Last week Mayim Bialik called out an old SNL sketch that did her dirty. Back in 1994, the show sent up Blossom, the sitcom that made the actress (and later scholar, and later Jeopardy! host) a star. It was fair game, except they did it with one bizarre prop: Melanie Hutsell, the cast member playing Bialik, was forced to wear a gigantic prosthetic nose. Hutsell responded to Bialik’s essay with an apology. Now Bialik has responded to Hutsell.
“Thank you Melanie Hutsell for this,” Bialik wrote in an Instagram post. “I did not intend to disparage you or SNL and I really appreciate your thoughtfulness around this! It made for an interesting essay (which I was asked to write many months ago on the topic of antisemitism) and with everything going on in the world, I’m virtually hugging you and appreciate you very much!”
After Bialik’s essay made news, Entertainment Weekly spoke to Hutsell about the nearly three decade-old sketch. “I was absolutely horrified that they wanted me to wear a prosthetic nose to play Mayim Bialik’s character, Blossom. I knew it was wrong,” she said. “I remember so clearly that when I expressed that I did not want to wear the prosthetic nose for the sketch, I was told if I refused, I would be fired.”
In the meantime, Bialik is hard at work on a Blossom reboot, which she vowed won’t be a sitcom — which makes sense for a show that frequently indulged in serious “Very Special Episodes.”
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
