Roseanne Roseannadanna
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"Roseanne Roseannadanna" was one of three characters created by Gilda Radner (the others being Emily Litella and Lisa Loopner) who appeared in the Weekend Update segments of the early seasons of the NBC comedy television show, "Saturday Night Live". Like Litella, Roseanne was brought in to give editorial replies to current issues. Unlike Emily Litella, however, Roseanne Roseannadanna was not meek or apologetic, but rather very explosive. The character later appeared in Radner's live one-woman shows. Her name is likely a reference to the WABC-TV newswoman from 1972-84 Rose Ann Scamardella.
As portrayed by Radner, Roseannadanna was a brash, tactless woman with wild hair.
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[edit] Routine
Roseannadanna's Saturday Night Live 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 asked a series of questions, usually about some current social issue, to which Roseannadanna would usually reply, "Mr. Feder, you sure do ask a lot of stupid questions for a guy from New Jersey," or "You belong in New Jersey!" Then she would sometimes make a derogatory comment about New Jersey. She would then answer the questions.
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, stating, "Roseanne, you're making me sick". Curtin would then ask her what her comments had to do with the question. Roseannadanna'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 "musically happening cousin, Carlos Santana Roseannadanna").
[edit] Characterization
The character also had a tendency to refer to herself by her full name whenever possible ("Mr. Feder, I know what your talkin' about, because, I, Roseanne Roseannadanna, once had the same thing happen to me.") and often exaggerated her tribulations, saying, "I thought I was gonna die!"
For example, she was talking about eating a hamburger in a restaurant and how she felt something hard in it. And she spit it out and it was white and looked like a toenail. She said, "I thought I was gonna die. I mean, what was a toenail doing in my hamburger?" Then she went to the restroom and on the way to the restroom she saw Princess Lee Radziwill who she described as the "classy lady that no one knows where she's the princess of." But what the Princess didn't know was she had a tiny piece of toilet paper hanging off her shoe, and she was walking around and the toilet paper wouldn't fall off. "I thought I was gonna be sick. So I says to her, 'Hey Princess Lee—what are ya tryin' to do, make me sick?' " So Jane Curtin asked her what this had to do with anything. Roseanne said, "Well it just goes to show you, it's always something, you either got a toenail in your hamburger or toilet paper clinging to your shoe."
[edit] After Saturday Night Live
In Radner's off-Broadway one-woman show, she included a sketch where Roseanadanna was invited to give the commencement speech at Columbia University. In an apparent attempt to prepare the new graduates for the hard road ahead, she described a job interview she'd had with CBS, in which Walter Cronkite mistakenly thought she'd "passed gas" and consequently kicked her out of his office. The character was later credited as "co-author" of Radner's book Roseanne Roseannadanna's Hey Get Back to Work. In the last year of her life, Radner released a memoir of her experience with ovarian cancer, entitled It's Always Something. Radner also recorded the book on audio, imitating Roseannadanna and other of her SNL characters when describing those parts of her life.
[edit] List of SNL Episodes Featuring Roseannadanna
- October 29, 1977 host: Charles Grodin-- on this episode, Gilda's Roseanne Roseannadanna character was not on Weekend Update. She was on a fake commercial called "Hire The Incompetent".
- January 21, 1978 host: Steve Martin
- January 28, 1978 host: Robert Klein
- February 25, 1978 host: O.J. Simpson
- March 18, 1978 host: Jill Clayburgh
- April 15, 1978 host: Michael Sarrazin
- May 13, 1978 host: Richard Dreyfuss
- October 7, 1978 host: The Rolling Stones
- November 18, 1978 host: Carrie Fisher
- December 16, 1978 host: Elliott Gould
- February 24, 1979 host: Kate Jackson
- April 7, 1979 host: Richard Benjamin
- May 26, 1979 host: Buck Henry
- October 20, 1979 host: Eric Idle
- December 22, 1979 host: Ted Knight
- March 15, 1980 No specific host.
- May 24, 1980 host: Buck Henry
The character also appeared in Radner's 1979 one-woman-show, Gilda Live.
