McKinney, Texas: My Whoopi Goldberg story

I have been accused of having a story for any random subject that may get mentioned. I do not deny it.

You may have read that hideous, bloviating cow esteemed television personality Whoopi Goldberg is in trouble for opening her ugly pie hole and spewing an anti-Semitic thought or two on national television. No, I take that back. I doubt that any thought whatsoever has gone into anything this vile pile has ever said or done.

So, of course, this would be an appropriate time to tell my own Whoopi Goldberg story. (I normally say that 98% of JimandJamie.com is 99% true, but in this case names and details have been intentionally blurred to protect the innocent.)

A number of years ago I got a phone call from the marketing director at very well-known company that had just signed Whoopi to star in its new commercials. “You’re good at writing funny commercials,” the client said. “We’d like you to write a bunch of scripts for Whoopi.”

“That,” I responded, “would be a waste of my time and your money.”

”Land sakes alive,” the marketing director exclaimed. “Whatever do you mean?”

“This woman’s an egomaniac,” I answered. “She’ll never read anything I write for her. She’ll want to have them written by someone she knows and trusts.

“You think?” he queried.

“Absolutely. But it could be worse. She might remind you of her legendary comedic skills and demand the right to write her own scripts.”

“Oh, no,” said the client. “We love your work. We think she’ll love it, too.”

“It’s your money,” I responded. “But remember my prediction.”

I wrote a bunch of scripts. I thought they were pretty funny. The client agreed and sent them on to Whoopi’s people. A studio was booked and a date was set to shoot the commercials. I cashed the company’s check and forgot all about the project. That was very unusual because I almost always attend the shoots for TV commercials I write. You never know when an on-the-spot re-write will become necessary because words that looked good on paper don’t work as well when they’re spoken. But understandably, I was not invited to this shoot.

A number of weeks went by and I got another call from the client.

”It was even worse than you predicted,” the marketing director moaned.

“Did she insist on writing her own scripts?”

“Worse. She insisted on ad-libbing the commercials. We shot a full day of Whoopi ad libbing about our product.”

“Are they funny?” I asked, kind of hoping for his sake that they were.

“Well, Whoopi thinks so,” he said glumly, “but no one else does.”

So take it from one who knows, I am not surprised that Whoopi got herself in trouble for ad libbing. But I am surprised to find out she’s an anti Semite.

Nah, I’m really not.

Just one additional thought: What the hell was Ted Danson thinking? In addition to being obnoxious, Whoopi looks like she went wardrobe shopping at Barnum & Bailey’s circus tent close-out sale.

(See what I mean, Whoopi? That there was a damn funny line. You should have used the material I wrote for you. Wait! Wait! I have another one: “Whoopi has plenty of funny material, but Joann’s Fabrics doesn’t have enough of it to cover her fat ass.” I’m killing myself here. I’m friggin’ hilarious. But Whoopi’s still just an unfunny anti-Semite.)