Melanie Leads. Stephen Follows

THE ONION just released this story...

Desperate SNL Releases
'Best Of Melanie Hutsell' DVD

...which is particularly funny to me, because if Melanie Hutsell had never been on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, I probably would never have moved to Chicago.

You see, Melanie attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville a few years before I did. The story that I heard about her rise from UTK grad to SNL cast member goes something like this...

She moved to Chicago with a friend and hadn't auditioned for anything for months. Her friend convinced her to go to the audition for the Annoyance Theatre's production of THE REAL LIVE BRADY BUNCH. Melanie was cast as Jan Brady and her friend and fellow UTK grad was not cast, became discouraged and eventually moved back to Knoxville.

THE REAL LIVE BRADY BUNCH was a monstrous hit in Chicago and Melanie's Jan Brady was a stand-out. When the production moved to off-Broadway, Melanie was noticed by the folks at SNL and became a featured player for two years and then a full cast member in her third year.

When Melanie first hit SNL, I was still at UTK. In the theatre department. Just like Melanie had been a few years prior. So, it isn't hard to understand why so many UTK grads from that time period moved to Chicago. No one we knew in New York was working and Los Angeles may as well have been Guadalajara to us rednecks, but Chicago...

All you had to do was look at Melanie and realize, A) move to Chicago, B) get cast in the first show you audition for, C) that show becomes THE hit of the year, D) the show moves to New York, and then E) you become a cast member on SNL.

So, that's why I moved here. Oddly enough, that plan didn't work out.

And it's times like this - - weeks like this week, days like today - - when I'm so sad and depressed, that I regret the move, regret my choices, regret my current predicament.

But I know it will pass. Chicago is my home. I'm not quite how long it will remain my home, but it has definitely become home to me.

All because of Melanie Hutsell.

P.S. I don't know if one of the SNL writers came up with it first, but I have a hunch that the DELTA, DELTA, DELTA girls - - one of which was Melanie - - was created by Melanie as a rip on all of UTK's sorority girls.

Our sorority girls were as dumb as a box of hair. With a bow in it.

I remember reading OEDIPUS REX in one of my theatre classes and when the professor asked for our initial reactions to the play, the sorority sister sitting beside me with huge hair covered in a myriad of bows said this - - and this is an actual quote...

"Bless poor ol' Oedipus's heart.
Marries his mama, pokes his eyes out. Just bless him!"