Recently, the above video of an ersatz Reba McEntire aired on The Soup. The world reeled.
Out of all the emails, fire bombs and silent prayers we received, this one seemed to sum it up the best:
vslowiak@niu.edu asks: Could you please put more of the woman playing Reba on? She's hilarious! We love her here in Illinois!
We initially attempted to answer this, but quickly realized that meant extra work for us. So, we tracked down the proxy herself, Jessie Gaskell, and by playing upon her vanity, tricked her into doing our job for us. Here, is her response.
Dear vslowiak:
U sound hott!! Plz send pix. Pref. noodz...
It's me, the woman who played Reba in that epic Soup sketch. Thank you so much for your email! Even huge celebrities like me still like to receive praise. We often spend our whole lives just hoping to get validated by people like you, and our fathers. Do you know my father? If so, tell him I'm trying to make him proud. Or I'll have to tell him.
A little history about my character: I came to L.A. eight years ago with aspirations of performing in the Groundlings or on SNL. All I had was a Nissan Sentra, a pocketful of dreams and this one great Reba McEntire impersonation. And then of course between the recession, the war on terror and music pirating, Reba McEntire sort of dropped out of the public consciousness and I nearly lost hope. But I waited patiently, like a ninja, and continued to hone my head-bopping skills, knowing that one day all the elements would come together like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. And that week when Reba McEntire performed it was like the Bat signal went off in my heart; I knew my time had come.
I don't want to exaggerate the importance of my performance, but I'd venture to say that sketch irreversibly changed the course of American history. People who thought television comedy was dead are now relishing in its rebirth. And I'm pretty sure it decided the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.
There are a few ways you can experience the magic of that character again. One, please continue to write these emails to E! Online, your local community/religious leaders and Oprah. Two, you can send a petition to Moveon.org. Third, you can urge Reba McEntire and her fellow country music icons to botch live performances and/or adopt children from Malawi and/or make controversial comments when drunk. A combination of any or all of these elements will ensure their appearance on The Soup and thus, my continued employment. I work on commission, so unless Reba does something outrageous in the next year and a half I may have to consider taking a second job as an architect, or something equally silly.
Thank you for watching and loving The Soup!
Jessie Gaskell