Beatts working for a living

It will probably go unnoticed by the Oscar's In Memoriam tribute, but it won't go unnoticed by me. Last week Anne Beatts passed away.

For those who don't know, Anne created and wrote the TV show Square Pegs. I never watched a minute of it. But I am intimately aware of her earlier work as one of the original staff writers at National Lampoon. 

She had an incredibly sharp and dark sense of humor. Penning the infamous ad about how Ted Kennedy would have been president if had been driving a Volkswagen. As well as many iconic pieces in Lampoon, the magazine that literally shaped my life. Including a not-to-be-missed piece about Hitler escaping the Allies in World War and taking up residence on a South Pacific island, a la Robinson Crusoe, with his Man Friday, who he dubbed Freitag.

Anne was also a writer on Saturday Night Live, the original SNL. In fact, if you were to watch the old reruns of those classic shows you'll see her name pop up first when they list the writers. 

I know this for a fact because when I was stupid and stoned student at Syracuse University and had naive and stupid and stoned dreams of joining the show post-graduation, I actually wrote a letter to Anne Beatts. And unsurprisingly, I took liberties with her name and made stupid and stoned masturbatory jokes at her expense. 

Come on, Ann Beatts, that's some low hanging fruit.

Surprisingly, however, Anne Beatts wrote back. 

We had a short correspondence of several letters. All written on IBM typewriters and all gone, now sitting somewhere in a landfill in East Syracuse Minoa.

Fast forward a few decades to the age of social media. 

That's when I found out that Anne and I had several mutual friends. And so I reached out to her again. And unsurprisingly this time, she accepted my Facebook friend add and we chatted a few times via Messenger. 

Apart from Joel Murray, who I hired to be the voice on El Pollo Loco commercials, completely unaware that he was Bill Murray's younger brother, Anne Beatts was my most direct connection to National Lampoon/Saturday Night Live royalty. But Anne was completely unroyalty-like, she was approachable, warm, and genuinely interested in other people.

During our initial Facebook chats, I found out Anne started her career as a copywriter in Canada. And she thoroughly enjoyed our ABC campaign.

I found this tidbit on her Wiki page...

The only reason I know to convert to Judaism is to appease a nagging mother in law. But she did so willingly. That's a commitment to comedy.

Thank you Anne for a lifetime of making other people laugh, rest in peace.

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PS. Some might question the wisdom of using a Hitler photo for a tribute, I like to think Anne would have it no other way.