10 Oprah Moments Even Your Guy Will Remember
by Aaron Traister,
I haven't watched much Oprah-my daytime TV preferences tend to veer toward the endangered species called the soap opera. But because Oprah is Oprah, it's been hard to completely avoid the show, and while I don't think I've ever watched an episode in its entirety, it still seeped into my life. So here are ten moments from the show that left an impression on me, a guy who wasn't paying attention at all (some of them are probably very different from everyone else's):
10. Tom Cruise acts like Tom Cruise. The man stood on a couch and acted like a schmuck. It wasn't exciting enough to warrant the hundred million times I saw the clip. Let's move on.
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9. Gail looks for a good hamburger. I think I saw this episode at my mother-in-law's house during a holiday visit one year. I don't know what drew me into this episode-maybe Gail, maybe the hamburgers-all I know is it captured my imagination.
8. Oprah frets about her weight. I feel like I've seen this episode several times.
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7. Oprah gives stuff away. Again, I caught this one out of the corner of my eye at my mother-in-law's house during the holidays. Oprah gave a bunch of lavish presents to her studio audience, and with each passing gift, the crowd became more and more unhinged. It was like watching the audience in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, except instead of a blood lust inspired by hand-to-hand combat between Master Blaster and Mad Max, it was a blood lust inspired by William Sonoma swag and an appearance by Josh Groban. Terrifying.
6. John Travolta at Oprah's fiftieth birthday party. I don't know how I landed on this one, and I don't remember much from it. But I do remember John Travolta talking about flying his plane and reciting heroic poetry about Oprah. That man has a really deep platonic love for Oprah. That's all I have to say about that.
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5. Oprah gets into a physical altercation with Eric Clapton. Okay Oprah aficionados, I need your help with this one. I've been Googling "Eric Clapton and Oprah" all morning, and I can't find any evidence that this ever happened. But in my mind's eye, I totally remember the two of them scuffling over a microphone at an awards show or telethon or something (in the late 90s maybe?), and ever since, Oprah and Eric Clapton refuse to be at events together. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Could it have been someone other than Clapton, and I'm just confused? Lemme know, folks.
4. Oprah tells me what my poop should look like. I don't remember where I was or what I was doing when I came across this gem, but JOLLY LLAMA! This was a weird one! There was this guy who claimed to be a doctor of some sort (but it wasn't Phil - this guy was in scrubs), and he was telling everyone that their poop should look like a floating "S," like Superman's symbol except in poop form. Then the doctor and Oprah began interrogating audience members and her staffers about what their poop looked like, and how often they went number 2, and (this was the crazy part) people actually answered. For me, the two important take-aways were 1) Learning that I never, never, never wanted to work for Oprah or be a member of her studio audience (no matter what Josh Groban was handing out), and 2) two months of paranoia about what my bowel movements said about me. Thanks, Oprah!
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3. Oprah yells at that guy who wrote that book I didn't read for lying about doing stuff he didn't do. I didn't actually see this episode, but I heard about it so much that I felt like I was there, like it was happening to me. It was powerful stuff, and I hope that by sharing my story of hearing about this episode so much, I'll help at least one person out there from having to go through the ordeal of watching that actual episode of Oprah or listening to people talk about it.
2. I'm running out of things I know about Oprah, so I'm just going to go with Dr. Phil. Oprah lets Dr. Phil out of his cage. An important day for TV psychiatry, an important day for America's mental health.
1. Oprah's Book Club. As someone who might like to cobble a book together someday, I'm really going to miss this literary lottery jackpot. If you're an author and you were lucky (or talented) enough to get pecked by this golden goose, then suddenly you were looking at money beyond your Oscar Wildest literary imaginings; we're talking Josh Groban money.
So farewell Oprah. Unlike the rest of the universe, I hardly knew ye.
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