Ho's Up

Did you see it? Did you see?

True 'dat, I made it to the top once again. My show aired last week in the WB's prime Saturday night line-up. It was pre-empted in some areas by tornado warnings or an old movie, but most of the nation got to see the debut of "Ho's!" I was thrilled.

They edited some of my best ad-libs out, but I can deal with that. Save it for the DVD special features.

I'm listed next to last in the credits, right before David Faustino—that's practically the best spot, next to the first spot, the last spot, and the next-to-first spot. If I can get a "with" in front of my credit, I'll be red-hot in Hollywood again. I feel it coming back to me already.

My favorite part was when the one girl asked me what I thought of her ho outfit, and I did that black girl wag of my head. I didn't even say anything and I got, like, the biggest laugh of the show! That's going to be my catchphrase, I can feel it. Everybody's going to be doing that within a month. Then it will get old and stale and I'll tell people how '90s it is to still be doing that. But I'll still do it, if they want me to, if they just meet me on the street or whatever. You got to please your fans.

I suppose the ratings were pretty good. We beat out all three of the major networks, I don't know how that happened. The producer said the WB wins the ratings on Saturdays a lot because all the old people stay home from the clubs just to watch the most offensive thing they can find on TV and write angry letters to the newspaper about it. I don't know if that's a theory or what, but I'm happy they made us number one! How's that, folks? I'm on a number one sitcom—again! And they say thunder never strikes twice. Thunder or rapists, I can't remember how the phrase goes.

Not that the critics care about ratings. TV Guide called the show "bargain basement stupid." I thought that was a compliment for a bit, like how all my friends say "stupid," but apparently TV Guide still means it like my dad says it. None of the other critics were good about it either. "Disgraceful," "repulsive," "fecal," I've heard them all. Even the commune's Orson Welch wrote an article for Profound Magazine calling it, "The same boorish quality of trash as every low-grade half-wit idea on television." But it is a magazine that reviews television for people too snobbish to watch it, so no surprise there. Roland McShyster was pretty cool, he reviewed it in an office memo last week and called it a "heart-warming history of the Hostess company, told in flashbacks." I didn't see any of that myself, but maybe I'm too close to the inside.

I don't want to rest on my success, though. That's how you end up a TV nobody, like George Clooney. Sure, he may be doing all sorts of movies and everything right now, but he hasn't done TV in years—and probably never will again. You've got to build a lasting TV career, you can't fall back on what's easy. I want to keep doing "Ho's!" and find new ways to develop it. I've already proposed a spin-off for my character of Ophelia, the white ho, but I also want to do TV movies, or maybe even an all-singing, all-dancing variety special, if I can find people who can sing and dance. I also want to direct—direct TV.

But I've seen both sides of success, success and non-success. Too much of the latter. It's important to me that I make not just a funny show, but a real television legacy. I want "Ho's!" to be as memorable as the great shows, like "Just Shoot Me," or "Who's Your Daddy?"

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