After the week we've all been through and the ongoing shitstorm of Covid-19, we need to think of something more pleasurable. Betty White. I've been binge watching Community (2009-15), a sitcom that ran five seasons on NBC and it's sixth (last) season through Yahoo's short lived video service, Yahoo! Video (Yahoo! Screen). The cast also had a Table Read of fifth season episode four via Zoom this year during the Coronavirus quarantine. What's any of that got to do with Betty White?
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| Betty White |
Betty White is a television national treasure. At 98 years old, she's been in everything. Her career started in 1945. 1945! That's 75 years in the "Business." Her last few projects have been voice work, but that counts. Her first regular starring series was Life with Elizabeth (1953-55) as Elizabeth.
In the first show of the second season of Community, she played the Anthropology community college professor, June Bauer, for two episodes where in the first episode she shoots a weapon at the show's star, Joel McHale (The Soup, The Great Outdoors) and then beats the shit out of him with the same weapon. Doing this all at the age of 88. She even did the voice of Bitey White, a toy tiger that looks more like a teething ring, in Toy Story 4. I haven't seen it yet. So, I can't give away any details. No spoiler alerts here. Unfortunately, if you didn't get out to see it last summer in the theaters in the pre-Coronavirus world, you'll probably will need to get Disney+ because Netflix won't have it and Amazon Prime you're going to have to purchase it. Shit! I'd be willing to pay the $3.99 to rent it, but $18.99 to own it; that's overpriced bullshit. (I know I'm spoiled. I remember when VHS movies costed nearly $100. You can walk into any Walmart these days and get DVD movies for under $10. But I no longer own a DVD player nor do I want one. I pay over $200 for 400 channels of shit most of which I don't want. I have ALL the movie channels and then some. I don't want Disney+. I won't watch it enough to make the $7 per month fee worthwhile. It doesn't sound like much, but I did say I'm already paying $230 to the cable monster.
Our gal, Betty, has been in 117 productions. Her most noted roles have been Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Show (1973-77), which spun-off her own series that lasted only the one season as Joyce Whitman in The Betty White Show (1977-78), Rose Nylund in The Golden Girls (1985-92), probably her best known role, as well as the sequel, The Golden Palace (1992-93) and her last major role, Elka Ostrovsky in Hot in Cleveland (2010-15).
Now, I'd be a liar if I said that I've seen everything she's ever done. I have seen many of The Golden Girls episodes. BECAUSE it really was funny. I've seen every episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I just loved MTM. I have not seen any episodes of Hot in Cleveland on TV Land, because I just haven't made the time. And if it's still available, I might just put it on my Coronavirus binge watch list of candidates.
Some noteworthy guest appearances:
The Love Boat (5 episodes) 1980-85
St. Elsewhere (2 episodes) 1985
Mama's Family (15 episodes) 1984-86
Ladies Man (30 episodes) 1999-2001
The Simpsons (2 episodes) 2000 & 2007, as herself
Boston Legal (16 episodes) 2005-8
She has even been on the soaps, The Bold and the Beautiful for 23 episodes (2006-9) and for three episodes in Santa Barbara in 1988 and she didn't even get a credit. By this time, she'd been in movies and television for over 40 years. What's a lady to do to get recognition in Hollywood?
Hopefully, even if she doesn't act anymore or if she only does voice-over work, she will live forever. I don't want to live in a world without Betty Marion White Ludden. (Ludden was her last late husband's name. Allen Ludden was best known as the emcee on the game show, Password. One of the few game shows on television that I liked as a child.) Then again, I made the same claim about George Burns and he left us in 1996 and I'm still here. He was 100 years, 1 month and 18 days old when he went on to join his wife, Gracie. And I don't mean in actors' heaven. I mean in their crypt at the Freedom Mausoleum in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
May she and we all live through this crisis of Coronavirus and mass protests, rallies and rioting as the world erupts in the turmoil of fighting hate from all sides because the white privileged have not recognized that the USA as always been a little bit of shithole especially on their treatment of Black Americans and immigrants. Not to get political, but...how else can you explain...TRUMP!!!
Save that for another time. Stay safe. Stay home. Eat your veggies. Meat may be hard to come by soon. And for fux sake, don't riot, loot or kill anybody. That goes for the cops, militia and the goons the government has sent into our cities' streets. Until next time, TTFN!
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