The Church Lady (named "Enid Strict") was a character created and performed by actor, writer and comedian Dana Carvey on the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. Enid is a spoof of on-air, holier-than-thou Christian televangelists. She hosts the Christian-based, distinctly local-TV celebrity interview program "Church Chat." Dana Carvey (born June 2, 1955) is an American actor and comedian from Missoula, Montana. ... Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late-night 90-minute comedy-variety show from NBC which has been broadcast virtually every Saturday night since its debut on October 11, 1975. ...

Dana Carvey recalls that he was prompted by Lorne Michaels to introduce the character (when it was still in SNL rehearsals) at a Neil Young concert at Madison Square Garden, which Church Lady interrupted, fussing and fuming: "What are we doing here? What's all this noise?" Lorne Michael Lipowitz, aka Lorne Michaels (born November 17, 1944) is a television producer and writer, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ... Neil Young with guitar (from the 1991 Weld tour) Neil Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian musician and filmmaker. ... Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and sometimes simply called The Garden has been the name of four arenas in New York City, United States. ...

The SNL character was immediately recognizable and even spawned some catch phrases (see below,) but she was never incorporated into a feature length film. On the set of "Church Chat," with its rectory desk and bogus cellophane stained-glass, other cast members of SNL would appear as celebrities of the day, and sometimes, so would celebrities of the day. Church Lady would seemingly praise or soothe her guests during their time of crisis, only to blindside them with judgmental admonishments and damnation. She would always wear a pious, high-collared purple dress and old fashioned glasses.

One memorable sketch found child actor Fred Savage playing a religious friend of Enid's, Edna. Savage was dressed in a miniature version of Enid's outfit and glasses, and co-spoke all of the familiar admonishing catch phrases. The term child actor is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion the latter is also called a former child actor. ... For the Canadian childrens author please see Fred Savage (author). ...

Popular catch phrases

• "Well, isn't that special?"
• "Now, who could it be? Could it be...Satan?!" most memorably, in a December broadcast, manipulating big letter-cards, and interviewing Santa.

A common portrayal of Santa Claus. ...

External link

• E! Online (http://www.eonline.com/On/Revealed/Shows/Carvey/index2.html)