LAUGHING IN THE TEMPLE OF BETTY: COMEDIENNE, GONE, BUT SHINING...FOR FANS AND FELLOW ARTISTS

by Edgar Miraculous Dyer

BETTY WHITE...

Right now, I am just saddened, knowing Betty isn't out there, doing her Betty-thing, anymore, because it was pretty special...genius. For writers and artists, White's courtiers and compatriots, the starry firmament just got a little dimmer.

White had a penchant for making characters, who were unassumingly oblivious to their own absurdity...even grotesqueness, ..heart-warming and, sometimes, unforgettable. She has been, over the course of a half-century's work in movies, TV and radio, far more influential on other comediennes and comedic actors - she was certainly one of those - than we will recognize, for a long time. WANDA SYKES, one of them, surely - if Sykes isn't the lost comedy-lovechild of REDD FOXX and Betty White, I don't know who is, and her comedic genius goes, where Foxx, White and Moms Mabley ..went, boldly before it.

A comedic mastermind in EVERY era, here's Betty White in 'her' 2020s. (from AARP.com)

In that sense, I think we'll be sifting through the Betty White magic, in places we don't expect to find it - wouldn't ever think to look for it - for a long time, ..and we'll find, there, ..true brilliance, fearlessness and something that means 'pressing on, without stopping'. In situation comedy, talk-shows, game shows, sketch comedy, and in every medium, she made us laugh and remember her, enough to chuckle, when she'd pop up, somewhere else. Stand-up comics and comedic actors will be studying how she did that, White's artistic technique, ..if they're even a tenth, as clever, as she was.

There's a reason why today's comedic actors, like Ryan Reynolds, fan-worship, in the temple of White.

Betty White's impact on us, her audience - what we will remember of her, that makes us smile, is something else. It's so much. I won't get into, here, ..but, I'll tell you, for three or four YEARS, I had a date with four white ladies on NBC, every Saturday night - GOLDEN GIRLS - that I wouldn't have missed, for the world.

"Oh, ..ROSE. Shut-up, Rose." Bea Arthur would groan. Sometimes, there was a cheesecake, my favorite desert, present.

Betty White was an animal-friend and advocate, a humanist, an industry trailblazer and a comedienne. I won't make her more or less, than that, with the typing space, I have left. What she was, without embellishment, ..was more, than enough.

Bye, Betty. You were and are brilliant, ..a gift to your fellow artists - comedians, actors and writers. Thank you, for a few, sparkly, funny moments, in front of analog TV sets, ..for being a friend.

For more, on Betty White's history and impact, read the following article, on CNN... https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/31/entertainment/betty-white-obituary/index.html

Edgar Miraculous (Mel) Dyer, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio) and the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill.