'SNL' alum Cheri Oteri revives iconic character on NYE, Anderson Cooper loses it

This is Twenty Twenty. Cheri is wonderful.

Love Cheri 💜

Andy Cohen is a remarkably handsome man. There. I 've said it.

It's not very good. She hasn't captured the pitch of her voice at all. 👎👎

R4. Shut up. Just enjoy it for what it is. It was an outdoor, casual performance, not a polished production for Broadway. It was funny and entertaining. Good gawd.

A common SNL slip, r4. SEE: Kate McKinnon’s Elizabeth Warren, Will Ferrel’s Alex Trebek, and John Belushi who wasn’t even trying with Elizabeth Taylor. A few of them were spot-on like George HW Bush (Dana Carvey), Katharine Hepburn (Kristen Wiig) and, surprisingly aplenty, Roseanne (the only talent Victoria Jackson has ever displayed).

[quote]Shut up. Just enjoy it for what it is.

What it is, is a very poor impersonation - why should I "enjoy" it?

For those who cannot stomach two of the most boring and overrated gays in the history of man--start at 27 seconds.

[quote]Andy Cohen is a remarkably handsome man. There. I 've said it.

How refreshing that you don't let things like his beady little eyes lessen your attraction.

She was just okay, she did have some good lines but it certainly wasn't deserving of the ridiculous reaction from Anderson and Andy.

Couldn't she wait until after Babs goes off into the great newsroom in the sky to mock her?

She was a little high-pitched compared to Babs, but overall a great impression. and R10, she did it five years ago, with Walters.

Cohen is handsome. I don't want to fuck him, but he's much better looking than Newt Vanderbilt.

Cannot get past Cohen’s odious personality.

Fortunately, Walters is so fucking far gone 'round the bend, she won't even realize this happened.

But what the fuck is wrong with Cooper's face?

Cheri's bit was actually hilarious. Anderson was out of control because he knows Walters and it was a pretty perfect send up of her. A most ridiculous woman.

I dont know how anyone can think Andy isn't attractive.

Cooper's going bald.

I really enjoyed that. Thank you,OP!

R16 On looks alone, and only if it were a contest between the two, I'd go with Cohen... but that personality... If it were Anderson's personality in Andy it could work, especially since I believe he had some procedure on the wonky eye.

^ Why gay men spend their lives alone.

It sounds tight until the walgreen and then fizzles out.

Don't forget that she was outside in the freezing cold. Her mouth was probably half frozen. That affects the impression.

R11 that View one was hilarious (never seen it before). The NYE one wasn’t great.

Cohen seems to not get it. She's hilarious. I love that Cooper enjoys it.

Andy has a good enough face, although he's no Ari Melber on the hot Jew scale. But his body seems chunky.

I see that Andy Cohen's assistant has found this thread.

That didn't sound like Barbara at all.

Still fun though.

Yeah, I mean...Cohen is good looking IMO. Better looking than Cooper. Both are handsome BUT their personalities represent the North and South pole of everything I cannot stand about "Us."

Cheri has always played Barbara as verging on insane.

She plays her like she’s perpetually recording promos for her upcoming “most fascinating people” special, which is why she nails her so well. It’s a perfect parody.

The name-dropping of celebrities from forty years ago as if they're still relevant is so true to form for Barbara Walters.

Was Cooper high or something? Oteri's bit was only mildly amusing. I might have smiled, but I don't think I laughed once while watching the skit. Did he give any evidence of being in an altered state during the show? (The only part of the show I've seen is that linked clip.)

It was a classic SNL character played by one of the funniest cast members of all time, who we haven't seen in years. She's a master and always fully immersed and in control. I was laughing just as hard as Cooper. And I wasn't "high or something"

I love that she never broke character, and she aced it like it was Saturday Night 1995 again. She probably hasn’t done this character or live TV in years, but she picks it right up again, and in frigid weather on NYE no less. A true professional, Cheri Oteri!

I will never understand why Oteri doesn't have a bigger career. She's always been one of my favorite SNL actors. I know she's sort of a one trick pony, but so are most of them.

Cheri Oteri was the best ever Barbara Walters impersonator on SNL in its history (Gilda Radner was even funnier, but she just did the rhotic thing--she didn't do the full impersonation Oteri did). She basically has made it her career after her stint on the show ended to keep doing it.

Anderson loves it when people make fun of rich people and celebrity culture--it is probably his most redeeming quality that he has such a sense of the ridiculous about himself. At some level he genuinely realizes how bizarre the world he lives in is--most celebrities do not, but I think it has helped him that he never knew "normal life" like most celebrities once did (he has always been famous as Gloria Vanderbilt's son), and so he realizes how rarefied and ludicrous his world is.

....

R3 = Andy’s mom

From 30 Rock: Rachel Dratch as Barbara Walters interviewing Jenna Maroney on "The View":

"Your father Werner was a burger server in suburban Santa Barbara... when he spurned your mother Verna for a curly-haired surfer named Roberta. Did that hurt her?"

Much clearer version of the segment at r39 here, at about 7:07:

[quote]I will never understand why Oteri doesn't have a bigger career.

We... weren't close.

Sad.

One of my favorite things about Cheri Oteri's Barbara Walters was how she was constantly name-dropping celebrities from decades earlier as if they were still hip and happening.

"I was sharing a hot tub with Burt Bacharach and Dyan Cannon when Raquel Welch turned to me and said...."

....

I one time saw Cheri break down what went into her Walters imitations, and it was astonishing. She had really studied her and the way she spoke and what her cadences were, and how she tended to always name three quick examples whenever she gave examples, and also how she got away with asking celebrities rude questions (usually by putting the words she wanted to ask in other people's mouths ("Russell, you have been described before by others in the press as--and I quote--'angry,' 'violent' and even 'obnoxious'... I ask you, is this fair?"). I was really impressed by how carefully she had studied Walters and put thought into her imitation.

Cheri owns her Barbara wig.