With the passing of Jonathan Winters, I thought of something he said in an interview in the PBS documentary
Make Me Laugh. He was talking about the character of Maude Frickert (above). He mentioned that when he was dressed as Maude Frickert, he could get away with saying just about anything.
Also in the documentary, Whoopie Goldberg discusses how she was doing an imitation of African-American comedian Moms Mabley (above) on
Saturday Night Live and one of the jokes was cut from the show by Standards and Practices as being obscene, even though she had remembered Mabley doing the same joke on
The Flip Wilson Show in the early 70s. Both Winters and Goldberg attributed this to the fact that Maude Frickert and Moms Mabely were perceived "harmless" old ladies.
Hind sight 20/20, if I had known that back when I started the
original blog, I would not have chosen the persona of a comic book/movie serial, megalomaniac super-villain (with a crush of Paris Hilton) to do my controversial blogging on current topics. Ozarkers for some reason feared Desdinova, as if there really was a megalomaniac plotting to take over America from his hide out under Park Central Square. I have been told that some people actually called Springfield Police to ask why they hadn't attempted to arrest me before I banned talk radio with the aid of my giant robot and my raygun that turned people "gay."
Instead I should have been an old lady with salty opinions on current events and local media personalities. I probably could have named her after my own grandma and called her Grandma Jones (Because there are probably millions of Grandma Jones in the world). To add to what Jonathan Winters and Whoopie Goldberg theorized about Maude Frickert and Moms Mabley, Ozarkers tend to worship old people and believe they are smarter than most highly educated people. So I could have got away with saying things like, "My third husband used to spout off crazy opinions like KSGF's Vincent David Jericho, but I found the perfect thing to stop that - I gave him poison" or "That Billy Long is such a big ignoramus. Someone ought to rip his Fruit of the Looms off, while he is STILL WEARING THEM!" or "Did you ever notice the people who hate rap and hip hop are the same morons who like Hank Williams Jr and that Chicken Fried song" or "I don't know why folks around here don't like Honey Boo Boo, she got those cute little dimples. They tell me they prefer to watch Duck Dynasty. I'll be those stupid guys on that show are covered in tick and chiggers."
People would have just said "That old lady is funny. We ought to have her over for dinner Sunday after church."
Then again, my opinions are why I'm considered the Super Villain of the Ozarks!!! Mwu-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
