\n\tCatherine O\u2019Hara was one of the funniest people who ever lived. And the complicated, struggling women she created, all of them trying to force-fit a functioning face atop their uncontrollable problems, were exactly what the landscape of bland television comedy \u2014 and even blander television women \u2014 of the Seventies had no clue it desperately needed.<\/p>\n
\n\tThis was the same period that comedy took center stage in my own life, leading me to become obsessed with closely examining every new entry to the field. At the same time, I was secretly searching for funny women role models, because growing up, all of my comedy heroes were men. Why? Well, duh. Because comedy was mostly men, men, and more men. And then what to my wondering eyes did appear but an entire show out of Canada full of the funniest comedians and the funniest satirical writing I had ever seen on television. And included in the cast of that show were some extremely hilarious women!<\/p>\n
\n\tThe show was called SCTV and it had such a powerful effect on me that I even remember where I was and what I was wearing when I first became aware of the smart and scrupulously crafted comedy stylings of Ms. Catherine O\u2019Hara. Her multilayered portrayal of deeply disturbed female characters, many of whom had been somehow mangled by show business, fit seamlessly into a series whose format was designed as a weekly X-ray of the kind of superficial, hacky, clich\u00e9-ridden commercial television that was omnipresent at the time.<\/p>\n
\n\tCatherine was the queen of self-abusing, hard-living, and heading-over-the-hill entertainment veterans \u2014 women who were trapped behind a fa\u00e7ade of slick showbiz tics that barely covered the active volcano of psychosis bubbling right under their surface. Her characters often demonstrated how quickly and seamlessly a cyclone of cheerful mannerisms could morph into a wailing typhoon of uncorked madness.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat very first time I watched SCTV, the sketch that made me laugh the hardest was called \u201cThe Dusty Towne Sexy Holiday Special<\/a>.\u201d It was Catherine\u2019s parody of a bawdy American comedienne from the 1960s named Rusty Warren, who made \u201cnaughty adult entertainment\u201d albums, the most famous of which was titled Knockers Up! At the center of it was Catherine, vividly sending up an entire genre of the show-business underbelly that no one ever referenced on polite middle-American network television. Her character, Dusty Towne, was introduced as \u201craw, raunchy, and a little bit risqu\u00e9\u201d and sported thin, drawn-on eyebrows, a big swath of blue eyeshadow, a gigantic Marie Antoinette pouf hairstyle, a feather boa, a long cigarette holder, and a lot of cleavage. Since it was a Christmas special, she was also adorned in a puff of red taffeta decorated with holiday gift-wrap accents, white gloves, and a star-shaped earring the size of a human fist. After bursting out of the middle of a snowman, Dusty steps down into the audience to do a little of her famous off-color crowd work.<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHi, honey, where you from?\u201d she asks a man sitting at a ringside table. Canada, he tells her. \u201cI have a lot of friends in Canada \u2014 what street do you live on, dear?\u201d she asks. \u201cWest Glenn,\u201d he replies. \u201cNo kidding,\u201d she continues. \u201cDo you know a Dinky Withers at 83?\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d he replies, looking uncomfortable. \u201cWell, it does!\u201d Dusty says, laughing raucously at her double entendre before repeating her famous catchphrase: \u201cIsn\u2019t that cute? Isn\u2019t that true?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI don\u2019t know if I can explain why Catherine muttering \u201cIsn\u2019t that cute, isn\u2019t that true\u201d after every smutty joke Dusty told struck me as the most hilarious thing I had ever seen on television. Maybe it was because what she had just said was neither cute nor true. But from that moment on, I never missed an episode of SCTV. And to this day, I can\u2019t imagine anyone else coming up with a tag to add onto a dirty joke that could possibly be any funnier.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n \n\tIn a 2019 interview with Vulture<\/a>, Catherine explained the inner workings of her characters: \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of\u2026 insecure delusional. I love playing people who have no real sense of the impression they\u2019re making on anyone else. But the more I say it, the more I realize that\u2019s all of us, and the internet, social networking, is a desperate attempt to try to control what others think of you.\u201d Perhaps Dusty Towne\u2019s continual repeating of \u201cIsn\u2019t that cute, isn\u2019t that true\u201d after every vulgar story is her trying to convince herself that her shocking remarks make her adorable.<\/p>\n \n\tWhich brings us to Lola Heatherton, a particularly damaged one of Catherine\u2019s SCTV characters. Seemingly woven from one part dangerously emotional late-stage Judy Garland circa the 1960s and three parts Joey Heatherton, a glamorous variety-show star of that same period (who was also famous for some unfortunate public incidents involving personal difficulties), Lola arrives at her big \u201cLove Spirit\u201d special decked out in silver lam\u00e9, an enormous platinum hairdo, white lipstick, huge false eyelashes, and big pieces of statement jewelry. Then she steps out onto her custom-built set, apparently drunk, and immediately falls flat onto her face. But, always a trouper, a few minutes later we see her throwing her whole heart into a song about being so terribly alone. \u201cOh, go ahead,\u201d she sings, \u201cNo one cares. No one dares to. You\u2019re all just parasites, draining me of love\u2026.\u201d Yet by the end of the show, she is so high from performing that she announces she has found new love with someone else on the show. So the special ends happily, with Lola shouting to the audience \u201cI love you all and I want to bear your children!\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tClearly, a straight line can be drawn from Lola to Moira Rose, the maniacal former soap-opera star, wig enthusiast, and erratic wife\/mom on Schitt\u2019s Creek (for which Catherine won an Emmy and a Golden Globe). And I haven\u2019t even started describing all the brilliantly funny and mostly improvised characters she contributed to the always funny Christopher Guest films, in which she often played the female half of a high-energy married couple with hopeless show-business dreams they will never realize. In Waiting for Guffman, her rendition of \u201cMidnight at the Oasis,\u201d<\/a> performed at an audition along with her husband and partner in a travel agency, played by Fred Willard, shows her trying so hard to get everything they\u2019ve rehearsed just right that you can see her actually mouthing his lines when he speaks. But as the audition proceeds, she sings too loudly and only sort of gets the dance moves right. Which of course leads to a scene, later that evening at a Chinese restaurant, where she drinks too much and berates her husband for being uncircumcised.<\/p>\n \n\tCatherine was also a fantastic physical comedian, making it a given that all her overwrought exhausted ladies, worn out from a frenzy of manic dancing, would end up tripping and falling onto their faces or backward and out of the frame. Even in her iconic \u201cKevin\u2019s not here\u201d scene from Home Alone, her mother character, Kate McCallister, starts out armed with a cheery self-confidence. But seconds later \u2014 not unlike Wile E. Coyote when he runs off a cliff and doesn\u2019t actually start to fall until he looks down and realizes he\u2019s in the air \u2014 her eyes widen as her face finally registers that she is she is saying her son is missing. Then her expression turns to horror and BOOM \u2014 only then does she fall over backwards.<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n \n\tIn real life, I only met Catherine in person a few times. But once, after chatting with her at a party, I decided to hire her housekeeper because she came so highly recommended. The woman came to my house and cleaned so meticulously that she actually scrubbed all the numbers off my oven dial, then took my entire bed frame apart and polished it, piece by piece. She was so exacting that she only cleaned two rooms in my house. So we parted ways because I couldn\u2019t handle her pace. Thinking of it today, I realize her painstakingly thorough process made her a perfect match for Catherine, comedy\u2019s most consummately off-centered grande dame.<\/p>\n \n\tMerrill Markoe is an Emmy-winning comedy writer, author, and essayist. She is the recipient of the 2020 Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award, the Writers Guild of America West\u2019s highest honor for television writing. You can read more of her writing at\u00a0https:\/\/merrillmarkoe.substack.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Catherine O\u2019Hara was one of the funniest people who ever lived. 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