"And Then All of a Sudden a Communist Appears Out of Nowhere!"

June 9, 2009 11:58 PM

Saturday Night Live comedic actress Victoria Jackson (whose website, upon entering, acoustically informs you of her non-bimbohood) appears on Sean Hannity's show with a rather large amount of enthusiasm and a torrent of very enthusiastically stated, if somewhat stream-of-consciousness, insights (YouTube, transcript).
posted by WCityMike (75 comments total)

I liked her better in UHF
posted by aubilenon at 12:05 AM on June 10 [3 favorites]

I was holding in the laughter until "Larry the Cable Guy, coming up next."
posted by brundlefly at 12:07 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

I should note that the transcript has a rather prodigious amount of small errors.
posted by WCityMike at 12:10 AM on June 10

She's either a huge idiot or the next Andy Kaufman.
posted by spiderskull at 12:11 AM on June 10 [5 favorites]

You know, I thought I was born too late to ever have to deal with HURF DURF COMMUNISM.
Apparently, I was wrong.
posted by dunkadunc at 12:11 AM on June 10 [3 favorites]

Spiderskull – I was thinking that exact thing, but her biography lends itself away from the appearance being a performance piece.
posted by WCityMike at 12:13 AM on June 10

And this Beckel guy is new to me. Is he Hannity's new centrist foil or something?
posted by dunkadunc at 12:17 AM on June 10

"Beckel was the campaign manager for Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign. Beckel worked for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968. In 1977, he was appointed deputy assistant secretary of state for the Carter administration. He was co-host of Crossfire Sunday on CNN alongside Tony Snow and later Lynne Cheney and later went on to Fox News Channel as a political analyst and commentator, regularly appearing on such shows as Hannity & Colmes, Hannity, and America's Newsroom."
posted by WCityMike at 12:23 AM on June 10

"My motivation is gone, because he will punish me if I'm successful."

I'm always happy to hear people with childish attitudes accept defeat at the hands of outside forces determined ruin them.
Those people you used to work with - they don't miss you, and are doing quite well.
posted by 2sheets at 12:35 AM on June 10 [8 favorites]

small brain, large....tracts of land
posted by caddis at 12:47 AM on June 10 [2 favorites]

I'm not familiar with her at all, but I was inclined to think this was all a big joke on her part, only it's been going on far too long (twenty years) without any sort of truthful revelation. Then I realized that as ridiculously stupid and absurd as she was, she still gets invited on to shows like Sean Hannity's, where her ideas (despite silly delivery) are entirely agreed with by Hannity. So apparently her thinking is in line with Hannity, his audience and a large segment of the Republican Party membership's thinking. This makes me feel a lot better about the continued success of liberals in the upcoming 2010 election, where several good people in Congress face challenges from these conservative clowns.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 12:50 AM on June 10

What sort of bimbo uses Realmedia on her site these days?
posted by phylum sinter at 1:02 AM on June 10 [4 favorites]

I really, really thought the last line of the transcript was going to be "JACKSON: Nah, I'm just [censored] with ya. Go Obama!" until I realized she's serious. Wow.

Incidentally, I like this part: "Small and polite, and we didn't set anything on fire. We didn't get on TV." It appears to be lost on her that her tacit suggestion that large-scale leftist protesters are more interested in publicity than political activism was being expressed on TV.

What a maroon.
posted by davejay at 1:18 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

Looking at the links on her website, I'm going to go with not a performance piece.
posted by eyeballkid at 1:22 AM on June 10

Wow. I was feeling sorry for her until just yesterday, when I heard that she was making the talk show rounds.

I really hate to say it because her voice is still adorable, but the tremendous motivation to further her career she must have had during the Bush years doesn't seem to have gotten her very far. According to the mighty PEDE, she's appeared on the 700 Club and also in a Christian comedy movie called "Thou Shalt Laugh 2: The Deuce." She campaigned against Obama and Al Franken, which must have been a bit awkward for her.

(By the way, she will be fifty in two months.)
posted by JHarris at 1:24 AM on June 10

You know, she was like the original "cute girl with ukelele."

But then she snorted too much of something she found in Dennis Miller's dressing room.
posted by rokusan at 2:19 AM on June 10 [2 favorites]

Why are we giving ridiculous right wingers that we don't agree with more attention?
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:43 AM on June 10 [2 favorites]

She's an angry woman yeah yeah yeah yeah
posted by I Foody at 2:57 AM on June 10 [2 favorites]

She needs to hire a director and a scriptwriter for her personal life so she can continue to come across as funny and appealing as she does when acting.
posted by orange swan at 3:42 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

I heard once that to be a good actor, you can't be too smart. The guy who said it was a terrible actor, so go figure.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:48 AM on June 10

Why are we giving ridiculous right wingers that we don't agree with more attention?

Because it's hard to find ridiculous right wingers that we do agree with?
posted by sexymofo at 4:03 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

That was richly, wildly entertaining. Sean Hannity will nod with serious agreement at the demented rantings of a fourth-rate comic, and echos the phrase "black liberation theology is Marxist". That pretty much cinches it, doesn't it? This is what the right has been reduced to. Next week, Hannity will be talking to a puppet he made out of an old oven mitt, and answer himself in a high, squeeky voice from the corner of his mouth. "So, Mr Jigglies, if I understand you correctly, Barack Obama is channeling the ghost of Joe Stalin to make domestic policy decisions?" - "That's right, Sean. And might I see you have wooonderful hair."
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:07 AM on June 10 [45 favorites]

She's either a huge idiot or the next Andy Kaufman.

She's been a conservative nutball for years.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:23 AM on June 10 [2 favorites]

I heard once that to be a good actor, you can't be too smart. The guy who said it was a terrible actor, so go figure.

I find that hard to believe. It seems like being smart would be an asset.
posted by delmoi at 4:33 AM on June 10

I hear DeNiro is dumb as a bag of hammers.

Not really
posted by Mister_A at 4:38 AM on June 10

JACKSON: I'd like to say something. I went to my first protest, and it was a conservative protest on Santa Monica pier a week ago, so it was very quiet.

BECKEL: I bet.

JACKSON: It was like, "Excuse me, we disagree. Excuse me." We gave speeches, and my sign said, "We Don't Want No Socialism." I know it's incorrect English, but I thought it would attract the attention.

Yeah. Gonna have to put myself firmly in the "feel sorry for her" crowd on this one.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 4:55 AM on June 10

John Voight, Victoria Jackson, Ron Silver and Chuck Norris. Truly the leading artistic lights of our time.
posted by Optamystic at 4:56 AM on June 10 [3 favorites]

"We Don't Want No Socialism."

I could stand behind that. Some socialism is a whole lot better than no socialism at all.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:02 AM on June 10 [9 favorites]

I liked her better during the 15 years I forgot she existed.
posted by disclaimer at 5:13 AM on June 10 [18 favorites]

She had a cute tush in Casual Sex? so I let her politics slide.
posted by Joe Beese at 5:17 AM on June 10

I always assumed that the borderline-mentally-challenged act that Victoria Jackson had on SNL was a big put-on, but in the years since she's been off the show, she's managed to prove me wrong.
posted by xingcat at 5:17 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

I believe the original post should have read:

Saturday Night Live "comedic" "actress" Victoria Jackson...

She has neither been funny nor acted in about 20 years.

In fact, looking over that list that optimystic posted (Jon Voight, Victoria Jackson, Ron Silver and Chuck Norris) it seems like right-wing political punditry and an viable acting career are mutually exclusive.

Well, maybe I take that back. Jon Voight was recently in An American Carol and National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.
posted by orville sash at 5:28 AM on June 10

slim and annoying all in one place....
posted by HuronBob at 5:34 AM on June 10

Palin/Jackson 2012!
posted by Sailormom at 5:45 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

I just can't watch stuff like this anymore. I get about 10 seconds in and then a little voice in my head says "yep, here comes the stupid" and I physically can't watch it and have to click to a new page. I hate it, cause I'm one who believes that I should listen to all sides of an issue. But recently, I just can't stomach listening to the other side. I guess I'm turning into a bad person.
posted by snwod at 5:52 AM on June 10 [15 favorites]

We Dont Need No Social-ism, We Just want some Thought Control...
posted by Liquidwolf at 6:02 AM on June 10 [3 favorites]

Agreed. I find myself uncomfortably squirming in my seat when I hear right-wing spew like that: It took all I could muster to make it through the video. I don't even like Obama very much, but listening to people complaining that COMMUNISM IS COMING TO AMERICA makes me sick to my stomach.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:03 AM on June 10

This kind of thing is never Andy Kaufman-esque tricksy performance art. 95% of the time it's sincere fame-whoring. The other five percent is just crazy talk.
posted by sugarfish at 6:12 AM on June 10 [2 favorites]

n-thing the flesh creep and stomach pump vibe watching this. I didn't make it all the way through, either.

To think that everyone I just watched makes big fat money and has health benefits and lives large to spew that kind of jingoistic bullshit makes my blood boil.

That they hired a ton of people behind the scenes to mount the cameras and build the sets and run the lines and provide the craft services for Victoria Jackson's stream-of-unconsciousness.....

SMASH!
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 6:16 AM on June 10

I just can't watch stuff like this anymore. I get about 10 seconds in and then a little voice in my head says "yep, here comes the stupid" and I physically can't watch it and have to click to a new page. I hate it, cause I'm one who believes that I should listen to all sides of an issue.

I hear you. I mean, I know that conservatives have many legitimate concerns and ideas (honest!) But, their media outlets seems so hell-bent on wrapping the ideas in such screwball nuttery and over-the-top bile that it corrodes any core legitimacy their views may hold. It's sad, really.

What's scary is that this is just the beginning. It will escalate. And lord help us if Obama actually has a program blow-up in his face or some disaster hits. The feeding frenzy is going to make this shit look like a Friends meeting.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:20 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

This kind of thing is never Andy Kaufman-esque tricksy performance art. 95% of the time it's sincere fame-whoring. The other five percent is just crazy talk.

QFT. It drives me up a wall when people say "oh Glen Beck etc. don't really believe most of what they say." Even if that's true, it's damn near a duty to take them at face value and call them on it, because there's plenty of people who think they're wonderful. If we ignore them they won't go away.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:22 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

was a conservative protest on Santa Monica pier a week ago, so it was very quiet

Yeah, conservative protests are known for being quiet.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:23 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

I think she's really funny. Really, I do.
posted by MarshallPoe at 6:35 AM on June 10

You know who I feel bad for? Poor damn Archie Bunker. All those years stuck with Edith, when he could have been with this broad.
posted by bicyclefish at 6:38 AM on June 10 [4 favorites]

I just can't watch stuff like this anymore. I get about 10 seconds in and then a little voice in my head says "yep, here comes the stupid" and I physically can't watch it and have to click to a new page. I hate it, cause I'm one who believes that I should listen to all sides of an issue. But recently, I just can't stomach listening to the other side. I guess I'm turning into a bad person.


Nthed. Even filtered through stuff like Sadly, No! It just gets so depressing to watch so much raw, unadulterated crazy. I swear it's a plan to make the baseline political discourse so frothingly detached from reality that you end up saying things like "Well, then lets compromise, we can lock up all the Mexicans if he don't start hunting gays for sport."
posted by The Whelk at 6:41 AM on June 10

Beck must find it difficult to book guests 'cause Ms Jackson might not even be a big enough celebrity for a reality show. What has she done, except to continue with the little girl voice schtick, which at 50 is pathetic.

Who is he going to feature next? The phlosophy of Anthony Michael Hall?

I had heard once that a common professional arc for country "stars" is to make Christian music when their career was waning, it keeps you with a ready market and brownie points for being christian and holier than thou. Maybe that is part of what is going on with Victoria Jackson - if the Tonight Show won't have you, the there's always The 700 Club and Glen Beck.

Personally I couldn't watch more than 10 seconds. If she does know what she's talking about, it isn't apparent when filtered thru her idiot girl persona.
posted by readery at 6:41 AM on June 10

They're actually giving her platform after platform, and presenting her as though she were a reasoned voice of conservativism, rather than a dense and rather baffling collection of loosely strung together talking points presenting in a barely intelligible package.

Maybe she really is the face of modern conservativism, self-destructing.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:55 AM on June 10 [4 favorites]

What has she done, except to continue with the little girl voice schtick, which at 50 is pathetic.

Have you ever seen Melanie Griffith or Butterfly McQueen talk? It's not necessarily a shtick. Some women naturally have voices like that.
posted by jonp72 at 6:59 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

Meh, Victoria Jackson's turn to the right has nothing on Melanie Hutsell forcing her tween daughters to play in some band called Prussian Blue.

Also, Don Pardo? Old school Bircher. In 'Live From New York' there's an anecdote about Eddie Murphy tackling him to the floor after hearing Pardo introduce him as "the little monkey" on one of Pardo's famously salty rehearsal tapes.
posted by bunnytricks at 7:09 AM on June 10 [6 favorites]

Quiet already. Ms Jackson is one of our secret weapons. She's given up what could have been a brilliant career to become a deep-cover asset for us. As long as she's getting press attention and spouting fluffy nonsense, she's stealing the spotlight from crafty and toxic right-wing subversives like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:15 AM on June 10 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: Okay, I'll talk.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 7:41 AM on June 10

Who is he going to feature next? The phlosophy of Anthony Michael Hall?

Maybe he'll get Kelsey Grammer to say a few words in his Sideshow Bob voice.
posted by blucevalo at 7:52 AM on June 10

This is what my brain sees every time I watch a video of republicans articulating their current views.

Like this:

Rush Limbaugh addresses a GOP fund raiser

Sarah Palin appears on Glenn Beck

Coverage of the "Tea Parties"

...and so on.
posted by fuq at 7:53 AM on June 10 [2 favorites]

I was feeling sorry for her until just yesterday, when I heard that she was making the talk show rounds.

Yeah, when I knew her as "the former SNL actress who has now adopted right-wing loony views as a private citizen," it was vaguely amusing and marginally depressing. But it didn't bother me as she didn't seem to be hurting anyone, and some of her new albums she was selling on her website still seemed worth buying. I, of course, respect the rights of consenting adults to engage in whatever political wankery they choose in the privacy of their own home. When they're shoving it in our face in front of the children, my sympathies and "live and let live" attitude fly out the window.
posted by deanc at 7:59 AM on June 10

To be blunt, I don't find her wingnuttery to be as sad or depressing as Dennis Miller's, because she was never that good of a comedienne. The SNL 1986 cast was one of the best ever on the show, easily on a par with the original cast, but Jackson was always kind of the slow kid among them, without anything like the range of Jan Hooks or Nora Dunn.

I guess what I'm saying here is, fuck Victoria Jackson.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:11 AM on June 10 [6 favorites]

bunnytricks: "49Also, Don Pardo? Old school Bircher. In 'Live From New York' there's an anecdote about Eddie Murphy tackling him to the floor after hearing Pardo introduce him as "the little monkey" on one of Pardo's famously salty rehearsal tapes."

Say it ain't so! Him and John Ratzenberger, wow.

I'm starting to wonder if the right-wing screw-nuttery of so many actors who play charming little roles might be somehow built into the Hollywood system. Maybe it's a defense mechanism for them:

1. They build a career out of being the weird-but-memorable guy of girl in the corner of the screen. The lady who does handstands while reciting poetry. The bar know-it-all. The distinctive announcer. Someone it's difficult not to like.

2. It turns out their careers don't progress far beyond their little niche. In reality this is because Hollywood is largely shallow and focused on looks and conventional behavior, which their antics have marked them as incompatible for. Not to mention that a bar know-it-all character doesn't make sense in a show not set in a bar. Or even, in Cliff Clavin's case, a show not set in a specific bar; Poor Ratzenberger is now pretty much firmly identified with Cheers, which is great for job security until the moment the show folds. (Although he has made it out of the hole, a bit, by being Pixar's good luck charm.)

3. They wonder why their careers don't go anywhere and see it as being held down by the Liberal Power Elite that doesn't want to see them get ahead. This thought-parasite feeds upon their brains and grows strong.

In other words, I'm suggesting they might be confusing the actual stupid Hollywood fixation on appearance and bland apparent-normalcy with a concerted liberal drive to take over the Earth. It doesn't help that many Hollywood types are liberal in a certain kneejerk, little-considered kind of way that's easy to target.

But yeah. It's enough to make me wonder what Henry Winkler's politics are.
posted by JHarris at 8:31 AM on June 10 [3 favorites]

Seeing as Winkler did a commercial for Obama in which he revived his role as Fonzi, I'd say he's a bit more to the left than Mr Ratzenberger.

Just a guess.
posted by grubi at 8:50 AM on June 10 [2 favorites]

Winkler has also had a pretty awesome post-Happy Days career, albeit mostly in supporting and cameo roles. And his late-night talk show appearances are great fun, rather than depressing.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:58 AM on June 10

Winkler also produced MacGyver.

fwiw Jackson was pretty vocal during the last election so any additional news of her cry-baby politics is not surprising. In fact IIRC she cut a commercial for everyone's favorite long suffering loser, Norm Coleman.
posted by edgeways at 9:03 AM on June 10

BECKEL: Could you repeat that for the record?
JACKSON: Rush, Sarah Palin, and him. That's who's I'd like to run the country.
BECKEL: Rush, Sarah Palin and him?
JACKSON: That's who I want to run the country.
BECKEL: New Zealand, here we come. New Zealand is a nice place.

OK, it was worth sitting through, just for that one line.
posted by zarq at 9:33 AM on June 10 [4 favorites]

he will punish me if I'm successful

There's zero risk of that.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:36 AM on June 10 [3 favorites]

There's zero risk of that.

There is a nonzero, if slight probability that the ukulele will come back in style for a short duration, at which point Ms. Jackson may have a renewed career doing bumpers on the FOX Kids channel.

Televisual scientists call this the Tiny Tim Effect (named, of course, after noted left-wing activist actor and chronic masturbator Tim Robbins) and they are not entirely sure what triggers it.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:02 AM on June 10

Didn't watch the clip. Did she do the handstand? That's all I really care about.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:05 AM on June 10

Winkler has also had a pretty awesome post-Happy Days career, albeit mostly in supporting and cameo roles.

He's also a children's book author! He's about eleventy different kinds of awesome.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:16 AM on June 10

"You know who I feel bad for? Poor damn Archie Bunker. All those years stuck with Edith, when he could have been with this broad."

Archie needed someone compassionate like Edith to ground him. I don't think it would work so well with an airhead reactionary.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:54 AM on June 10

"But yeah. It's enough to make me wonder what Henry Winkler's politics are."

Remember at first that the tv execs were concerned about his character wearing leather, fearing that they would be promoting violence. He wore a windbreaker or something like it in the first episode.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:58 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

Archie needed someone compassionate like Edith to ground him. I don't think it would work so well with an airhead reactionary.

Definitely. With Edith, Archie is reigned in, softened around the edges by Edith even as he feigns disdains for her. Without Victoria Jackson, most of All in the Family would have consisted of Archie Bunker in the basement making YouTube videos about the ZOG and weeping.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:04 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

Without Victoria Jackson ...
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:05 AM on June 10

Okay, I *just* watched that video and I couldn't make it more than 30 seconds in. Victoria Jackson flitting around in Cyndi Lauper's castoffs and twitting like a magical Republican Nixie from beyond the veil of Faerie represents my limit for head-crushing surrealism today.
posted by The Whelk at 11:20 AM on June 10 [1 favorite]

Yeah, this is no act. In the weeks leading up to the election, I happened upon her website, and it was an absolute warehouse of paranoid religio-right-wingnuttery. It looks like she disappeared most of the really kooky stuff right after the election, but beliefnet captured a few choice quotes for posterity:

"I don't want a political label, but Obama bears traits that resemble the anti-Christ and I'm scared to death that un-educated people will ignorantly vote him into office."

"And as for your "church" or Rev. Wright, Evangelicals think it's a sad cartoon. Obama, call me. I'll explain Christianity to you. Maybe you'll get saved and start loving unborn babies..."

"To lie about being a believer in Christ is very dangerous. Lightning could strike him at any minute! But seriously, he doesn't have a clue what the Bible says and yet he pretends to be a church- going Christian to win votes. That is sooooo evil."
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:25 AM on June 10 [3 favorites]

And as for your "church" or Rev. Wright, Evangelicals think it's a sad cartoon.

The feeling is very much mutual.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:59 AM on June 10

What, was that Keyboard Cat's night off?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:35 PM on June 10 [6 favorites]

Oh she's a performance artist.
posted by nola at 3:07 PM on June 10 [1 favorite]

I mostly threw out the Henry Winkler thing as a joke. But wow, he really is awesome. "Ayyyyyyy!"
posted by JHarris at 7:52 PM on June 10

Yes, JHarris, he most certainly is. Everything I've seen of him outside the acting roles, he appears to be a genuinely nice person who is grateful for his successes and looks forward to whatever's next. That's probably not as rare a trait as it seems, but it's always nice to see it.

You rock, Mr Winkler.
posted by grubi at 5:16 AM on June 11