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   » » Wiki: Emily Litella
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Emily Litella is a fictional character created and performed by in a series of appearances on Saturday Night Live. Based on a person in her early life, Emily Litella was a popular character in Radner's comedy repertoire.


Premise
Emily Litella is an elderly woman with a hearing problem who appeared 26 times on SNL's between November 15, 1975 (Season 1) and December 17, 1977 (Season 3).
(2013). 9780753521144, Random House. .
Attired in a frumpy dress, sweater and eyeglasses, Litella was introduced with professional dignity by the news anchors, who could sometimes be seen cringing slightly in anticipation of the they knew would follow. These were, in part, a parody of the Fairness Doctrine, which at the time required broadcasters in the to present opposing viewpoints on public issues.

Litella would peer through her reading glasses and, in the character's high-pitched, warbly voice, would read a prepared statement in opposition to an that the TV station had supposedly broadcast. Litella would become increasingly agitated as her statement progressed. Midway in her commentary, it became apparent to the anchor and the audience that Litella had misheard or misunderstood the subject of the editorial to which she was responding. A typical example:

The news anchor would interrupt Litella to point out her error, along the lines, "That's death penalty, Ms. Litella, not deaf ... death." Litella would wrinkle her nose, say something like, "Oh, that's very different," then meekly turn to the camera and say, smiling, "Never mind!"

(2008). 9780316045827, Little, Brown. .

When Litella played against news anchor (whom she often called ""), he would be somewhat sympathetic to her. After Chase left Saturday Night Life, took over the anchor role and provided a more adversarial foil. Often, she would scold Litella, "Every week you come on and you get it wrong," to which Litella would reply, "Bitch!"


Appearances
+Overview of Emily Litella appearances !scope="col"Air date !scope="col"Litella malapropism !scope="col"Actual phrase
Busing schoolchildren
Hiring the
Saving Soviet Jewry
Equal Rights Amendment
research
Death penalty
Conserving natural resources
Presidential elections
(2025). 9781558497856, Univ of Massachusetts Press. .
Violence on television
(2002). 9780203048689, Taylor & Francis. .
Top story
Croatian hijackers
donations
Making Puerto Rico a state
(1990). 9780806512204, Carol Publishing Group. .
Burning issues
Transcendental meditation
in cars
Duck
Free Elections in China
Endangered species
"(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman"
"I Will Follow Him"
beep
Hat in the ring
Mr.
SST
Porgy and Bess
Romeo and Juliet


History
Radner based Litella on her childhood nanny, Elizabeth Clementine Gillies, known as "Dibby", who was allegedly hard of hearing.
(1998). 9780684804910, Charles Scribner's Sons. .
(2015). 9781501126635, Simon and Schuster. .
The "Never mind" became a lighthearted of the era.
(2025). 9780471090168, Wiley. .
(2013). 9780393074093, W. W. Norton. .

In her first appearance on SNL, the character of Emily Litella was an author who appeared as an interview subject on a show called "Looks At Books". Though she had the same wavery voice and somewhat frumpy wardrobe as she would in later episodes, Litella did not appear to have a hearing problem in this appearance. All but one of the subsequent SNL appearances by Litella were at the newsdesk, and featured the by-now much more familiar "editorial reply" iteration of the character. In the eleventh episode of season four, on February 10, 1979, with guest hostess , the final comedy sketch was called "Emily Litellavision", and featured Litella hosting a staging of a song from Porky and Bess, her –based mis-hearing of Porgy and Bess by and and , with singing a song to Tyson with added stuttering, and the orchestra shown wearing pig masks.

Outside of Saturday Night Live, Radner played the character briefly on The Muppet Show. At the top of that episode, Miss Litella is discovered by Scooter, where she is vociferously complaining about the indignity of her appearing in something so silly as "The Muffin Show", whereupon Scooter gently persuades Miss Litella that she would be appearing on "The Muppet Show", not "The Muffin Show". After hearing this reassurance, she withdraws her objection, and meekly apologizes to Scooter by saying, "Never mind."

The character also appeared in Radner's 1979 one-woman show, Gilda Live, in which Litella took a job as a substitute teacher in Bedford-Stuyvesant, replacing a teacher who had been a victim of a stabbing by one of his students, which put him in the hospital. Miss Litella further cautioned her new students to be very careful where they put their toes, as the regular teacher's "stubbing" was the third such "stubbing", as Miss Litella put it, at the school that week alone; and that the "stubbings" must be pretty serious, in order to have put their teacher in hospital indefinitely.

A similar character, Anthony Crispino (played by ), made his first appearance on a in Season 35, and became a recurring character.


See also
  • Recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches
  • Floyd R. Turbo


External links

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