Austinites love them some Betty White

AUSTIN (KXAN) - It's always been easy to love Betty White, the affable, slightly ditzy "Rose" in TV's classic sit-com "Golden Girls."

But now, at age 88, she's the hottest thing out there - appearing in edgy Super Bowl commercials and blowing the roof off ratings as host of last weekend's Saturday Night Live.

Game for anything, her skits included her as a ditzy resident during the Census count, and a member of the cast of the often-salty "McGruber" series.

And Austin loved it.

In Austin, the average share of households watching SNL was averaging about a 4.9 household rating - totalling 33,271 households in the Austin market.

During the show on Saturday, May 8, 2010, that rating jumped to 11.1 - that comes to 75,369, more than double the number of typical viewers. 

Nearly 73,000 of those households fell into the 25-54 age range.

But it's not just Austinites who are into Betty White these days. Nationally, the rating was an 8.8 - roughly 9.68 million homes. That was the highest rating that SNL had seen in the last 18 months (around the time Tina Fey returned to SNL for the 2008 elections.)

Drawing on her six decades in comedy, she was the consummate pro — sweet, sassy, salty, charming and clearly game for anything.

"I'm not new to live TV," she reminded the audience at the top of the show, and recalled that she had starred in a sitcom that aired live back in 1952.

"Of course, back then, we didn't WANT to do it live. We just didn't know how to tape things." A perfectly timed beat. "I don't know what THIS show's excuse is."

Billed by NBC as a special Mother's Day edition, the show had a definitely feminine tone and was a reunion of sorts for "SNL" alumnae, bringing back former regulars including Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon. (Jay-Z was musical guest.)

But White was the queen bee, appearing in nearly every bit throughout the 90-minute span — and never failing to punch it up.

As a dotty resident being surveyed by census-taker Fey, White listed other residents in her apartment as Fluffy, Princess, Tigger and Socks.

"These are people we're talking about and not cats, right?" asked the wary Fey.

"There's really no way of knowing," came the reply. "Sometimes when I see their big eyes looking up from my lap, I think that's definitely a homeless guy in a fur coat."

White played the star of a new "CSI" spinoff set in a Florida retirement community, "CSI: Sarasota."

As an investigator (identified as David Caruso's great-aunt), she wasn't buying the story that the victim had died of natural causes.

"Oh, really," she scoffed. "Since when does a 103-year-old man simply drop dead?"

She appeared in three "MacGruber" sketches as the grandmother of the bumbling special-op agent played by Will Forte, each time nagging and berating him as he tried (unsuccessfully, of course) to defuse the ticking bomb.

She played the guest of Gasteyer and Shannon, co-hosts of a public-radio cooking show, in a sketch slyly built around an alternate meaning for "muffin."

"A lot of people like my pumpkin pie, and of course my carrot cake is legendary," White's bakery chef began proudly, "but if there's one thing I'm known for, it's my muffin." She didn't stop there.

And in a filmed short that should find a robust afterlife online, "SNL" cast members paid tribute to White by singing "Thank You for Being A Friend," the theme of her classic sitcom, "The Golden Girls."

"Oh, that was just lovely," said White when they were finished. "But I think I prefer my version," whereupon she pulled a black ski mask over her face and led a growling, rip-roaring death-metal rendition that left everyone reeling.

Here is one skit that didn't make the show:

White, whose "SNL" gig resulted from a half-a-million-strong groundswell on Facebook after her hilarious Snickers commercial on the Super Bowl, took pains to thank Facebook during her opening monologue.

Her way.

"When I first heard about the campaign to get me to host 'Saturday Night Live,' I didn't know what Facebook was," White confessed. Then she exhibited her warm smile and a perfectly timed beat before marveling impishly, "Now that I DO know what it is, I have to say: It seems like a huge waste of time."

KXAN's Director of Research John Cronan and Digital Executive Producer Karen Brooks contributed to this report.