Yvanka – one of our kind, so kind, visitors to us here at Her Name Is Jane Lynch – sent us a few recaps to help us chip away at our goal of watching everything Jane Lynch has ever been in.  In the following, she reviews Jane’s techniques as lamaze coach in an episode of Empty Nest.  Jane’s ‘do and wardrobe is like something she picked out of Blanche’s (from Golden Girls) closet.  I guess that was the senior style back then, hm?

:: Drumroll :: Without further ado, Yvanka’s review:

Character type: Authority Figure (coach)

Best line: “We’re on our backs, knees are apart, pelvis contracted forward, aaaaaaand, release.”

IMDB tells us that Ms. Lynch played ‘Tammy’ on an episode of Empty Nest, the Golden Girls spinoff that was a fairly popular mainstay from 1988-1995.  The show focused on Dr. Harry Weston, a pediatrician and a neighbor of Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia and Rose in beautiful Miami.  The premise? He’s a widower, and his two daughters, both grown, have come back to live with him after their own marriages went to crap.  Generally a series of dates for the daughters, Barbara and Carol, with set-ups for Harry, a sprinkling of not-quite PC southern black woman stereotyping in Harry’s nurse, and a man-whore neighbor.  I actually watched this show, back in the day.  Oh, Harry, you’re so cantankerous!

Well, Carol’s pregnant, and she keeps thinking she’s having the baby, but no.  She isn’t.  That’s about all you need to know, contextually.  Jane Lynch plays the lamaze coach, ‘Tammy’, and she’s appropriately poofy-haired, thick-lensed and lecture-y at Carol’s in-home lamaze class.  At least, I think that’s what she looks like… the texture of the video is something like watching television through both a screen door and pudding.
JL is using her Tilex commercial announcer-y voice, wearing an open denim shirt over a tee (all the rage in the early nineties), and has the following just-right line that made me laugh like a pubescent boy:

“Well then, let’s review some of our exercises, starting with the push.  We’re on our backs, our knees are apart, pelvis contracted forward, aaaaand release.  Good!  Forward, and release.”

(That’s what she said.  I know, I’m a child.  Forgive me.)

JL then leads the class in some shallow breathing (hee hee hooo!) and is forced to make the best of some crappy writing, wherein  this ridiculous show makes a predictable dork-assed joke featuring Dreyfuss the dog.  “Well, now he’s got it perfectly!”  Sigh.  And then Rachelle, a lamazee, isn’t doing it quite right – “No, Rachelle, you’re GASPING.” – because, of course, she’s actually about to pop.  Aaaand that’s about all we get of Tammy the Lamaze Coach, and about all of this video I can watch without needing a barbituate.  Check out the squinty-making clip linked [below]; Ms. Lynch features prominently in minutes 5-8.