Channeling Emily Litella (and Gilda Radner)
For obvious reasons, humor is in short supply right now.
Which is precisely why it’s so important.
If Gilda Radner were still around — and it’s hard to believe it’s been 31(!) years since she was — I know exactly how she’d update her classic SNL bit: righteously indignant-but-befuddled Emily Litella, whose on-air editorial rants always had to be interrupted, because she got the subject matter ever so slightly wrong (examples: “Soviet Jewelry” vs. “Soviet Jewry,” and her consternation over “The Deaf Penalty”).
Once she finally realizes her error, she sputters to a confused halt, pauses, then sweetly mutters . . . . “Never mind.”
In that vein, I offer the following:
“What’s So Bad About Social Lists?!?”
Emily Litella: Why is everyone making such a big fuss about social lists?
I LOVE social lists!
How can you be an organized person without social lists??
I’ve got one social list for my Mahjong group, another for my friends, and another for my kids and grandkids.
I keep all my social lists in a pink notebook.
Whenever I meet someone new, I take out my pink notebook, get their name and address, then . . . ”
TV producer (off-camera, in a hushed tone): “Emily, it isn’t “Social Lists”; it’s “Socialists” — like, “Communists” or “Marxists.”
Emily Litella: “Oh . . . um. Uh . . . “Never mind.”
See also, “Finding Peace in the Middle Seat”; “The Libyan Vacuum”; “Treason Toys“; and ““Cry Me a (River)?” No, “Cri-me-a . . . River.”
