Saturday Night Live has been home to over a hundred cast members throughout the past 35 years. In our column Saturday Night’s Children, we present the history, talent, and best sketches of one SNL cast member each week for your viewing, learning, and laughing pleasure.
Thanksgiving got me into the patriotic spirit, and there's nothing more American than speaking out against Obama, gay marriage, and the Islamization of America, at least according to SNL alum Victoria Jackson, who helped bring the show out of its mid-80s slump thanks to her go-to status as the show's squawky-voiced blonde airhead. Who knew she'd go from reciting poetry while doing handstands on the Weekend Update desk to comparing Barack Obama to Hitler and singing about Sharia Law on the ukulele?
Jackson grew up in Miami, Florida in what she calls "a Bible-believing, piano-playing, gymnastic home with no TV." After stints at Florida Bible College and Auburn University and a gymnastic scholarship to Furman University, Jackson graduated from Palm Beach Atlantic University with a degree in theater, and she developed an act that combined her poetry, singing, ukulele, and gymnastic skills. She was discovered by Johnny Crawford via summer stock in Alabama, and he hired her to perform her handstand poetry act at his night club in Hollywood. While there, Jackson worked as a cigarette girl, waitress, and typist at the American Cancer Society and performed stand-up for two years until her act was picked up by The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the early 1980s. She appeared on the show over 20 times.
Jackson’s popularity on The Tonight Show landed her a SNL audition, and she was hired for the twelfth season in 1986 alongside newcomers Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, Phil Hartman, and Jan Hooks. Her strength revolved around her trademark ditzy voice, and even though she had no hit recurring characters on SNL save for a decent Roseanne Barr impression, her sweet but abrasive delivery gave even the smallest and most supporting roles a cartoonish charm.
Jackson also appeared as Brenda Clark from “Toonces the Driving Cat" and Jenny Baker, a Christian girl and frequent guest on “Church Chat" who only vaguely resembles the religious fundamentalist extremist Jackson would become years later. Some of her best SNL performances were her segments on Weekend Update where she sings songs about not being a bimbo, plays home videos of her baby daughter Scarlet instead of reporting on her assignments, and performs her "Update Handstand" act on the Update desk. (Fun Fact: Jackson's first husband is a fire breather and magician, and her second husband is a police helicopter pilot.) My favorite Jackson SNL moment is her performance in the commercial parody “Handi-Off,” where she plays a woman who has too many fingers.
Jackson left SNL at the end of her fifth season in 1992. Prior to SNL, she also appeared in The Jeffersons (in 1982), The 1/2 Hour Comedy Hour (in 1983), Garfield and Friends (1983-1984), and more, and after her departure, she’s appeared in films, shorts, and television shows including Touched by an Angel, The X-Files, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Strip Mall. She continues to perform stand-up (and has toured with Joe Piscopo in what The A.V. Club called "the most depressing Saturday Night Live reunion ever") and most recently debuted her web series PolitiChicks, a conservative take on The View in which Jackson and three other women discuss topics like gay marriage, illegal immigration, and Islam, with such gems as "We're lucky that most Muslims are lukewarm or we'd all be dead" among others. Whether or not Jackson's just playing some sick lifelong Kaufman-esque joke on all of us, she's made one of the strangest transitions in SNL cast member history, devolving from a likable bimbo to a Tea Partier mix of Prussian Blue and the mother in Carrie, and if you're in the mood for more of her ukulele ditties, you can catch them here, here, and here.
Megh Wright misses Harrisburg, lives in Brooklyn, and answers phones in Manhattan.
I started really getting into SNL when the Carvey/Hartman episodes started airing on Comedy Central, and had been pretty much indifferent to her as a cast member up until recently. I find her to be the one who's crapped on the SNL name the most. She's, perhaps, the greatest embarrassment the show has ever produced. Piscopo and Miller have to thank her for falling on that sword in lieu of the both of them.
Megh Wright
@Logistics If you haven't seen it before, watch her singing "The Atheist" (second to last link in the article, I think) — it's a direct dis to Julia Sweeney, and kind of gross in terms of a cast member bashing a fellow cast member. Talk about crapping on the SNL name…so much anger from this woman! Actually, maybe don't watch it. It's really not fun at all.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Luke-Kelly-Clyne/5410465 Luke Kelly-Clyne
Jesus. "Angry Woman" is insane and awesome. I'd never seen that before.
that guy
The SNL weekend update bit where VJ brings her baby to a park to search out terrorists is hilarious (sadly, seems to have been taken down from youtube). I rediscovered VJ on youtube and I've come to adore her comedy and beauty (in her 80s heyday at least). Her current Tea Party persona is weird yet compelling. Underrated.
A Good Question
The idea of a conservative web version of "The View" isn't even original, since Michelle Malkin was already doing "The Vent."
One funny thing about reading Tom Shales' "Live From New York" was seeing how much in contempt Jackson, Nora Dunn, and Jan Hooks held each other in during the late '80s. I guess if I'm on anyone's side it's Hooks'.
http://videoshare.tumblr.com Firas Alexander
My favorite thing with her in it is the Weird Al movie UHF. Even though she is a terrible person now, she can't diminish that movies comedic greatness.
ineffable.me
I never thought she was funny and never understood how she got on the show. If she ever did anything funny it was purely incidental and any other blonde lady could've probably done the same or even better.
Just.the.worst.
fmpu
Is there any chance victoria jackson is really rosanne barr?
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