The Awesome Career Moves of Betty White

With her bouncy white hair and her smile that could cut glass, it's hard not to love Betty White. Her latest endeavor, new show Hot in Cleveland premieres tonight (Wednesday, June 16) at 10:00pm EST on TV Land. Frankly, we are pretty excited about it.

We couldn't be more thrilled for Ms. White. Hot in Cleveland is poised to cement her status as the most successful aging comedienne of all time. Her sweet, sweet demeanor coupled with her acerbic and often lewd one-liners just never gets old. She's been delivering the same goods since the days of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which she played "happy homemaker" Sue Ann Nivens — who seemed charming and helpful but was mostly after fame, money, Phyllis Lindstrom's husband and making people feel inadequate. She captured the classic passive aggression for which Minnesotans are infamous with sheer glee, and arguably made fun of Martha Stewart before "Martha Stewart" even existed. Let's take a look at some of her awesome career moves since then:

Golden Girls. Need I say more? Darling Rose from Minnesota was something of an idiot savant with crazy stories from St. Olaf and a heart of, well, gold, making her a hilarious foil for the lascivious Blanche, the stubborn and intelligent Dorothy and the guilelessly nasty Sophia. The show became legendary in unforeseen ways.

Then, most of us lost track of White a little. She'd show up as a guest star here and there on TV, but rarely had an opportunity to truly shine.

Cue The Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner. Betty White had been popping up here and there, but when she showed up at the roast of William Shatner, guns a-blazing, we knew Betty was back. Check it out:

The Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner Betty White www.comedycentral.com Futurama New Episodes Ugly Americans Funny TV Comedy Blog

What?? Betty White said what???

Next, she showed up in The Proposal with Sandra Bullock, telling the gorgeous starlet that she was shaped "like an Easter egg."

During that time (2006-2009), she was also appearing on The Bold and the Beautiful — so what may have appeared to be a career gap to some was actually just a foray into daytime TV. What's crazy — and remarkable — about White's career is that if you look at her IMDB ... there is no gap of more than a year or two at all. Ever. Since 1953. How did she get away with that?

Answer: Through sheer brilliance.

Just as everyone was starting to catch on to how funny Betty White was, and still was, she made another ingenious move: After an overwhelming movement on Facebook, she hosted Saturday Night Live. She was positively vulgar and it couldn't have been funnier, because it was her. Or she, rather. May 8, 2010, age 88:

The LA Times accused Betty White of risking "overexposure" on June 15, 2010. You know what? Shut up, LA Times. We'll take all the Betty White we can get. And we can't wait to see Hot in Cleveland tonight!

Photo by PR Photos.