MADtv Recurring Characters - Ms. Swan

Ms. Swan

Bunny Swan (Alex Borstein), also known as Ms. Swan, was born on November 25, 1966 (although in one sketch from 2000, she said she was two years old, and once she stated that she was over 100 years old) and lives at 1040 North Las Palmas (the address for Hollywood Center Studios, at the time home to MADtv). She is 5' 2" and weighs 145 lbs., as shown on a sketch when she goes to the DMV. Ms. Swan works as a manicurist at the Gorgeous Pretty Beauty Nail Salon (which she mispronounces as "Goja Pitty Booty Nay Salon"), or the Gorgeous Beauty Nail Salon for short.

Ms. Swan's ethnicity and native country are unclear, although the character exhibits Chinese stereotypes. In one sketch it is revealed that Ms. Swan is from the fictional country of Kouvaria, near the North Pole. Although in one sketch where she is leaving a chain of her salons, the setting of the area suggests that she is from Asia. MADtv execs insist the character was based on the singer Björk. (She was compared to Björk in one sketch, was referred to as Icelandic by the Vancome Lady in another, and wore Björk's infamous swan dress in another.) When a man asked her where she was from, she replied she lived downtown. One sketch shows Ms. Swan being fluent in Spanish while using an ATM. She told a man in a bar that her mother was Spanish, but her father was from Space. In Swan: The Homecoming, a movie she made with Garry Marshall, her father was played by Mark Hamill, and it was implied that she had another sister: Marcia Swan. Kitty Swan was also introduced as her sister in another sketch, but the sisters may be a single person, named Kitty-Marcia. Borstein claims the character was at least partially inspired by her Hungarian grandmother. In an early sketch, the character was supposed to have been a wig-maker. In another sketch, Ms. Swan goes to a restaurant with her sister, Kitty Swan, to meet two American men, and the two converse in Hungarian and Czech. She has also been shown to have a pet dog named JuJu Bee.

In all of her sketches, except the sketch where she goes on a date where she wears Björk's swan gown, she is wearing her work clothes.

In the sketches, people usually ask Ms. Swan questions, but she never gives a straight answer, driving them insane. She usually says, "Okay, I'll tell you everything" (which she pronounces "okay/oh yah, I teh yu evrteen"), and "He look-a like-a man", both stemming from her debut sketch, in which she could not identify a robber. In the course of the discussion, she will reply, about an obvious detail, that the growing-impatient questioner "didn't say that before" when formulating the question. She also knows to lie and be cunning, which makes her complex in that oftentimes the viewer is unsure of whether she is being dumb or crafty or simply annoying.

Ms. Swan also tends to purse her lips, saying "thanks to you," after she feels another character has helped her. In one sketch, Ms. Swan auditions for the Spice Girls and was unable to follow simple directions and spoke the lyrics (incorrectly as well) rather than singing them, which made the director yell at her.

When on Lowered Expectations, she ridiculed the cameraman. When she is in a sketch with Michael McDonald, she often refers to him as a "monkey in the bush", humorously insinuating his being a homosexual.

Ms. Swan made a cameo appearance on Family Guy (in which Borstein voices several characters) in the episode "Don't Make Me Over".

On February 8, 2011, an unexpected video surfaced of Ms. Swan in a parody of Black Swan. This video can be found on YouTube. Made independently of MadTV, the parody was created by Borstein and her husband, Jackson Douglas.