TMC
01-04-2022, 07:39 PM
https://jacksonupperco.com/2022/01/04/remembering-betty-white-with-another-betty-white-rarity/
We’ve shared a lot of Betty White stuff here over the years — a Life With Elizabeth teleplay, episodes of Date With The Angels (her first primetime network sitcom — produced by Desilu), a one-off appearance she made on the show Suddenly Susan — but this time I’ve got something from her personal collection: the actual script she used when guest starring on a first season episode of the Tony Randall sitcom Love, Sidney (1981-1983, NBC) — “Charlotte’s Web,” which was produced in late 1981 and shown in January 1982. Love, Sidney is about a closeted gay man who houses a single mother (Swoosie Kurtz) and helps raise her young daughter. I’ve only seen a handful of episodes, and they’re hit-and-miss — the comedy faces competition from treacle, and despite its groundbreaking post-Lear premise, it’s toothless in the way most 1980s domestic sitcoms are, even before VSEs had become a dominant trend in the decade.
https://i0.wp.com/jacksonupperco.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/betty-white-love-sidney.jpg.webp?resize=229%2C300&ssl=1
But, this script — written by Richard Baer — is a lot of fun, as White guests as a soap opera scribe who holds Kurtz’s fate in her hands, insisting that survival on the fictional series is dependent on romantic attention from Sidney, whose orientation, as in most episodes, is only implied. For fans of White, reading this script (with her own handwriting) should be a real delight, while the artifact itself is a testament to her remarkably varied career, which was so expansive that it included forgotten but pleasant endeavors like Love, Sidney — a show she surely improved.
We’ve shared a lot of Betty White stuff here over the years — a Life With Elizabeth teleplay, episodes of Date With The Angels (her first primetime network sitcom — produced by Desilu), a one-off appearance she made on the show Suddenly Susan — but this time I’ve got something from her personal collection: the actual script she used when guest starring on a first season episode of the Tony Randall sitcom Love, Sidney (1981-1983, NBC) — “Charlotte’s Web,” which was produced in late 1981 and shown in January 1982. Love, Sidney is about a closeted gay man who houses a single mother (Swoosie Kurtz) and helps raise her young daughter. I’ve only seen a handful of episodes, and they’re hit-and-miss — the comedy faces competition from treacle, and despite its groundbreaking post-Lear premise, it’s toothless in the way most 1980s domestic sitcoms are, even before VSEs had become a dominant trend in the decade.
https://i0.wp.com/jacksonupperco.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/betty-white-love-sidney.jpg.webp?resize=229%2C300&ssl=1
But, this script — written by Richard Baer — is a lot of fun, as White guests as a soap opera scribe who holds Kurtz’s fate in her hands, insisting that survival on the fictional series is dependent on romantic attention from Sidney, whose orientation, as in most episodes, is only implied. For fans of White, reading this script (with her own handwriting) should be a real delight, while the artifact itself is a testament to her remarkably varied career, which was so expansive that it included forgotten but pleasant endeavors like Love, Sidney — a show she surely improved.