Let’s hear it for Betty White. The 88-year-old “Golden Girl” hosted Saturday Night Live last week — and drew well-earned rave reviews. They used her in virtually every skit, and her monologue was an exercise in good, ageless timing and genuinely funny lines, especially the self-deprecating . She was better than many of the SNL hosts who can only traffic in their current movie or sitcom celebrity.
But given that White was a well-hyped, big ratings draw, the octo-comedienne had Mother’s Day leverage. Enough, it would have seemed, to decline loser material like the unfunny “MacGruber” bit and the public radio send-up “Delicious Dish.”
Speaking of the latter, yes, we certainly got the “muffin” double entendres. Every single yeasty one. In fact, they would have been a hoot in high school. But once past that spot-on monologue, Betty White — sassy, flirty image notwithstanding — didn’t have to prove her hip bona fides. Sometimes you add by subtracting. Would that she didn’t do the pudenda-agenda skit.