Debra Wilson should have had a bigger career

Maybe she wasn’t nice to Weinstein! Seems to be story in Hollywood.

She is so talented and funny. Her parody of Mariah Carey is a classic.

Stunningly funny woman. Would have been considered one of the greats of SNL had she been a cast member.

And she should have had a bigger career after Mad TV.

Her starring role in the box-office disaster Mike's Murder effectively ended her chances for a mainstream career.

r2 - "CrazyBoobyRainbow" 😂

So, did the tattoos all over her torso start after Mad TV or were they covered up with makeup? I guess as a successful voice actress these days, she doesn't really need to worry about that.

Criminally underrated talent. Funniest black female comedienne of our time. Her impersonations of Whitney, Oprah, etc. never compared to anyone else's, and blew SLN out of the water when they were on simultaneously. Her original characters, like Bunifah "Whatidido" Jackson were amazing as well . I never understood why she never got the opportunity to do those again after MAdTV ended.

Her and Nicole Sullivan made Mad TV during the early years. Nicole has gone on and done a few things, but nothing big.

Yes she should have. Criminally underrated. Damn I miss that show. For a while it was much better than SNL.

I remember being in high school and switching back and forth between 'MadTV' and 'SNL'. Inevitably, the funnier sketches were on 'MadTV', but the ones on 'SNL' got talked about more at school (this was during the Will Ferrell/Cheri Oteri/Molly Shannon/Ana Gasteyer years). Debra's sketches were funny, as was the running gag of Will Sasso and Alex Borstein's "You Are the Love of My Life" duet.

What the world needs now

Is rugs, Persian rugs

This is possibly my all-time favorite Mad TV sketch, and Wilson is hilariously brilliant!

Personally, I found just about EVERYBODY who appeared on "Mad T.V." to be kinda underwhelming (Josh Meyers, like his brother, coasts on his looks.)

Debra Wilson and (maybe) Alex Borstein, sp? The best of a meh lot.

There’s a video around, that I can’t currently find, in which she talks about a spiritual awakening of a life-changing magnitude with some guru type of guy. The whole thing frankly had all the components of a cult, complete with pressure to give up all worldly possessions (which of course they could help her with). Maybe that catapulted her professional demise?

r11 -- that was a bonkers sketch; loved it. Who's the actor playing the spokesman for the oven company?

R13 -- interesting. I saw a recent interview with her and she seemed 'with it' and with a feet on the ground.

That Spishak spokesman is Josh Meyers, Seth's sexier brother. Have you seen this one?

R15 - that was funny... and kinda hot. I had no idea Seth Meyers' brother was on Mad TV. He seems pretty talented, too, but it looks like he hasn't worked in the last few years. With a few exceptions (like Key & Peele, Simon Helberg and Alex Borstein) it seems like Mad TV is where careers went to die.

That gay "straight guys" sketch reminds me of another sketch from sometime in the mid 2000s. I'm sure it must have been posted on Datalounge at the time. It was from two LA based comedians. They weren't on Mad TV or SNL or anything as big as that. But they were funny and pretty hot. It was a sketch in which they were hanging out with their girlfriends and the girls made fun of them for their bro-ship or something and jokingly dared them to makeout (I may be sketchy on the specifics) and the guys go for the dare and basically end up fucking right there on the couch while claiming they weren't gay.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I swear it was a web comedy sketch, even though it sounds like a porn clip.

Debra Wilson does good impersonations of Diana Ross and Dionne Warwicke.

I think it’s sad that most of MadTV’s cast didn’t move on to bigger stardom other than Key and Peele—Mo Collins, Michael McDonald, Nicole Sullivan, ivy Lee, Stephanie Weir, Debra Wilson, Nicole Parker, etc. Some of their skits and characters were just better and funnier than SNL’s but they were the underdog show and weren’t afraid to go totally slapstick and crazy, which bombed at times. But the impersonations were amazing. Loved Alex Borstein’s Björk, Debra Wilson’s Whitney, Nicole Parker’s Britney Spears, etc. the music video parodies were great. A bit better writing and a bigger audience would’ve catapulted more of these folks to bigger projects.

R20 Should say Bobby Lee, not Ivy Lee

Her impersonations of Oprah and Whitney were absolute genius, as was her Bunifa Latifah Halifah Sharifa Jackson character.

I stopped regularly watching MadTV after she left the show in 2003.

Debra Wilson was much funnier than most of the SNL actresses, as were Stephnie Weir Mo Collins, and Nicole Sullivan. I think the only reason SNL actors get more work is that SNL is seen as more " prestige".

And Mad's original characters were always so much better than SNLs. The SNL original characters usually just consist of the actor donning a wig and repeating a stupid catchphrase over and over again until the audience is clapping to disguise the fact that they're not laughing anymore. The mad tv characters came across as a twisted fun house version of the type of weirdos you sometimes meet in real life.

Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but part of me suspects that Lorne Michael's influence in Hollywood comedy is why many of the careers from MADtv didn't take off. I know, it's probably crazy...

Forgot to post a sketch

Wilson was a comic genius. The scuttlebutt was that she wasn't considered for SNL because of her age, which is bullshit. I've met her a bunch of times and she's heavy into dog rescue and isn't all that interested in working although she's had offers for things like "The Talk".

R26 - but she IS working, as a voice actress in video games, animation and industrials. I'm guessing that work is fairly lucrative.

Anyway, the answer to this question is obviously a confluence of a variety of factors -- that MadTV was rarely a launching pad to something bigger, that she was a black woman (because Hollywood has always done such a great job nurturing black, female talent -- insert eyeroll emoji), that she was 'too niche' for some and not niche enough for others. It's a shame those in power in the industry couldn't look past that and find better projects for her post Mad TV.

The funny thing about Mad TV is on the surface it was way less PC or socially correct than say SNL, but at the same time they had a pretty diverse cast for their era .Unlike SNL which had to be shamed by Twitter into hiring a black woman and later an Asian man. I really think if it hadn't been for the social media backlash Michaels never would have diversified his cast .

Debra Wilson, Stephanie Weir, and Aries Spiers were just as brilliant, talented and versatile as any SNL or SCTV performer. I was very disappointed they never went on to bigger careers, and I believe I stopped watching after all three had gone.

So now I question, if they didn't have something bigger and better to go to, (like Nicole Sullivan or Alex Borstein), why did they ever leave?

I think of her *every* time I see that godawful, unfunny Maya Rudolph. Debra did EVERYTHING 20x better.

SNL took Taran Killam. Gee, I wonder why.

But I agree that Wilson did everything Rudolph did and did it so much better. But she was willing to go into a very dark, scary place with a lot of her characters and Rudolph was just lightweight.

Exactly. Wilson's impersonations were so good because, well, they kind of went beyond impersonations. She tapped into all the nuances and eccentricities of the people she was imitating. Going to dark places is exactly right, and yet she found the right balance of not being cruel or mean-spirited but still observant and detailed. I'm sure even Whitney had to laugh at the skits.

Sometimes I think she did Whitney better than the real Whitney.

[quote] The scuttlebutt was that she wasn't considered for SNL because of her age, which is bullshit.

It's complicated. One of the former MADtv cast members said there was an unspoken rule that if you did MADtv you weren't going to be able to do SNL.

However, Jordan Peele got an offer from SNL to leave MADtv and come over there but it was MADtv that blocked him from leaving the show to move to SNL. He has apparently hated them ever since and wouldn't even do the reunion.

Taran Killam was only a "featured" member of MADtv for a single season and not the main cast.

[quote]but she IS working, as a voice actress in video games, animation and industrials. I'm guessing that work is fairly lucrative.

Somewhat lucrative for most people but very lucrative for Debra. She's, at this point, is considered a top voice over actress. She travels around and teaches as well as speaking on panels and at cons. What makes voice acting attractive to actors is that no one gives a damn how they look. (Debra has tattoo sleeves and her ears stretched.)

It's all about how actors sound. They also, if they're good enough and have the right setup, can do it from anywhere in the world. It probably was helpful when she started battling breast cancer in 2018. She could potentially work in acting but not have to be seen. Right now she's 58 and it's a nice way to spend those years.

[quote]Debra Wilson, Stephanie Weir, and Aries Spiers were just as brilliant, talented and versatile ... why did they ever leave?

Debra and Aries were both there for 8 seasons.

Aries said he left because he felt the show changed in the time he was there. He felt the quality of the show dipped. I did think the show wasn't as funny towards the end, especially after Debra left.

Stephanie was there for 5 seasons and featured 1 season.

I think those all sound like pretty good runs.

"Sometimes I think she did Whitney better than the real Whitney."

If you judge by which one of them is still alive, I'm going to have to agree that she did Whitney better than the real Whitney.

The only thing Rudolph knows how to do is her whole Liza Minnelli-in-blaccent schtick. No matter what character or bit she's doing, whether it's Whitney, Donatella, or now Kamala, she always falls back on that. She sucks.

r18, I believe this is what you're looking for. Yes, a very hot sketch. Wish the picture quality was better.

Is Debra Wilson gay? She sure pings in a lovely, elegant way.

Alex Borstein isn't doing too shabby, between winning an Emmy for 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' last year, and of course voicing Lois on 'Family Guy' for umpteen seasons now. Looking at Debra's IMDB, she's staying very busy with the voiceover work mentioned above, and it looks like she'd picked some independent projects to do as well. She always seemed like a bit of a rebel, so this career path has probably suited her. Maya Rudolph is a good example of someone who has floated from failed TV series to failed TV series after 'SNL', and quite frankly has made a career of playing the token black friend in the movies she's been in. That doesn't mean I don't like her, but it's hard not to agree that Debra is miles more talented.

My uncle actually knows Seth MacFarlane very well, having worked with him for several years. The story he always heard from him (who is, of course, professionally connected to a number of MadTV personalities) is that SNL was viciously aggressive against non-SNL talent, particularly MadTV players, using whatever influence it had to promote SNL talent. The one story I heard was that Nicole Sullivan was scheduled to perform at some fancy Hollywood event, which inevitably would have given her a great deal more exposure to Hollywood execs. Supposedly, someone at SNL basically got her pushed aside for a player on its payroll. Adn that happened to many in the MadTV cast. And I do know that Alex Borstein gives a lot of credit to MacFarlane for basically keeping her career alive post MadTV. I don't know anything about Wilson, but it wouldn't surprise me if her post-MadTV career was also stunted by SNL, especially when, as many many people agree, she was such an incredible talent. Someone with her abilities really should have gone on into a comedic film/television career.

With that said, one of my favorite skits with Wilson was the Oprah's Jackass one. I don't think I have ever laughed as hard as I did during that.

Dixie Wetsworth! Moisture! You like? I like!

R39 That is very interesting and would explain a lot. I could never quite grasp why even mediocre SNL talent consistently seemed to get films greenlit while laugh out loud funny comedic actors from mad seemed to vanish.

I stumbled across a podcast interview of Debra Wilson a while back and she was very New-Agey*, to the point where she sounded kind of nutty. But she also sounded happy so I say good for her. (*New Agey might not be quite the right phrase, as it sounds mellow and hippy-dippy to me. She was saying a lot of Oprah-friendly stuff about loving yourself and manifesting your destiny, but with a generous dose of non-attachment.)

She surely must have been on Aisha Tyler's podcast at least once. Maybe I'll look for that.

Boy, for a modestly talented woman who faded from the collective public consciousness almost 20 years ago, Debra Wilson STILL has the best publicists in Hollywood, as evidenced by the slobbering, sycophantic posts to this thread.

Uh, no R43 quit hating. Debra Wilson is HILARIOUS. I think we got it right on R39 and another poster upthread. Lorne Michaels is a hater. Yes, his show is a precious institution. But he's no different than any other baby boomer his age who reluctantly yields to the new generation under social pressure....

At the end of the day MADTv > SNL. Yes, SNL is technically live so that makes things different. But nothing is stopping them from pre-recording some of their skits for comedic purposes....

r36 - YES! That was the sketch. Funny and hot.

Also, it's a bit weird that this thread has to be used to slag off Maya Rudolph. Personally, I love both these women. I think Wilson may be the more impressive talent, but I love Maya Rudolph's kooky off-center sensibility... at SNL she had.... all the right screws loose. It's partly why I don't think she's really been great outside of SNL. She's wonderfully nutty and heightened on SNL that when you see her toned down (like in Bridesmaids), it just feels off.

Boy I wondered how long this thread would go before a troll like r43 would come in and shit on the proceedings. Ah, 2020.......

R43 Yes, we're all Debra Wilson's publicists. That makes 100% rational, logical sense.

R45 I agree that Maya did great at riffing off of an ensemble cast, especially Gemini’s Twin skits with Ana Gasteyer and whoever the weekly host was. Debra Wilson is also great, but their approaches are very different as comedians so it’s like comparing apples to oranges. In Bridesmaids Maya had the most boring role whereas she should’ve been a weird quirky bridesmaid with the rest of them. Debra throws more intensity into her roles and sort of just goes for it, but her comedy is just more intense and based on really on the nose impressions and crazy characters. Loved her in her Madtv skit for Diane Sawyer’s Whitney interview. “Merry crystalmethmas!”

So many of there MADtv regulars are fine talents. I never could understand the lack of heat.

Most women on comedy shows in the 80's and 90's went NOWHERE, while several of their less talented male comedic co-stars went on to do great things.

It has changed for the better - but women in comedy still don't get the respect they are entitled to! It's still a tough road for female comedians - and that needs to change.

R50 is a fat cunt.

Obviously.

And she wouldn't know "humor" if it bumped pussies with her with the sound of two catfish being smacked together.

Top this Mya Rudolph

Oh dear, what was the context there, R52??