Saturday Night Live Transcripts
Season 2: Episode 4
Karen Black’s Monologue
…..Karen Black
Announcer: Ladies and gnetlemen — Karen Black!
[ Karen Black enters the stage holding her infant son, Hunter, who seldom removes his hand from the firm of Black’s left breast ]
Karen Black: Thank you! Well, I’m very excited to be here tonight. So’s my son, Hunter. [ she acknowledges the child in her arms ] This is Hunter! Actually, we both slept all day… so we could be up for the show tonight. No, he’s actually always up this late. He smokes cigars, too! You know, I take motherhood very seriously. When I was pregnant, I read everything you could read about babies and mtoherhood. I read every paper and article. So, now, I know quite a bit about motherhood, and about mothers.
For instance, did you know what the very first mothers were like? Well, the first mother were primitive by our standards. They were often made from nothing more but bits of bark and cloth! [ reveal image ] Yes, they were crude mothers, but they were — [ the audience laughs as Hunter pats Black’s left breast ]
And, yet, as early as 550 B.C., man had progressed to the horse-drawn mother. [ reveal image ] As shown here in this artist’s cnception of an early Greek fresco.
The Dark Ages saw few improvements in the mother, and it wasn’t until the Renaissance that the REAL advances were made. Beginning with the — uhhh — [ Hunter shifts his body so he can wrap his mouth around Black’s right breast for a feed ] Just a minute, darling… Beginning with the Moveable Type Mother. [ reveal image ] Suddenly, mothers were available to EVERYONE — the common man, not just the privileged few rich enough to afford one. [ Hunter begins to grope Black’s right breast, so she lifts him up to her left shoulder; the audience applauds wildly ] Thank you!
With the Industrial Age came the steam-operated mother. [ reveal image ] She was more durable, more efficient, and she was easier to keep clean.
Minor improvements continued to be made, and mothers became more lifelike each passing year. But it took Thomas Alva Edison to put a twinkle in her eye, with the incandescence mother. [ reveal image of mother with lightbulb head ] Now you could read by mothers and see them more easily at night — but they did attract moths.
Invention followed invention, sometimes with disastrous results. Some of you in this audience may have had some of those early, awful celluloid mothers — later recalled because of their tendancy to burst into flames. [ reveal image of flaming mother ] I, myself, was fortunate enough to have one of the gas-turbine mothers of the 1950’s — [ reveal image ] Now considered cumbersome and old-fashioned next to today’s 100% solid-state, all-transistorized mothers with deep shag tile. [ reveal image ]
[ “Thus Spake Zarathustra” pots up in the background ]
As to the mothers of the future? …Well, I have a dream. I dream one day that my child, Hunter, will live to see mothers die in space! [ reveal image of two mothers above the Earth ] We’ll be right back!
