Geraldine Jones (character)

Geraldine Jones
Geraldine interviews Dr. David Reuben 1971
First appearance	September 1, 1969
Created by	Flip Wilson

Geraldine Jones was a fictional African American character, the most famous recurring persona of comedian Flip Wilson. Geraldine was played as a sassy liberated Southern woman who was coarsely flirty yet faithful to her (unseen) boyfriend "Killer". Poorly educated, she was nevertheless confident; she did not change her behavior to suit anyone. Several of Geraldine's sayings entered U.S. popular culture as catchphrases, especially "When you're hot, you're hot; when you're not, you're not," "The Devil made me do it," and "What you see is what you get!"

Wilson portrayed Geraldine many times in the early 1970s on his variety series The Flip Wilson Show, though not on every episode. He made comedy albums featuring Geraldine, notably The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress, and he appeared as Geraldine on other programs such as Saturday Night Live. He sang and danced as Geraldine at the Kennedy Center in 1983 for Bob Hope's 80th birthday celebration. Wilson tired of the Geraldine character late in his career; he responded to most requests by saying: "She's retired."

Since the mid-1960s, Wilson had been using high-pitched voices to characterize women in his comedy routines. He said he was inspired by Butterfly McQueen's innocent depiction of "Prissy", Scarlett O'Hara's maid in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. He used a high, brassy voice to portray from a black perspective both Queen Isabella (introduced as Queen Isabel Johnson) and a West Indian woman in a comedy routine titled "Christopher Columbus", appearing on his 1967 album Cowboys and Colored People. Wilson worked at developing his own version of the voice, imagining a black Southern woman living in a rural area. He performed embryonic Geraldine-type routines at stand-up comedy clubs, but not wearing women's clothing, and not with the name Geraldine.