by Elizabeth Millar
Betty White recently won the Screen Actors Guild’s 46th Annual Life Achievement Award. Hopefully you recall Betty White as Rose from The Golden Girls (NBC, 1985–1992), in which she did a bang-up job playing the naïve farm girl from Saint Olaf living out her golden years in Miami with three roommates. This has to be one of my all-time favorite shows. Thank goodness for re-runs! Depending on what generation you’re from, you may not know that there is a LOT more to Betty White than just her role on this totally awesome show. There’s a darn good reason she won a Life Achievement Award!
Thank goodness for PCU, I was able to find out so much about my favorite Golden Girl! Did you know that she has had key roles in television since 1953? She also had a significant part on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where she won two Emmys. Mary Tyler Moore is big-time pop culture. My mom said that when she was a young adult, EVERY girl wanted to be Mary Tyler Moore and have their own apartment in the city. Now it seems like no big whoop, but back in the 1970s it was a very different thing. Heck, I learned about Mary Tyler Moore from the Weezer song “Buddy Holly” when I was in junior high…wow, but that’s a different story.
Please take a moment, and check out Betty White’s resume of movies and television appearances. The thing that keeps this lady so fresh and a part of current pop culture is that she never goes away! She’ll pop up on almost anything, and she’s as hilarious as ever. From her appearances on
Pettycoat Junction (trust me, it’s great…go look it up),
The Carol Burnett Show (another, please Netflix it), and Mama’s Family (spin-off from a skit on The Carol Burnett Show) to the more recent parts on My Name is Earl and Boston Legal—this lady just won’t quit! And I love her for it.
I hope we have many more years of Betty White’s sharp comedy in movies and television. She’s a true pop culture and entertainment gem. Cheers, Betty White! You deserve it!
Update 2/8: Betty White strikes again! Did you catch the most hilarious Super Bowl commercial starring my favorite lady? Check out Betty White trash-talking dudes on the football field in a Snickers ad, which was voted as SuperSunday’s best spot.
by Scott Wich
The blockbuster live album is a bit of a lost art in pop music. The great live albums of the past either documented landmark performances in rock history (see Elvis Presley’s ‘68 Comeback Special or Bob Dylan’s Live 1966) or even broke new artists from obscurity to the top of the charts (see Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive! or Cheap Trick’s At Budokan). Here, in no particular order, are the all time best live releases—sorry, Dead/Phish/Pearl Jam fans, no bootlegs allowed—as determined by the editors of Pop Culture Universe.
Nirvana: Unplugged in New York (1994)
The pinnacle of MTV’s “Unplugged” series (with the possible exception of LL Cool J’s performance of “Mama Said Knock You Out”) posthumously documented the genius that was Kurt Cobain. Fortunately, you can’t see or smell his hideous sweater (which immediately became the uniform of the grunge movement) while you’re listening. Their cover of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” is stunning.
Elvis Presley: NBC-TV Special (a/k/a The ‘68 Comeback Special) (1968)
Similarly recorded in the round in front of a small audience, this was probably the last time that Elvis was truly cool.
Bob Dylan: Live 1966 (1998)
One of the most important concerts ever played, where Dylan “plugs in” and goes electric for the second set and changes the course of pop music. Such an important show that a virtual field of study has been created around someone yelling “Judas!” just before the last song, and Dylan’s response to him. This album deserves to make the list if only for the aggressive, bitter “Like a Rolling Stone” that ensued.
by Scott Wich
Here’s a fascinating article in a recent The New Yorker,
giving the elevator its due and proper respect (warning: it’s long). The elevator is, the author claims, one of the two things that made the modern city possible. But think of what the elevator has contributed to pop culture as well: the exciting elevator chase scene in Speed, the flying elevator at the end of the first Willy Wonka movie, the genius that is Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator,” and on and on. I think my favorite elevator in pop culture moment was when Rosalind Shays fell down an elevator shaft to her death on “L.A. Law,” still the most shockingly sudden death in TV history. Behold, the power of the almighty ‘vator.