Stuever: Apple pie, apple Betty. The sweetness, the spacey granny thing. The twinkle, the dimples, the cotton-ball coif. It's the simplest sort of television-era algebra: Let Sue Ann Nivens equal x. Let Rose Nylund equal y. Take the square root of all the love America has left to give. (Take those nights spent watching "Golden Girls" reruns on the Hallmark Channel, with the tray of microwave brownies and the fuzzy blankie -- don't pretend you don't know.) For this equation alone, the comedy actress Betty White will be famous forever.
But she wouldn't be an Internet-age sensation if Betty didn't also know how to be naughty, outre. America loves a slightly dirty-minded meemaw with an unerring sense of comic timing. If not for this elusive factor, we wouldn't be living through a long and building Betty White moment, which fittingly crests on this Mother's Day weekend with her hosting "Saturday Night Live" -- an event that a half-million people more or less demanded through a Facebook campaign earlier this year.
Our society has this thing about old ladies and sauce.
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