Honoring A Great American.

LIKE every other American citizen – from the important President Barack Obama to the lowliest writer-comedienne – I set aside time today, Monday, January 16, 2012, to reverently celebrate the life and achievements of a White person.

And that White person is of course Betty.

So tonight, as I befolded my laundry, I watched a little something that NBC put on for all of us called “Betty White’s 90th Birthday: A Tribute to America’s Golden Girl.” (Or, as it was originally supposed to be called, “Betty White’s 90th Birthday: An Hour and a Half of Our Foundering Monday Night Lineup We’re More Than Happy to Preempt.”)

It was a delight, of course, watching Betty’s aged co-stars from decades past take the stage to say a few loving words, and seeing just how ghastly they all looked. Equally wonderful were the younger stars, on hand to appeal to a more desirable demographic, who spoke likewise glowing words of praise about Betty in an effort for NBC to not-so-subtly push its comedies.

Betty White has that certain something, or as the French say, zat certain somesing, that no matter how much she’s overexposed (and brother, she’s overexposed), you just never quite get sick of her. Ah, that someone could determine exactly what that elusive quality is, bottle it…and then make Jane Lynch and Neil Patrick Harris drink it, so that they, too, might not be so offensive to all of us everywhere when every freaking time we turn around, there they are again.  Jesus!

Or Drano!  I suppose they just as easily could drink that, right? No, no, as my attorney cautions me to note, I’m kidding, of course.

Now, like I said, we all love Betty White, every last one of us, but like me, you kind of thought 2010 was The Year of Betty White and…well, that was going to be the end of it.  But here we are two years later and she’s still in the spotlight. And good for her, right? Sure.

But in 2011, just last year!, it seemed that America was starting to rediscover another similarly beloved and prolific living comedy legend – Mr. Dick Van Dyke.  Dick published his (exquisitely bland) autobiography, he was popping up on late-night talk shows, he had that song-and-dance stage show that, eh, unfortunately he had to bow out of after the first performance.  (Though to be fair, I don’t think he was physically able to bow after that first performance.)  Oh, and then perhaps most significantly, as you know, I started watching  “The Dick Van Dyke Show” on Netflix – so, yeah, 2011 was shaping up to be the year of Dick Van Dyke. But sadly, it never seemed to pick up steam nor go anywhere.

So now we’re back to Betty White again and much like Happy Hour at Moonsisters, Dick is all but forgotten.

But I have an idea that might just make things right.

Remember that time I took our dog Fritz and our neighbor’s dog Wilhelmina and “married” them in the backyard?

I say we do the same thing with Betty and Dick!

Can you imagine how cool that would be?  The two biggest, oldest, most beloved celebrity comedians alive, and we marry them to each other! It would be amazing! All of America will love it!

And I can perform the ceremony because I remember most of what I said when I married Fritz and Willie, but instead of “do you take this boy-dog” and “do you take this girl-dog” I can change it to “do you take this man” and “do you take this woman.”

First order of business: luring Betty and Dick into my backyard! Does anyone know if they like Snausages?

Posted by Ted on January 16, 2012, 10:09 PM.