A Beginner's Guide to the Vancome Lady

Version 1.7

"Hi! Welcome to Vancome. How may I help you?"

With those words, the illustrious, if somewhat ill-fated, career of the Vancome Lady was launched. On the first-ever episode of Mad TV, aired on October 14, 1995, the Vancome Lady (a.k.a Kathy Wajanowski) made her first appearance. It would not be long before the Vancome Lady became the most popular recurring character on the program, having appeared no less than fourteen times to date (late February 1998), including five appearances in season three (so far).

According to several sources (including an Associated Press article), Nicole Sullivan, the actress-cum-comedienne who has been a cast regular on Mad TV since its debut in 1995, and who plays the Vancome Lady, first conceived of the "Vancome Lady" on the way to her audition for Mad TV. Ms. Sullivan further elaborated on the inspiration for the character: "She's real passive-aggressive, says rude things while smiling, just like this boss I used to have, and like the women behind the makeup counter at Skokie Mall when I went to Northwestern. Makeup women always make you feel stupid."

We first see this character working in a department store selling cosmetics. The word "Vancome" is a parody of the makeup company Lancome; since Kathy works for Vancome, she is the Vancome Lady. In this sketch, which runs about two and a half minutes, the Vancome Lady blithely insults three separate customers, and then is promptly fired by her boss. This sketch is notable not only because it is the first-ever Vancome Lady sketch, but it is also the only sketch in which the Vancome Lady appears at the very beginning of the sketch. In subsequent sketches, the basic scenario would be delineated (e.g., actors are rehearsing a Christmas pageant), then the Vancome Lady would make her first appearance, accompanied by applause from the studio audience.

Even critics who were not all that impressed by Mad TV in its entirety generally commented favorably on the Vancome Lady. For example, Michael McWilliams, a television critic for the Detroit News stated that he liked Sullivan's "reactionary" cosmetics clerk, which he likened to "a minimum-wage Kathie Lee Gifford."

I was not overly impressed with this sketch when I first screened it, although I did get a good laugh when the Vancome Lady dismissed an African-American customer because "we here at Vancome, we don't specialize in blacks." It was not until the third Vancome Lady sketch aired in December 1995 that I was finally converted; the exchange between the Vancome Lady and the Jewish child in which the Vancome Lady accuses the Jews of killing Jesus was unforgettable, and definitely a classic moment for Mad TV. This is not to suggest, however, that the Vancome Lady is a one-dimensional character limited to making racial slurs; by now she was an equal-opportunity offender and doled out insults to people based on sexual orientation (or alleged sexual orientation), weight problems, socioeconomic status (or alleged socioeconomic status), marital status, and insults that fell into none of these categories but which were just generally rude and insensitive.

As the Vancome Lady appeared in more sketches, we learned more about her. We learned that her full name in Kathy Wajanowski. We also learned that she is rather promiscuous. The Vancome Lady usually slips some sexual innuendo into the sketch, usually towards the end (e.g., when she was cast as the Virgin Mary in a Christmas pageant, she told the producer: "Thanks so much for letting me play in your little Christmas pageant, and thanks for sharing your yule log with me!") This exposes the hypocrisy of the Vancome Lady, and in one sketch in which she is a receptionist at a hospital, she turns away a pregnant woman because she is not married, while in the meantime she is apparently having an affair with one of the doctors. Later on, we even find out that she herself is an illegitimate child, further highlighting this character's hypocritical nature. In one sketch, she even admitted to having had sex with every man in the world! I find this particularly interesting, because if I had created an obnoxious character like this, I would have made her completely frigid. Nevertheless, the Vancome Lady's sexual activities provide a good deal of humor in these sketches.

In George Orwell's classic novel 1984, the rulers of Oceania created their own language, Newspeak, in order to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. Similarly, the Vancome Lady has a vocabulary all her own, which I call Vancomespeak, as a parody of Oceania's Newspeak. The purpose of Vancomespeak is not to advance any rigidly defined ideological goal, but serves mainly to enhance the obnoxiousness of the Vancome Lady, or whomever happens to be using Vancomespeak.

The first principle of Vancomespeak is that virtually any stereotype that can be used to prejudge a person should be used to insult and/or poke fun at the person who (allegedly) fits the stereotype. For example, one would presume that if a criminal defendant is of Italian ancestry, he is guilty, and if someone disagrees with this logic, we should respond with, "Did his people get to you, too?" If we see a teenaged African-American female who appears to be overweight, we should assume that she is pregnant, because of the relatively high rate of teen pregnancies amongst African-Americans. Further, we should ask her when the baby is due.

The second principle has more to do with the style of the insult. The principle here is never say directly what you can say indirectly. For example, one suggested parody I came across once suggested that the Vancome Lady interview a couple of wrestlers, and then say something like, "I'll leave you two alone now because you probably want to screw each other anyway." But the Vancome Lady would not be likely to make such a blatant remark any more than she would say, "you're a homosexual," because it is not that funny. The Vancome Lady would suggest that someone is a homosexual by such innuendo as calling the person "K.D. Lang" (if the person is a woman) or by stating that the person in question cannot join the Marines because of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy (if the alleged homosexual is a man).

I could go on enumerating principles like this, but instead I will discuss some of the colloquialisms the Vancome Lady sometimes uses, which are just as integral a part of Vancomespeak. Here are the some of the more important ones:

• "Shaaaaaaah - you know what" - a hiss of phony regret that is usually a prelude to an insult, which, more often than not, is delivered while she is smiling.
• "Lalala, Lalala" - [said while covering ears] when the Vancome Lady doesn't want to hear what someone else is saying, she utilizes this tactic. Extremely rude. I myself have used this on several occassions.
• "My bad" - in other words, I screwed up; I was wrong. This expression apparently has existed for some time, but it was not until I saw the Vancome Lady using it that I had even heard it.
• "Shoo!" - often used by the Vancome Lady when she wants to get rid of people.
• "Wow!" - an exclamation often used by the Vancome Lady. Used a lot in season two, but not as much in recent sketches.
• "Christmas on a cracker!" - another exclamation often used by the Vancome Lady. This is one of my favorites. I am not sure whether they made this one up or not. I think it was first used in the "Casino Dealer" sketch in Season Two. It has been used a lot in the third season.
• "Thanks for employing me here at _____" - after being made redundant, she says something like this.
• "Thanks for letting me sleep with you." - she often says this or some variation of it towards the end of the sketch. First used in "Vancome Lady: ER" sketch, as far as I know.

The Vancome Lady essentially symbolizes the petty tyrants that most people have come into contact with at one time or another: the rude motor vehicles clerk, the recalcitrant receptionist, the unhelpful customer service representative, and so on. As such, I can see this character lasting for some time yet. As I am writing this, the last appearance of the Vancome Lady was in the "Vancome Lady: Guidance Counselor" sketch of 1-17-1998, and there was no sign that this character is running out of gas. As long as the Vancome Lady is thrown into a variety of different situations, the sketches will most likely be quite interesting. What I would like to see, however, is the Vancome Lady in a position of real power, possibly even as President of the United States (some contrarians here will probably argue that the President has no real power), or perhaps a United Nations representative. (One could imagine, for example, the Vancome Lady provoking an international crisis by berating a foreign ambassador with taunts of "We speak English here at the UN!")

The last Vancome sketch of season three, Vancoma, ended with the Vancome Lady in a coma and her mother (played by Alex Borstein) disconnecting her life-support system. When Nicole Sullivan did not return for the fourth season of Mad TV. some began to speculate that we had seen the last of Ms. Sullivan on Mad TV (and, therefore, the last of the Vancome Lady). This caused some concern because Ms. Sullivan, and especially the Vancome Lady, have become almost synonymous with Mad TV over the years. By early October, however, we had learned that Ms. Sullivan had only taken a leave of absence from the series, and that when she returned, she would presumably bring the Vancome Lady with her. Indeed, the first episode that aired after she rejoined the cast, MD-406 (aired October 31, 1998), featured the Vancome Lady in the opening segment of the show. For this Nicole Sullivan fan, it was extremely gratifying to see Ms. Sullivan once again the cynosure of the assembled crowd, especially since she appeared as the character that arguably, in more ways than one, launched her career.

** The Vancome Lady also made an appearance in the opening segment of the episode originally aired October 31, 1998. Since this was not a sketch, however, it was not included in this table.

Version 1.0 (2-21-1998) - First posting.

Version 1.1 (3-1-1998) - Minor update. Added "Vancome Lady in Hell" sketch and made minor additions to section on Vancomespeak.

Version 1.2 (3-12-1998) - Minor corrections. Updated Appendix A.

Version 1.3 (5-29-1998) - Minor additions to the section on Vancomespeak, and other minor additions. Updated Appendix A (finally!).

Version 1.4 (11-24-1998) - Updated Appendix A. Added epilogue.

Version 1.5 (12-13-1998) - Added "Hostage Negotiator" to Appendix A.

Version 1.6 (12-15-1998) - Added hypertext links to Appendix A.

Version 1.7 (5-1-1999) - Updated Appendix A.

Version 1.8 (8-8-1999) - Updated Appendix A.