Friday, September 08, 2006

Who could ever forget Roseanne Roseanneadanna's take on the news ??

"Roseanne Roseannadanna" was a character created and portrayed by Gilda Radner (1946-1989) on Saturday Night Live and later in Radner's live one-woman shows. Her name is likely a reference to 1970s WABC-TV newsreader Rose Ann Scamardella. The character would appear as a commentator during the Weekend Update segments during Jane Curtin's tenure as Weekend Update anchor.

As portrayed by Radner, Roseannadanna was a brash, tactless New Yorker with a thick Brooklyn accent, and her commentary would follow a strict formula. She would read a letter which was almost always from the same person: Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey (although, on one occasion she read a letter from a "Mrs." Richard Feder). The letter would ask a series of questions, to which Roseannadanna would usually reply, "Boy, Mr. Feder, you sure do ask a lot of stupid questions for a guy from New Jersey." Then she would make a derogatory comment about New Jersey.

While answering the questions, she would invariably digress, launching into a lengthy anecdote with no relevance whatsoever to the topic at hand. Inevitably, the story would lead into Roseannadanna's going into disgustingly graphic detail about bodily functions or personal hygiene; with these details, she would use a famous celebrity as an example and say that she would ask these celebrities, "What are ya tryin' to do, make me sick?!"

Eventually, Curtin would interrupt, asking her what her comments had to do with the question. Rosannadanna's response was, "Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it's always something." She would then wrap up her comments by sharing a piece of advice passed down from a family member (often her father, but sometimes her "Nana" Roseannadanna; in one episode, she mentioned her aunt Pollyanna Roseannadanna, and in another, her "musical cosin, Carlos Santana Rosaeannadanna"). The character also had a tendency to refer to herself by her full name whenever possible, and often exaggerated her tribulations, saying, "I thought I was gonna die!"

Commentary from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/)

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