stop sign next time. It’ll keep her too busy to bother people, and if the responding cop is having a bad day, he might kill her.
Buddy H
Joe Piscopo thought it was logical to put the comedy aside and become obsessed with body building. I mean, it worked with carrot top, right?
I just saw the clip of Jane Curtin on the 40th anniversary SNL… “a pretty girl reading fake news. Now there’s a whole network dedicated to that.”
Buddy H
@Iowa Old Lady: I read that article and shook my head in disbelief. I really wish Bibi would lose his election, but apparently that’s not in the cards.
Kropadope
@Bob In Portland:
Fortunately for me, my siblings, and cousins, this is not true.
Adam
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Think i remeber him saying some crap about he hasn’t worked in 5 years cause of Jerry Brown and Obama. and his a hard core anti-vaxxer too.
Violet
@Pogonip: No, the cops know who she is. They’ll load her up and take her down to the station. It happens about once every six weeks or so.
We stopped and talked to them another time when they were loading her into the squad car. She goes meekly and willingly. They give her her meds and can only keep her a day or two, then she’s released with enough medication to keep her somewhat functional for awhile and then she runs out and it starts again.
Mostly she just wanders around with her pants so low she’s showing most of her rear end while dragging a filthy blanket behind her. She talks incessantly but she seems harmless. This was the only time I’ve seen her act aggressively. I wasn’t the only one to call the cops. The across the street neighbors did too and maybe other people. It was scary.
The problem is, she needs better help. But that costs money and it isn’t available. So the police get her meds. She goes back home and lives with her dad until the medication runs out. Then she starts the wandering and talking again. I wish there was a way to get her more help but I don’t know how.
gogol's wife
@Baud:
She had some funny moments with Kevin Nealon.
Tim in SF
I understand the song, but I don’t understand why there are three extras from The Walking Dead behind her.
Can someone please explain that to me?
Kropadope
@Tim in SF: Those aren’t extras from the Walking Dead. They’re real Americans. I know why you’d be confused, real Americans are hard to come by these days.
Bobby B.
They sure prettied Jackson up for the VH1 special yesterday. It’s funny that the Goldwater party cheers on Jon Stewart’s departure and continue to extol Dennis Miller as “Our” humorist.
debbie
@gogol’s wife:
In hindsight, it turns out Tounces was the smart one in that car.
Stella B
I just got a bunch of righties all riled up by suggesting that the military has an ongoing problem with both recruiting and retention due to the growing obesity problem in this country. Apparently you hate the troops if you believe that they are anything but the buffest, fittest, evah! Even, that is, if senior military is concerned about the same issue.
Fred
No, that’t got to be parody.
Mind you, I didn’t watch it but just looking at the still you gotta know these folks can’t be serious. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it. Any other take is too scary to contemplate.
Jacel
Victoria Jackson was interesting and funny for quite a few years after SNL. She clearly was putting an effort into finding a way to incorporate her religious beliefs into stand-up comedy, and had effective material that grew out of speaking from her own life and experience. Her 30-minute episode of Comedy Central Presentst 30-minute showcase for stand ups (I forget the title) was an excellent example of how she did this while rarely sounding mean spirited. Around the same time, the Christian humor and muckraking magazine “The Door” (a magazine not like anything else) had a fascinating long interview long with her in 1999.
But in the 21st century, Victoria has not been doing herself any favors. She’s been parroting the right-wing hot buttons rather than working on comedy that grows out of her own experience as a Christian. It’s sad.
Baud
@Jacel: Didn’t know that about her. That is sad.
Kropadope
@Jacel:
To some, right-wing politics are the be all and end all of living life as a good Christian.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Jacel:
I would not be surprised if she, like Dennis Miller, freaked out after 9/11 and made a hard turn to the right. When you think Armageddon is right around the corner, suddenly trying to reconcile your Christian faith with stand-up comedy doesn’t seem very important.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Buddy H: some interesting stuff in there
SOmething Maureen Dowd could never accept, so she keeps flailing away.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Key and Peele have managed it, but their hook is that Obama can’t say what he’s really thinking, so he needs Luther to translate for him.
By the way, anyone with cable who isn’t watching Key and Peele should be ashamed of themselves. They’re probably the funniest sketch show on right now.
TaMara (BHF)
Oh, you are so WRONG Mr. Cole. Ms. Jackson was just on my TV and she said she was there last night where she was shuttled into a “holding area” for overflow.
She guesses that the people of SNL “don’t believe in the Bible, the Constitution and Conservatives.”
No honey, what they don’t believe in is letting someone who is batshit crazy get near the camera.
ETA: Nothing could make me actually click on the video above.
Buddy H
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): I don’t have cable, but I’ve been enjoying them on youtube and the comedy central website.
The sketch that made me laugh my ass off was when Obama’s anger translator encountered Michelle’s anger translator.
And then there’s this, the ultimate fighting match preview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-eJSHoH9Fs
It reminded me of moderate democrats versus tea baggers. The moderate dems are just playing the game, trash talking but not taking it seriously. And the tea baggers are in it to the death.
Pogonip
@Violet: The only way I know of is to wait till it warms up, then take her across the Canadian border and leave her, where there are arrangements in place to care for such poor souls.
I know people who, completely out of options, seriously considered doing this with a senile relative (no, it wasn’t us).
I am glad to hear the cops in your town are good guys.
Villago Delenda Est
@BGinCHI: I disagree.
It’s very possible with a measuring stick that’s several light-millennia long.
Villago Delenda Est
@TaMara (BHF):
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” — Sinclair Lewis
sharl
@Jacel: Oooh, rarely do I see a reference to “The Door.“ It was indeed a fascinating magazine, which did thoughtful interviews of interesting but often obscure authors and intellectuals, and regularly mocked grifting big-haired televangelists. Somewhere around here I have an hilarious VHS compilation of that mockery on video.
Their Website says they’ve been out of business since 2008; I hope that at least Ole Anthony is still alive and kickin’.
On my way toward declared non-belief, I left the christian (EUB/Methodist) faith under amiable circumstances, and I always hated the fact that few Big Media “Christians” would call out the charlatans amongst them (professional courtesy, I guess). So learning of The (Wittenberg) Door was a happy occasion for me. Unfortunately, for as long as I can remember, they always were near insolvency, even in better times.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: “A Heart, A Cross, and A Flag” Peggy Noonan.
Lewis didn’t foresee the saccharine, maudlin sentimentality that would seep through American facism
Jacel
@sharl: Here’s a link to Ole Anthony’s organization, still fighting religious fraudsters.
http://trinityfi.org
I recall that Trinity Foundation took on publishing The Door in hopes of bringing in profits for their serious efforts. When The Door started needing fundraising efforts itself, Ole and company decided to focus on their primary mission.
One of the participants in Ole Anthony’s The Door was John Bloom, the real name behind Joe Bob Briggs. As Bloom, he hosted a weekly segment of religious news on The Daily Show — a department that then became “This Week In God” hosted by Colbert. Here’s a link to Joe Bob’s web page of “Bloom” material.
hhttp://www.joebobbriggs.com/index.php?/john-bloom/
sharl
@Jacel: Thanks for these links! I hope to get to them tonight.
LanceThruster
Dennis Miller said in an interview that after 9/11, he made a personal vow never to say anything critical of Bush.
Bystander
Last night was just further proof that what humor we gleaned from SNL back in the day was a result of the talented comedians on the program. Now, all they’ve got is Lorne Michaels. The talent and writing in modern memory are third rate and distinctly unfunny. The recent rwn crap is really tring.
Bob Munck
@BGinCHI: Jackson and Franken are so far apart that they’re outside of each other’s light cone.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Bystander:
I wouldn’t call Tina Fey or Amy Poehler third rate by any stretch of the imagination. And I’m not always Will Ferrell’s biggest fan, but that guy takes enormous risks (like appearing in a Spanish-language telenovela parody). I wish someone could figure out how to use Ana Gasteyer.
I don’t think the current cast is any great shakes, but the show has always had ups and downs.
Elizabelle
I watched the whole video. Sad. I wondered for a while if it was parody of those who hold such ridiculous beliefs — it’s that out there — but no.
Towards the end of her little song, she goes to rhyme “narcotic” and comes up with “idiotic” to describe herself.
More obvious is “psychotic.”
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est:
And, sometimes, strumming a ukelele.
Bystander
Mnemosyne, I definitely find Poehler third rate, and Fey only slightly less irritating. Poehler is a complete mystery to me.
The latest skits from SNL shows I’ve seen were rightwing claptrap.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Bystander:
I guess we have to agree to disagree, because I think “30 Rock” and “Parks and Recreation” were both brilliant TV shows. I haven’t watched SNL in a few years, so I can’t say anything about the current quality. I will say that I do. not. get. the love for Kristen Wiig or Bill Hader. At all.
Woodrowfan
The Door was fun. I have a bunch of issues from the 1980s stored in my basement somewhere…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): I like Hader, though except for Stephan, I don’t find his stuff that memorable. I’m right with you on Wiig. And that freakin’ “Californians” sketch… I’ve heard that Lorne Michaels has some very particular tastes and will keep cast members and skits that he likes no matter how they go over. That must be one of those
debbie
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
In regard to Will Ferrell, I’ve seen him interviewed a couple of times on Letterman and he couldn’t be farther from any of his on-stage personas. He is really quite boring.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@debbie:
That’s not that unusual for comedians, though — if they don’t have a character to play, they don’t have much to say for themselves. You can see how Ferrell was able to work as a bank teller while he was taking improv classes on the side.
Bill Murray is notoriously difficult to interview, because you can never be sure if he’s telling you the truth about anything or playing a character, plus he tends to get bored halfway through and wander off.
Gravenstone
@Iowa Old Lady: If true, how exactly did Nutsandyahoos get those details to leak?
debbie
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
That could be the mark of a good comedian. Leno always seems to talk everyone’s ears off.
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
I know Obama likes to be the grown-up in the room, but it’s time he called Netanyahu out.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/report-netanyahu-leak-details-nuclear-talks-iran
shelley
Well, maybe his ears
H.K. Anders
And not for nothin, but even if there was a Muslim living in the White House… so what?
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
For people who are interested in the process of comedy, Mark Maron’s “WTF?” podcast has a lot of great interviews in his archives. You may also be able to get them from iTunes. I especially enjoy the classic comedy ones — he has interviews with Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Bob Newhart, and many others from that era.
theronware
I want cowbell!
Linnaeus
@H.K. Anders:
Well, it’s obvious that only America-hating liberals could ever come up with something like this:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
FTFY, Sinclair.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle: Poe’s Law strikes again!
Roger Moore
@shelley:
And his speech patterns. I could imagine parodies of Obama where you had somebody who could mimic his mannerisms and speech patterns and would either A) say the crazy stuff right wingers put in his mouth or B) say the crazy stuff the right wingers themselves say. Either one could be pretty damn funny if you did it right.
Violet
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): I like Bill Hader but I don’t get Kristen Wiig at all. I’ve avoided “Bridesmaids” because of her and it’s not the only film. I find her really annoying.
Love Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.
Kathleen
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): I saw Maron live and he was hysterically funny. His podcast is revealing, entertaining and funny as hell. He’s really found his niche there. Also, too, I enjoy his show Maron on IFC.
Villago Delenda Est
@Linnaeus: Yes. America-hating liberal James Madison came up with that. Fucking communist.
PIGL
@Violet: wait, what? This was serious? I thought it a pretty lame spoof.
Manyakitty
@Buddy H: I always thought Joe Piscopo was a conservative Catholic. Different views from mine, certainly, but consistent, not necessary insane, and at least based on “something.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Buddy H:
wasn’t that because both him and Carrot top had gotten cancer?
Paul in KY
@Violet: Sounds very sad.
Paul in KY
@Bystander: Definitely thought the old casts had more talent than what I saw of last 10 years of show.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: I think Mr. Peele does a fine job of impersonating him.
sharl
@Jacel: Joe Bob has done a lot of writing! I’ve bookmarked his site for occasional browsing when
avoiding worktime permits. Thanks again for the links!I found a 2006 long read in the Dallas Observer on Ole Anthony, and while my admiration for his charlatan-busting remains unabated, I’ve concluded it is best to admire him from a safe distance. Like so many strong personalities in leadership roles, those around him appear to have suffered and sacrificed a great deal. I’m not a behavioral science person, but “narcissist” seems an apt description for the guy.