Was Karen Walker (Will&Grace) a direct ripoff of Audrey (Ellen)?

Just because of the voice?

Why not go all the way back to Betty Boop?

Or Datalounge villain Georgia Engel?

Sober up, bitch!

According to a dl poster, Mullally said she was inspired by Christine Baranski's character on Cybill, don't know if the voice is even similar, and don't know if that Karen Walker voice is baby-voice, I guess not, don't know what Audrey's voice is exactly (just mainly know the things from my German synchro, and I didn't watch hardly any Ellen episodes (don't even know if they were shown in Germany, but watched a bit in the US), but did read about it), generally they are not very similar in character and background and role, I find.

not even close

Oh, honey. Honey, no.

No, obviously.

Wow, the writing on that show was fucking atrocious.

Megan had said didn't want to play Karen originally as it was very similar to Christine Baranski's character on Cybill, but decided she could make Karen a bit more out there and the higher voice developed over time.

Karen was the only character on Will & Grace worth watching.

She was a ripoff of Baranski's character, the mean, drunk best friend. Of course, Baranski's character was a ripoff of Patsy Stone.

Karen had more depth than the other two.

Yeah, the progression was definitely Patsy Stone became Baranski’a character (whose name no one remembers, which says something), and she became Karen—writing-wise, anyway.

Performance-wise, I see what you’re observing about Audrey, OP. The voices and the delivery and the body language are somewhat similar, but I can’t imagine that Meghan was inspired by Audrey because Audrey just isn’t that funny or memorable and because I remember Karen at the beginning of Will and Grace and she was a lot more subdued and less like Audrey voicewise.

The original Karen said “Oh, devil!” all the time and her voice was lower, she was less unhinged and a little more human. Less cartoony overall.

I wish Baranski’s character had hurdled insults at Cybill the same way Karen makes fun of Grace.

R12 Grace is there to be mocked. Cybill was there to be admired. Hence the failure of her show.

No one remembers Cybill except to mention how Baranski stole the show from Cybill.