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Nostalgic
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Curious
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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: August 22, 1973
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: It must have been daunting for Kristen Wiig to show up at Saturday Night Live when she did, with the talent level being so strong and the legacy of that era of women — Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph — already cemented. Like, top that. That Wiig was able to carve a place for herself in SNL lore via the sheer volume of her characters is fairly mind-boggling. She had so many, and a lot of them were divisive. For everybody who loved Penelope and the Target Lady and Garth & Kat, there were people who were either sick of them of never liked them in the first place. (Also Gilly. Nobody really liked Gilly.)
It’s funny to think about the Wiig fatigue that set in regarding all her recurring characters considering we’re currently mired in an era of Saturday Night Live where you’d be hard-pressed to come up with five recurring characters on the whole show. Maybe fewer if you don’t include the rotating characters on Weekend Update. Kristen Wiig had so many characters that she was able to retire some and still had plenty more to get by. Remember the Two A-Holes? Those two glorious dickbags played by Wiig and Jason Sudekis who were so monstrously recognizable and thus adaptable into so many situations.
Also perhaps Wiig’s most underrated character: motormouthed, nervous travel writer Judy Grimes, whose runaway train monologues felt less like comedy sketches and more like feats of strength, to the point where the audience would applaud simply for the degree of difficulty.
Some of Wiig’s best sketches walked the line between uncontrolled goofiness and inspired lunacy. Particularly during her final season, when the levels of senioritis were off the charts, and it was the rare sketch that didn’t see her breaking character. Of course, I’m talking about “Liza Minnelli Turns Off a Lamp.”
Happy birthday, Kristen Wiig. Here’s hoping you can blow out birthday candles more efficiently than Liza.
