Goodbye Oprah: A Farewell to the Absurd

By Kevin Robinson in Arts & Entertainment on May 25, 2011 8:00PM

AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

With the finale of The Oprah Winfrey Show, an icon of both an era and a mentality bids us farewell. Winfrey's show was more than just a sensational daytime gabfest. It was a tour de force that set the tone of how much we have changed over the 25 years that she's been on the air. The television show that we know today is a very different program than what was on the air in the mid-to-late 1980's, just like the Chicago we know today is a very different city than the one we knew back then.

Oprah has reflected the changing values and lifestyles of middle class daytime television watchers, and just as her program has given America a glimpse at herself through the lens of class and lifestyle, the humor drawn from the Oprah Winfrey powerhouse tells us about ourselves as well.

In honor of the absurd that Oprah has brought America, and in a way, the absurdity that she brought out in all of us, here's a few clips of Oprah weirdness, to warm you up for that Tivo'ed finale waiting for you at home.