SUBSCRIBER WOW: The Secret Origin of Debbie Downer

Hey guys. It’s official.

One of my favorite sketches from SNL’s 50^th anniversary episode was the return of Debbie Downer. In the sketch, Debbie plays the bartender at a backstage bar at 30 Rock. And as various guests show up looking for a drink and to celebrate the night—including Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore, The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri, and Robert DeNiro, Debbie, in her characteristically deadpan style, destroys them with one depressing fact about reality after another.

It’s actually been just over 20 years since Dratch first created Debbie. And where in the past she has always seemed like a kook, I was struck by how much Debbie’s comments now actually seem to reflect what everyone is thinking. There’s the threat of animal extinction, a bird flu pandemic, the underlying political catastrophe which DeNiro obliquely refers to…The world has finally caught up to Debbie Downer.

We know how we got here (more or less). But how did she?