Posted on 01/04/2023 8:52:34 PM PST by nickcarraway
During the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975, cast member Gilda Radner performed an impression of broadcast journalist Barbara Walters who was renamed Baba Wawa. The sketch was a hit, but one person didn't find it so funny at first: Barbara Walters.
Walters, who died on Dec. 30 at the age of 93, blazed a trail for women in TV journalism. The year before Baba Wawa's debut, she made history by becoming the first female co-host of a U.S. news program, NBC's Today show. When Radner brought out the impression, which poked fun at Walters' mild speech impediment, the journalist was less than pleased.
At least until her 7-year-old daughter changed her perspective. “I hated [Baba Wawa] until I walked into my daughter’s room one night and she was up watching it. It was a Saturday night," Walters recalled in 2009. "I said, 'What are you doing up?' And she said, 'I'm watching Baba Wawa, Mom.' And I said, “Well! I mean, how — you know — look what she’s doing!' And she said, 'Oh, mommy, lighten up.'"
Walters came to appreciate Baba Wawa; it didn't hurt that Radner's impression had strengthened Walters as a household name. But it took her awhile to come around to it. "Years later, when Gilda died [in 1989], I sent her husband [actor Gene Wilder] a sympathy note and signed it Barbara Wawa," Walters told New York Daily News. "Gilda was so wonderful — the sketch immortalized me — but at the time I wasn't so thrilled."
The TV journalist was also later impersonated on SNL by Cheri Oteri, Rachel Dratch and Nasim Pedrad. In 2014, she appeared on the show for the first time, spoofing herself during a Weekend Update segment. Walters got in on the joke, declaring that it had been an "honor to see my groundbreaking career in journalism be reduced to a cartoon character with a ridiculous voice."
Barbara Wawa's Not For Ladies Only - SNL
Baba Wawa Signs Off - Saturday Night Live
Barbara Walters on Gilda Radner39s Baba Wawa ImpreSSIONS
Barbara Walters Spoofs Herself On 'SNL'
Barbara Walters on coming to terms with Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa" impression
Barbara Walters with Katharine Hepburn - What kind of a tree are you?
Dolly Shuts Down Patronising Interview In Style
Barbara Walters being a terrible human being for almost 15 minutes
De mortuis nil nisi bonum
Not surprised she didn’t like the impression.
Womder if she also disliked the Ford, Reagan and Bush impressions, or if she heehawed out loud about those.
They are so self important, a little silly mockery completely unhinges them.
I believed Gilda got her on that tree question. “If you were a twee, what sort of a twee would you be?”
“Did you cwy?”
Geez, I’m so tired of this “first female to do this or that” crap. Okay, okay, I believe you: females can do almost everything men can do. I got it. When can we stop this?!? I remember being a youngster even then thinking it had to be some sort of a pity party to award someone that looked and sounded like Walters with a TV broadcast award. C’mon! They had to be kidding us, right?! Aside from the ones she didn’t sleep with, imagine the world leaders who were forced to sit across from this American women and answer questions without laughing! They must have thought there were on Borat or Ali G.
There is a link above that she really asked that of Katherine Hepburn,
I learned this in my two years of studying the natives of Massachusetts.
During that period, I found a way to make people like Walters and T Kennedy speak perfect English.
Me doing so pissed off many a Masshole.
Is your name Henry Higgins?
I have a Boston accent….hardcore.
I hate my voice when I hear it on a recording or video…..just hate it..
.
I do not and have never been a hang glider.
Gilda Radner. Back when SNL had funny and talented comedic actresses. Now they have bitter hacks who rant for abortion on Weekend Update.
Said he was native but went through college in Kansas to correct his speech so he could participate in national and international business.
*I really stuck out in MA when ever I spoke.
My first few days in Massachusetts, I was in Classic Pizza in Mansfield and a young couple was teaching their baby to speak.
They were in a booth behind me and guy had a pepper shaker in his hand and was telling the baby “peppa”.
I was dying laughing and asked them “How do you spell that?”
The bass worked just as well as saltpeter.
She self-described her career as “groundbreaking?”
The only good thing about the real Pope’s passing is it flushes news about this individual’s demise from the media.
One of the founding cultural icons of the anti-American left.
I love hearing different American accents. I think they should be treasured, as some seem to be disappearing in places. We have an odd one here in Pittsburgh. One I find very appealing is the one Earl Hamner (from VA of “The Waltons” fame) had.
I always found her insufferable, and stupid and OH SO Establishment! Poor John Stossel had the misfortune of being on with her for probably a year or two, maybe more, and he’d do one of his great bits, and the camera would return to the two of them and she’d
always make faces, and say stuff like....”Well.....John...I really don’t agree with your conclusions on this....” “Well, that’s okay, Barbara”
But it is music to the ears of others and you should never remove this source of entertainment from them.
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