Don Roy King | Coffee Talk with Linda Richman: Barbra Streisand / 1994 [TV (SNL) episode]

the real barbra

by Douglas Messerli

 

Don Roy King (director) Coffee Talk with Linda Richman: Barbra Streisand / 1994 [TV (SLN) episode]

 

From 1991-1994 Mike Myers—having replaced Paul Baldwin who hosted the first “Coffee Talk” skit—took to drag as a middle-aged Jewish woman with a exaggerated New York accent. Dressed in gaudy sweaters, with a big head of hair she constantly adjusts, long painted fake nails, large dark glasses, and a lot gold jewelry, Linda Richman interviewed r Saturday Night Live hosts and guests including Kirstie Alley, Madonna and Roseanne Barr (with a surprise appearance by Barbra Streisand that nonplussed both the actors and the audience), Bill Murray, John Goodman, Christian Applegate, Charles Barkley, Christian Slater, Charlton Heston, Helen Hunt, and Heather Locklear.*

 

     Her skit with John Travolta was actually the last of the series, although Myers returned in 1997 to reappear as Linda one last time. Of the series, in all of which Myers appears in drag, I have included only this one since there are two drag performances in this case, while Myers goes it alone in all the others. It is fun, however, to hear Madonna mock her own sexual activities as Linda’s friend Liz Rosenberg along with Roseanne Barr as her unbearable mother. The uncomfortable, very heterosexual Heston is funny simply because of Linda’s claim that he is her new boyfriend and because of his inability to properly pronounce any of the Yiddish words he attempts to banter, having presumably learned them from his time with Linda.

     Throughout all of these skits one of Linda’s very favorite topics was Barbra Streisand, of whom she time and again repeated her admiration, characterizing her voice as being like “buttah.”

     In this skit, John Travolta, dressed up as a somewhat look-a-like Streisand—he wears the same sailor’s suit as Streisand work in her 1964 TV special “Color Me Barbara”—explains that she has legally changed her original name, had “a little plastic surgery,” and nothing more. Linda holds up this Barbra’s driver’s license to confirm the fact.

     When Linda asks “How long have you been impersonating Barbra,” Travolta declares: “I don’t impersonate her. I am her.”

      And, in fact, in this skit the two, Linda and Barbra actually get in a few words about transsexuality. When a caller asks what Barbra is planning to do for her next movie, she responds:

 

“Well, I want to do a movie on the differences between men and women. I want to be the kind of strong woman who can say to a man: “How dare you, you as a man, speak to me, me as a woman! I think you’re full of crap!”

 

     Linda responds: “That’s a hard piece. Let me ask you something. Do you still have a pee-pee or do you tuck it?”

     “Well, why don’t you come down and check for yourself by coming to Don’t Tell Mama’s Thursday through Sunday. I’m on after the Larry Stort Show.”

    Another caller asks if Barbra might sing, and Travolta breaks into a wonderful medley of Streisand songs beginning with “Pappa can you hear me?” from Yentl before singing a few bars from “People,” shifting into “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” Linda joining in with the first line of “You don’t bring me flowers,” with Travolta’s Streisand singing the response. The two end the skit by standing and belting out a closing reprise of “Don’t Rain.”

      Travolta is particularly charming, his voice quite tenderly moving as he sings “You don’t sing me love songs.”

       Both Myers and Travolta has long demonstrated that they are masters of female impersonation, and in this short they restate their talents.

       Strangely, although I could find almost all the other Linda Richman skits on the internet, I was able to only track down an abbreviated version of this one. Fortunately, the entire script is available.

       Given the compulsive behavior of some individuals, the new concerns about artificial intelligence’s ability to take over the identity of individuals, the current rightest attacks on transsexuality, and Travolta’s own evident bisexualism, this 1994 skit cuts quite close to the bone of several sensitive issues today.       

     

*The full line-up of Michael Myers’ Linda Richman Coffee Talk skits, their dates and the guests are listed below:

 

May 11, 1991 (Delta Burke) (Paul Baldwin's only appearance)

October 12, 1991 (Kirstie Alley) (Linda Richman's first appearance)

February 22, 1992 (Madonna and Roseanne Barr) (Barbra Streisand guest stars in this skit)

February 20, 1993 (Bill Murray)

March 13, 1993 (John Goodman)

May 8, 1993 (Christina Applegate)

September 25, 1993 (Charles Barkley)

October 30, 1993 (Christian Slater)

December 4, 1993 (Charlton Heston)

March 19, 1994 (Helen Hunt)

May 14, 1994 (Heather Locklear)

October 15, 1994 (John Travolta)

March 22, 1997 (Mike Myers)

 

Los Angeles, May 10, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024).