Why Betty White Makes A Grown Man Cry

 

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.

"I'll Take Jo Anne Worley For the Block, Please" ... "Love to Love You Bradys" Author Has "Magic" Evening with Schtick-Savvy TV Greats

Love to Love You Bradys author Ted Nichelson attended last night's 100th anniversary celebration for The Magic Castle in Hollywood. Magic indeed: He encountered a slew of retro TV faves, including (top to bottom) confetti master Rip Taylor (holding Ted's book); Laugh-In co-star and game show great Jo Anne Worley; Fernwood Tonight and Roseanne's Fred Willard; Little House on the Prairie's Nasty Nellie Oleson, Alison Arngrim; and accordion-squeezing MTV/stand-up goddess Judy Tenuta.

We're one Jimmie Walker short of a Match Game remake!

Remembering Rod Roddy: A Live-Out-Loud Voice Silenced Too Soon by Cancer ... A Former Barker's Beauty Reveals the Beloved "Come on Down!" Announcer's Off-Camera Heartache

Six years ago on Oct. 27, 2003, colorful Price is Right announcer Rod Roddy lost his brave battle with colon and breast cancer at age 66.

The larger-than-life voice behind the immortal catch phrase "Come on down!" from 1986 until his death, Roddy was diagnosed with colon cancer on—of all days—Sept. 11, 2001. He soon became one of the first celebrities to publicly campaign for colon cancer awareness and early detection. Sadly, as his cancer spread despite chemotherapy, Roddy also became one of the first male celebrities to share his diagnosis, in March 2003, of breast cancer. (Recently, former KISS drummer Peter Criss and Shaft himself, actor Richard Roundtree, revealed their breast cancer diagnoses.)

"I could have prevented all this with a colonoscopy, and, of course, that's the campaign I've been on since I had the first surgery," Roddy told CBS months before his death. "To everybody out there, get a mammogram! It can happen to men, too."



Despite his two-year cancer fight, the flamboyant TV ham—famous for his vibrant, glittery blazers and wacky Showcase skits—remained committed to his 17-year gig as Price's famed on-screen announcer and host Bob Barker's TV sidekick. He showed up with bells on until his final hospitalization two months prior to his passing.

"We all admired his courage," Barker told an interviewer in 2003. "He was always upbeat and hopeful. I went to the hospital and sat on the edge of his bed and we laughed the whole time we were talking. He was still having fun."

But not nearly as much fun, another former Price colleague says, as Roddy would have wholeheartedly preferred. In 2002, the high-energy announcer was suddenly taken off camera on the iconic CBS game show. FremantleMedia, the show's production company, claimed Roddy's disembodied voice was the product of their new "international policy" to keep all announcers off camera on all of their shows. Despite his still robust appearance, Roddy was seldom seen on camera in his final year or so on the show. (During his absence for cancer treatment in late 2002, however, fill-in announcers Paul Boland and Burton Richardson were featured on screen when introduced by Barker. And Roddy made a brief appearance on camera during the season 32 premiere in 2003 when introduced by Fremantle exec Syd Vinnedge.)

Roddy's rare on-camera Price appearance, Fall 2003

This "policy" was a facade, says veteran Barker's Beauty prize model Holly Hallstrom. The 1977-95 show vet, who countersued the series' legendary emcee-turned-exec producer and won a multi-million-dollar settlement in 2005, claims Barker yanked Roddy off the screen in 2002 following a backstage dispute over money. According to Hallstrom, Roddy demanded higher pay for a series of successful Price primetime specials. She says Barker—not Fremantle—retaliated by taking away the very thing that kept the ailing announcer going: his coveted, if minimal, camera time.

http://www.mediafire.com/?tmmlddmowzy

For the first time ever, an emotional Hallstrom breaks her silence, in this Retroality.TV audio interview, about her "precious" co-star's reaction to his on-screen vanishing act while he fought for survival during the final year-plus of his life. (This segment of Hallstrom's explosive Retroality.TV interview—part 4 in an ongoing series of exclusive chats with the classic game show model—will be available next month on our You Tube channel).

Barker paid tribute to Roddy in an 18-second clip montage in a Price episode airing after the announcer's death. Howard Stern mocked this brief memorial on his popular radio show. CBS' Late Late Show aired a considerably longer video homage to Roddy—one of the talk show's favorite guests—around this time.

The Emmy-winning emcee never referred to Roddy again on his game show. Barker mentioned Roddy only once in his 2009 memoir Priceless Memories—while listing him alongside his Price predecessor, the legendary Johnny Olson, and Roddy's successor, Rich Fields (whose frequent on-camera appearances apparently signaled the reversal of Fremantle's international policy in the last five years). Olson and Fields earned the Price host's recognition in the book's anecdotes; Roddy did not.

Roddy's long and illustrious Hollywood career took off in 1977 when he was hired as the announcer for the hit ABC sitcom Soap, which ran until 1981. Prior to landing his "Come on down!" dream job, he enjoyed success at CBS as the "avoid-the-Whammy!" voice behind the high-rated daytime game show Press Your Luck. For more info about Roddy, visit friend and fellow announcer Randy West's website.