Oprah and her Minions

From the desk of Jonathan Patrick, Internet Provocateur

Greetings, Geek to Sheekers of the Blogosphere! Gather round the campfire, as I have a story to share with you. Over Thanksgiving, I was at home and my sister and mother forced me (at gunpoint) to watch two episodes of Oprah.

Patrick family photograph, circa Thanksgiving 2007

One episode was the Hannah Montana episode. The other - Oprah's Favorite Things episode. Don't worry, I'm not going to bore you with the actual content of these shows. I did find some humor in the similarity between the two audiences.



At first glance, you'd think these shows would be polar opposites in terms of the type of studio audience they would draw (young girls for Hannah Montana, old witches for Oprah's Favorite Things). This is not the case. Young girls? Old witches? They're all the same once you put them under Oprah's spell. Luckily, I had pen and paper handy as I was able to jot down the following scripts from the two shows. They're almost identical:


Oprah: Welcome to my [Hannah Montana/Favorite Things] episode!

Audience [Young Girls/Old Witches]: a combination of wild screaming, crying, violent gyrations of the body and scattered "Praise be to Jeebus!"

- The Crazy Scale registers a 10 out of a 10 -

Oprah: I'm glad you could make it.

Audience [Young Girls/Old Witches]: a combination of wild screaming, crying, violent gyrations of the body and scattered "Praise be to Jeebus!"

- The Crazy Scale ratchets it up just a bit more -

Oprah: Now, just for you, my studio audience [live performance by Hannah Montana/a free mixmaster]!!!!

Audience [Young Girls/Old Witches]: a combination of wild screaming, crying, violent gyrations of the body and scattered "Praise be to Jeebus!"

- The Crazy Scale is broken. The place is going bonkers. -
This of course means two things: 1) receiving a mixmaster later in life is the equivalent of meeting your hero (sign me up for a mixmaster) or 2) meeting your hero is the childhood equivalent of getting a mixmaster (pretty depressing).