SNL veteran plays Wytheville
Saturday Night Live veteran Tim Meadows finally made it to Wytheville to entertain a sold-out crowd at the Millwald Theatre on Saturday, May 23, after rescheduling from last August to film the one and only season of the sitcom DMV. The 65-year-old Detroit native entertained the audience for 49 of the 90 minutes the three-act show offered the crowd of 500. The rest of the show was filled by Charlotte comedienne Carol Tyner and Louisville comic Mandee McKelvey, both of whom delivered 20-minute sets. If the material offered by the openers was considered for mature audiences, the headliner topped them all in terms of both laughs and vulgarity. You really feel like “Parent of the Year” when you are warned by two members of the theater staff, as you sit next to your 12-year-old daughter, that the evening’s comedy is for mature audiences. At that point, the ticket had already been purchased, and nothing could be done. Bella insisted on seeing the show, with high hopes of meeting Principal DuVall from 2004’s Mean Girls and its 2024 sequel. While Meadows offered no formal meet-and-greets, my daughter insisted on checking the back alley on our way out. Lo and behold, she and my wife, Emily, found him and asked for a picture. He agreed, as long as they made it quick. I had planned to stay out of the way, but the 10-year SNL veteran insisted on taking the photo with me as well. My friend from West Virginia, Andrew Church, a lifelong SNL fan, snapped the photo for us. Bella’s night was made, at the risk of us being reported. It is a sad commentary to learn that the words heard within the halls of her middle school were not much milder. We were all honored to meet our second comedy legend this month and appreciate his graciousness toward us. While still very funny, Meadows was clearly not happy to have landed in Charlotte and made the rainy two-hour commute to Wytheville, but being a divorced dad required him to make the date. “I remember telling my mom when I was a kid that I wanted to be a comedian, travel the world, and play Wytheville,” he led off. “If I had Will Ferrell’s career, I would be flying over you to an airport in the same state as the gig I’m playing.” Nevertheless, he expressed gratitude to the audience for coming to his show. “I realize you had many other entertainment options tonight,” he quipped. “You could have gone to Big Lots.” Meadows also mentioned the difficulties of being divorced. “You all didn’t know it was child-support night here at the Millwald,” he joked. “I appreciate your help.” The Ladies Man star spoke of his most recent—albeit brief—tryst since ending his marriage. “That’s my only Lindsay Lohan story,” he said at the end, which drew roars from the audience. “I actually made a Netflix movie with her called Our Little Secret.” According to Meadows, the real secret of the film was a bad script and a desire to pay the bills. “There were misspellings in the script,” he revealed. “I love money.” He explained how Black celebrities always support one another. “We even looked at O.J. Simpson as that crazy uncle who might have killed a couple of people,” he said. “If you don’t believe me, explain how Tyler Perry is a billionaire and not one of those dollars came from anyone in this audience tonight.” Yet, no matter how bad a Perry movie might be, Meadows says his African American peers will see it. “Tyler will have a boom mic so far in the shot, you wonder if the sound man had a stroke,” he jested. “Yet, we will go watch Madea’s Star Wars.” Meadows also took some hilarious jabs at Donald Trump, with which he closed the show. Speaking of the 2020 debate between him and Joe Biden, Meadows compared the current president’s “they’re eating the cats and dogs” rant to a bad Bill Cosby impersonation. “You had the one who could barely speak versus the one who spoke too much,” Meadows assessed. “When you see Trump talk, he’s either doing an impersonation of Regis Philbin, Christopher Walken, or Rodney Dangerfield.” As for his openers, Tyner also couldn’t resist indirectly jumping on the Trump bandwagon. As a never-married, childless 35-year-old woman with a Chinese boyfriend, she noted that living in the South is difficult. “While people are telling me not to worry about it with their mouths,” Tyner stated, “they are looking at me like a grocery store that just lost power.” “This administration should love my IUD,” the North Carolinian said. “It keeps millions of Asians out every day. It’s the ultimate border patrol.” McKelvey was too up in arms with the middle-aged woes of womanhood to be bothered with politics. “No one told me that, after 40, I would become homicidal for no reason,” she lamented. “I dream of killing just to see the life drain out of something.” She also added that, no matter how smart she may be, everyone will always presume she is stupid because of her thick Kentucky drawl. “You don’t know what it’s like being born with a mullet stuck in your throat,” she said. “I could be up here in a white lab coat giving a TED Talk, but all you’re ever going to hear is NASCAR.”
