Dolly Parton’s 1989 SNL Monologue Didn’t Have Any Jokes — the Gag Was Her Body
Dolly Parton was the host and musical guest of Saturday Night Live in April 1989. She came out beaming, comfortable, ready for a night of comedy. Her hair, voluminous and bright blonde, surrounded her head like a thick, curly helmet. She wore an electric blue jumpsuit with a rhinestone peacock wrapping around her midsection.
The Queen of Country’s monologue went well. Her charisma was at an all-time high and she received lots of laughs. But, joke-wise, the monologue itself was pretty dry. The laughs derived from a visual gag — her chest.
Dolly Parton’s 1989 SNL monologue
To uproarious applause, she began: “I think it’s only fair for you folks in the audience to know I had about 12 buses of folks shipped down from Dollywood just so I’d get a good reception. Now, thank you. You did good, you did good.”
She motioned to her ensemble.
“Well how do you like my outfit?” She asked. “You recognize it don’t you? This is the NBC peacock. That’s because Lorne Michaels told me to wear this because he wanted me to shake my tail feather for you,” she said, turning around, shaking her tail feather. “And I’m gonna do it, too.”
When Parton tells the audience that the SNL cast and crew have made her feel welcome and at-home all week, the camera begins to zoom in on her chest.
“You know, it’s amazing to me how hard these people work,” she says on top of the crowd’s roaring laughter. “I mean they have put this thing together in just one week. I mean, Monday they start coming up with ideas, and Tuesday they start to write ’em. Then Wednesday you’re rehearsing, and before you know it, it’s Saturday and it’s time to do the show! But I’ve done a lot of television in Hollywood and I’ve done a lot of TV in Nashville, but I have to honestly say, things are a lot different here in New York. Really. I mean, everything is just so artistic here.”
When the camera pans out again, Parton references a camera man hanging from the ceiling — a testament to the artistic risks taken in New York.
“Like for instance, this guy,” she says. “I mean in Hollywood they would never even try a shot like that. But here, the spirit is just: Hang the guy up by the boots and put a camera in his hand and see what it looks like!”
We see the camera man’s POV and it’s a looking-down shot right at Parton’s chest. The crowd goes wild.
“It may not always work but you at least gotta give him credit for trying,” she goes on. “God bless their little hearts, they’ve been good to me. I’ll tell you what, I think we’ve got a great show tonight,” Parton ends.
Dolly Parton used to dislike jokes about her body — now she’ll beat you to the punchline
When Parton was younger, she didn’t appreciate jokes about her figure.
In an interview with The Tennessean in 1974, the “Dumb Blonde” singer spoke about how critical people often were about her body.
“You know, people are always kidding me about my figure,” she said, as recorded in the book Dolly on Dolly. “I have too much up here. It’s always been that way, and people have always just used me as a punching bag or guinea pig or something.”
It used to upset Parton when people would assume she’d had work done.
“It runs in our family, and it’s not that big a deal,” she said. “It used to embarrass me and hurt my feelings when people would say, ‘Yeah, I know, she went to so-and-so and had plastic surgery.’ I’m serious. But I didn’t go nowhere and have plastic surgery. It really bothered me for a long time. See, for years, since I was 13 years old, I’ve been overgrown. Really.”
Later down the line, of course, Parton had a change of heart — or strategy, maybe.
One example is Parton’s interview on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1977. Just after the Queen of Country opened up about how jokes about her body used to make her uncomfortable, Johnny Carson makes a joke about how he’d gladly “give about a year’s pay to peek” under her blouse.
By the time SNL rolled around, Parton had plenty of practice dealing with jokes like Carson’s. In fact, by her monologue, she’d made a point to beat everybody to the punchline. Over the years, she armed herself with quips and one-liners only Dolly Parton could pull off about her measurements. And they were better than anything anyone else came up with.
