I had forgotten what a great comedienne Dolly Parton was – and how much I love Lily Tomlin.
The year we had cable when we were kids, my sister and I watched a few movies compulsively. Poltergeist was one of them. And another one was 9 to 5.
Before Dilbert, before I had actually worked for a large corporation, I only knew of the world of work in abstract – from movies like this. I knew working for The Man sucked but didn’t realize how soul-deadening the corporate track can be. And I can’t believe people actually used to smoke in the office just 20 years ago.
I truly love Dolly Parton. She is a national treasure – along with Ms. Tomlin – another pioneer in comedy. I’ve never really liked Jane Fonda. Whenever I hear Whitney strain her cocaine-burned vocal cords to whore out ‘I Will Always You’ for the thousandth time, I remember hearing Dolly’s version for the first time and loving how simple and humble and epic the song was. And I remember seeing Tomlin on Sesame Street, The Muppets and on PBS on a show about The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.
The movie was fun to watch because I remembered images from it – but had forgotten most of the plot. And the Lily Tomlin as Snow White sequence held up well. Ron, of course, loved it because it featured sassy women.
Leave a Reply