COMING IN 2018: WE'RE ENTERTAINING NOURISHMENT FOR THE MIND, BODY & SOUL
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Where would Just Shoot Me!'s boozing floozie supermodel-turned-fashion editor Nina Van Horn be today? Well, after intensive rehab, it looks like she's landed in Cleveland. Her portrayer, the always-delicious Wendie Malick, is calling on Nina's self-absorbed soul as inspiration for the actress's new character, fallen soap diva Victoria Chase, in TV Land's buzzworthy original sitcom Hot in Cleveland.
Malick's new, less vacuous character finds herself at home in the cable network's ensemble comedy about three L.A. transplants (Malick, Valerie Bertinelli and Jane Leeves) rediscovering their sexual prowess and youthful verve in Ohio's bustling blue-collar metropolis. Rounding out the cast as caretaker of the ladies' new house: Saucy sitcom stalwart and SNL hottie Betty White.
Hot premiered to record ratings for TV Land--about 5 million people watched the June 16 premiere--while garnering inevitable comparisons to Sex and the City and White's 1985-92 TV classic The Golden Girls. But those parallels are fine by Malick. The still-sexy actress, 59, has enjoyed lengthy success in a host of ensemble sitcoms, including HBO's Dream On and NBC's Frasier. Here, the actress-turned-animal activist and environmentalist recalls her road to Cleveland while analyzing TV's multidimensional impact.
She's on tonight's The Big Bang Theory season finale ... but first check out my exclusive interview with Blossom star Mayim Bialik, who spills on playing a nerd, struggling as a teen in the spotlight and watching SNL spoof her with facial prosthetics (whoa!) in a not-so-nice Blossom parody featuring fellow Big Bang co-star Sara Gilbert.
A sampling of her comments:
The ultimate nerd show, The Big Bang Theory. What can you tell us about your arc that begins with the May 24 season finale?
I don’t know much more than you do. I’m sort of the tease—I’m the last episode of this season—as a possible, maybe love interest for Sheldon. And Sheldon is going to be exactly the same Sheldon that he was before, just with this sort of possibility of what might it look like for him to possibly, conditionally, maybe be enticed.
Blossom was known for sort of breaking new ground in so-called “very special episodes.”
Right. (Laughs.) What did they mean to you personally as a teenager? And what did you think of the backlash to that—for instance, the Saturday Night Live spoof?
First of all I think the fact that we had a show about a divorced father raising three kids when their mom split just because she wanted to live her own life—in 1990, that wasn’t part of our culture’s vernacular. Fathers were with children because the wife, God forbid, died. Not because she wanted to be a musician in Paris. So our whole show was sort of a “very special concept.” (Laughs.) That’s where some of the jumping off for that was.
Television in the nineties was sort of goofy all around. We were on after Fresh Prince. And the clothing was crazy, and the tone of the sitcom was very interesting.
In terms of the SNL skit, that’s one of the highest compliments that one can be paid. We were also featured in MAD magazine, and I grew up reading MAD magazine. They did a parody of Blossom … and as long as MAD magazine knew who I was, it was great.
Did SNL need to use prosthetics on the actress (Melanie Hutsell) who played me? I don’t think so. And that (decision) was just sort of a personal comment. And also Sara Gilbert was the guest that week. And I also think SNL has a lot of talented women come on the show who basically ridicule other actresses. And I think we can move above a catty level with actresses these days. But it is a tremendously high compliment to be enough part of (popular) culture that SNL does a spoof of you. Personal issues aside, it was incredible. You’ve arrived in the industry when SNL, or for me MAD magazine, are spoofing you.
Getting your doctoral in neuroscience, how has that helped you better understand the neuroses of Hollywood?
It’s a great question. And people (wonder) when they hear especially that I chose not to stay in academia but wanted to be home with my kids and nurse exclusively and home school—acting has really only been in the last year since our little guy is older. What I say is I use my degree all the time. I believe strongly in the field of neuroscience and neuropsychiatry in which I was trained. I’m not saying I understand people perfectly but to go through that kind of study, there’s not way in cannot affect your life on all fronts.
For me as a person of faith, I draw tremendous joy from my understanding of quantum physics. I draw tremendous joy from my understanding of how sometimes people hurt you when they want to love you. These are all big, complicated things that occur in the human experience that I’m grateful to my training for providing me with. I love being able to play with numbers. I love being able to explain things to my son when he starts asking, “Well, why is the moon here at night and the sun here at day?” I love being able to say more than, “Oh, the moon’s going night-night.” You know? (Laughs.) I love being a science person. That’s why I studied it in the first place.
Does this give you a better understanding of some of the quirks of Hollywood and celebrity in general? You’ve always been pretty grounded, but do you have more respect for those neuroses?
I do. I’m often asked about public figures who’ve displayed interesting behavior. Not just the tragic stories … but things like Britney Spears shaving her head in public. It’s nice to be able to not come from a gossip perspective. Kind of a pet peeve of mine is gossip, and I don’t like to gossip and I don’t like to be involved in gossip, but it’s nice to be asked things like, “What do you think of Britney Spears?” I’m not that popular at cocktail parties when I say things like this, but it really is my understanding that she’s a person who’s exhibiting some signs of distress or possibly postpartum (depression) … That’s how I view the world and that’s how I view people, whether they’re in Hollywood or not.
I think it’s also given me a lot more patience when people annoy me or reject me or don’t act the way I want when a producer is so caught up in his own whatever or her own narcissism—it gives me more compassion for them. I try not to be an angry person, and the industry can make you very, very angry. (Laughs.)
One of your earliest guest roles was on MacGyver—which, of course, is now an SNL sketch-turned-feature film spoof that precedes an actual MacGyver motion picture now in the works. If MacGyver can save the world with a paper clip and a rubber band, what would a holistic Blossom do to rescue the planet?
(Laughs.) Whatever it is, it would involve pesticide-free flowers and a hemp pack.
An oh-so-Live Betty White moved me to tears this Saturday Night. And not just in a laughed-so-hard-I-cried kind of way.
Oh, no. This was far more profound: I teared up in a please-don't-take-my-Betty-White-away way. (As in, you are my sunshine, my only sunshine. I know. Sad.)
As with most of life's trauma, it all goes back to childhood and young adulthood. And, oh yes, Dick Clark.
Picture it: Tulsa, 1992. The Golden Girls had just ended its seven-year run. Bea Arthur left the nest, and Betty, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty would never be the same, even though their short-lived spin-off The Golden Palace tried to promise more comedic hijinks. But we all know by now that Cheech Marin is no Bea Arthur, and cheesecake without biting sarcasm and raised eyebrows is, well, just cheesecake.
I'd just turned 20, just took a soul-crushing summer job at an all-you-can-eat-in-your-whitetrash-housecoast-sportin'-and-cheap-ass-flip-flops-wearin' Mexican buffet and just watched the Los Angeles riots turn the country upside down. After considering all of the sociopolitical consequences of our nation's bitterly divisive and otherwise ugly race war, the 20-year-old in me realized I may not get to visit L.A. that summer after all--despite my pact to stay alive since the previous fall just so I could get the hell out of Dodge for a couple of easy-breezy, beautiful weeks in August.
So, as I often did growing up, I placed all of my hope for the human race in a sitcom clown's magical ability to turn my spiritual frown upside down.
Which was all going along just fine, mind you, until Dick Clark tried to cast a dark shadow of fear and desperation on my eternal, as-seen-on-TV sunshine known as Betty White.
Betty was already under enough stress as it was in the early-'80s rerun of The $25,000 Pyramid that she again graced in cable reruns barely transmitting in my rural Oklahoma living room. I mean, sweet prophet, she only had sixty seconds to get to the top of the pyramid and possibly prevent a dowdy housewife from slitting her wrists during station identification. Is that not enough for the poor old (pre-)Golden Girl to bear?
Betty White in another, less-tense episode of Pyramid.
Apparently not. That prescient Dick Clark must've known America would again be watching in May 1992, pinning all of the fractured nation's hopes on Betty's ability to beat the clock and heal the world with the orgasmic sound of studio audience applause and game-show bells and whistles.
And so, as she brilliantly made her way to the top of the square-laden triangle, Betty White hit a snag. BECAUSE SHE'S HUMAN! But that is no excuse in a certain Dick's book.
A good 10 or 15 seconds ticked by as she tried to offer the perfect series of clues to the clueless housewife sitting across from her. Sweat was building on Betty's brow as her strapped-in hands clutched the arms of the plush torture device in which she sat. Finally, the dowdy housewife got the next-to-last answer, and with four seconds remaining, the final topic revealed itself at the top of the Dark Dick's Daytime Agony Climb.
Then, in what can only be described as the three most dramatic slow-motion seconds in the history of speaking peoples, I watch as Betty White performs the game-show equivalent of parting the Red Sea. She sees the answer: "Things You Paste." She tightens her death grip on her chair. A stroke seems imminent. And then, as if she wasn't under enough stress to fell a dozen elephants, Americans' cruelest teenager YELLS at her from his CBS Television City podium: "HURRY, BETTY!!!"
I nearly passed out. But with two seconds left, Betty summoned All That is Good, Peaceful, Unifying and Wise within her, quickly--and yet non-threateningly--uttering, "Pictures in a scrapbook!" And with nanoseconds remaining, Dowdy Housewife miraculously yells out, "THINGS YOU PASTE!"
Bells. Whistles. Applause. $25,000. And me sobbing at a 10-year-old game-show rerun. Because, in my heart of hearts, Betty White and I had made a pact, and she had brought salvation back.
Betty White: The Eye of the Tiger
Flash forward to Mother's Day 2010. At age 88, TV's good-old Golden Girl is still shining strong, kicking ass and taking names as the host of Saturday Night Live (!). In the 18 years since she saved mankind under the Dicktatorship of Mr. Clark, Betty has outlived two of her cheesecake-eating Golden co-stars (so long, dear Bea and Estelle) as well as the equally iconic, flaxen-haired '70s sunshine 25 years her junior, TV angel Farrah Fawcett, and, sadly, even my own personal Betty--my late grandmother, Elizabeth "Bettye" Hancock, who lost her battle with cancer in 1998.
So as I watched this very special SNL with my own (now Golden-aged) mother--just days after a madman tried to blow up Times Square (danger, Dick "Rockin' New Year's Eve" Clark!)--it was 1992's post-race-riot rerun of 1982's $25,000 Pyramid all over again.
Sure, Betty's foul-mouthed sketch-comedy stylings brought me tears of joy born from side-splitting laughter. And my pride in Miss White's still-shining, joyous essence lit me up like a cheap game-show set piece. But America's grandma also touched that vulnerable spot in me that wants to pause the world--or at least nearly freeze it for three or four super-slow-mo seconds--and say, "DON'T hurry, Betty!"
Because as long as TV's Queen of Game Shows/Happy Homemaker/Golden Girl is with us, everything will be all right--and we'll always have New York City and TV City and Minneapolis and Miami and (starting in June on TV Land) Cleveland to escape to during those long, hot, oppressive summer months.
In this day and age, we need Betty more than ever. As our country continues to heal from within while trying to find peace in an increasingly chaotic world, Betty White, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, may be our only hope.
So please don't pay any attention to that ticking time clock or that ball-dropping Dick, sweet golden girl. I'm giving you at least another 18 years to make it to the top of the pyramid.
Share-y O'Teary: The Insider's Hailey Glassman (left), SNL's Cheri Oteri
Her former Saturday Night Live co-star Tracy Morgan may think she's a "bitch (who) can't even get arrested," but those of us who remember SNL's late-'90s renaissance know that Cheri Oteri can serve up one hell of a mug shot. And it's high time Lorne Michaels sentence her to making his iconic late-night sketch comedy series laugh-out-loud funny again.
Michaels should at least get her for a quick cameo. Only the delightfully twitchy Oteri could truly do justice to spoofing Jon Gosselin's 22-year-old "soul mate," Hailey Glassman. As the once-arrested party girl simultaneously wept, apologized, ranted, squirmed and tittered this week on the entertainment news show The Insider, Glassman unwittingly channeled the tragicomic essence of Oteri's spasmodic splendor. It made me all tingly for the days of yore when Oteri let it all hang out while portraying desperately dingy characters such as "Simmah down nah!"'s Nadeen, the Spartan cheerleader, talk show host Cass Van Rye and Collette Reardon, "Medicine Woman." (She also did bitchin' impressions of Judge Judy, Barbara Walters and Debbie Reynolds.)
Tracy Morgan, simmah down nah! Lorne Michaels, bringah back nah! Cheri Oteri, make us laugh nah!
What I wouldn't give for Dan Aykroyd to tie up Larry King, hijack his CNN anchor chair and deliver this apparently apt one-liner to the whiny-assed, self-involved, axe-grinding, (allegedly) ass-grabbing, globe-trotting, douche-bagging worse half of Kate Gosselin.
As much as I've tried to avoid the crapola circling her reality TV half-wit husband, Jon Gosselin's increasingly egregious behavior screams out on every supermarket check-out rag, entertainment web site and, now, TV news show in existence.
Somebody has to tell this father of eight, "Mr. Gosselin, despite your uncanny resemblance to his first name, you, sir, are no Dick Van Patten."
Still, Jon decided "Eight" was enough right around the time TLC dropped his moniker from the now less-arithmetically-complex "Kate Plus Eight." Suddenly, after several months of self-absorbed galavanting with one or more women six to ten years his junior (biologically speaking, anyway), he's had an "epiphany" and decided the three-year-old cable reality TV cash cow that's supported him, his wife, their eight children and his costly lifestyle is now "unhealthy" for his kids.
Or for his ego. After putting up for months with his unprofessional and sickening shenanigans—including telling ABC's 20/20 that he "despises" his impressionable, young children's mother—TLC finally put him in his place. And now, miraculously, he's concerned about saving his family. What. Ev. Er.
At least that Ewok dude married to Heidi Montag is bright enough to consider getting a vasectomy. If only Mr. Gosselin were as smart as an Ewok.
I offer the following anecdotes to Jon and/or his sympathizers as a cautionary tale. Not that he would head down this path, but his erratic actions seem to suggest that, under certain conditions, his immaturity and petulance could make him vulnerable to continued stupidity.
My sister married an unkind and infantile man in the mid-'80s. They quickly had three children. He sat on his ass while my sister took care of everything—from screaming babies, dirty dishes, errands, potentially dangerous kitchen spills and so on and so on and so on. When he decided to run off and have a mid-life crisis in his early 30s, he didn't have nannies, bodyguards and production assistants standing by to enable his self-indulgent conduct. Mr. Gosselin seems to have conveniently forgotten how much his TV series has helped him and his children as he tries to cope with life's stresses.
If he truly now has his kids' best interests at heart, I wonder if he's prepared to pay his soon-to-be-ex-wife alimony, along with child support. Does Divorced Dads Club pony up the big bucks?
I also wonder if he's prepared to stop sowing his wild oats long enough to focus on eight kids' emotional and mental development. I know 22-year-olds think little kids are cute and all, but will Jon's "soul mate," Hailey Glassman, step up to the step mom plate? Something tells me that, without his money-making series and accompanying celebrity, Mr. Gosselin may be on his own in the not-so-distant future. Nannies are expensive, after all, and he's learned the hard way that they can talk to tabloids. He might have to settle on daycare and a mute babysitter.
I hope for his eight kids' sake that he grows up and puts his reality TV money where his mouth is after this show ends. How much is insurance for a new Mercedes-Benz ML350 SUV, a new Porsche Cayenne and a 2007 Nissan Nismo 350Z? Hmmm. I hope none of those kids needs serious counseling, medical or dental work in the years ahead. Vroom vroom.
My ex-brother-in-law, who eventually took up occasional work as a truck driver, decided he'd "found Jesus" on an Oklahoma turnpike in 1992. Apparently, Jesus told him not to send money home to Ohio to pay his family's heating bill in December. As my sister and her three kids sat freezing in their squalid little house hundreds of miles from the rest of her family, my parents and I turned on the TV to see her idiot husband in a "heartwarming" story on a Tulsa news station. He literally gave another trucker the Member's Only coat off his back while telling a reporter, "We truckers have to stick together."
Mr. Gosselin, please do not purchase a Member's Only jacket. Not that you wouldn't pay your family's heating bill, but those pneumatic soul mates can distract you when they get nipply, er, nippy.
Shortly thereafter, my sister's moronic mate left her and her pre-school-aged children. My mom and I moved them to Oklahoma and eventually, after I graduated from the University of Tulsa and got established in Los Angeles, to Southern California. The kids' idiot father never spoke to them again, never sent a card and—unless forced by the state of California—almost never paid child support.
My mom, my sister and I made sure they had what they needed—including, first and foremost, love and attention—but we could never repair the damage their asshole father did to them by refusing to grow up. And, let me tell you, it was not easy not telling my niece and nephews—whom I consider my kids—how much I despised their father. No kid needs to hear that. Besides, they learned soon enough on their own that his actions spoke for themselves.
Think carefully, Mr. Gosselin. Maybe Kate Plus Eight isn't such a bad idea after all.
