Betty White shines on Saturday Night Live at 88

Betty White killed Saturday night.

And good thing, because it could just have easily gone the other way - she coulda been killed.

Turning in the single most memorable "SNL" hosting performance of the season, White proved that 88 (and a half - don't forget that half) should never be an impediment to this kind of work - at least if you are Betty White.

Her timing was flawless, her material good to above average and her execution was on the level of something you'd expect from someone who's spent about 60 years in front of a camera.

Beneficiary of a remarkable Facebook campaign that got her up on that stage in the first place, White graciously thanked the lord of social media, then promptly gave it the back of her hand.

"I didn't know what Facebook is and now that I do know what it is, I have to say it sounds like a huge waste of time." Zaaaapp . . . and especially funny because that was, after all, a joke about an 88 1/2-year-old host who had turned down two previous offers to come here.

White appeared in virtually every sketch - strike that virtually. She was everywhere: Three "MacGrubers" (as Mac's mechanized-wheelchair-bound grandma, Nana); the opener "Lennon Sisters"; a riff on an NPR talk show about, umm, muffins, that revealed bawdy Betty at her best; a "CSI" spinoff; and even a digital short with a nod to "Golden Girls" that was maybe the highlight of the whole night. White shape-shifting into a death metal headbanger with a vengeance is an image none of us will be forgetting any time soon.

SEE PHOTOSBetty White through the years

There may be sound reasons why someone as celebrated as Betty White might rebuff "SNL" - like the fear of committing career hara-kiri a dozen times over the course of an hour-and-a-half - but at 88 1/2, what's to lose? With a new TV Land sitcom in June ("Hot in Cleveland"), now seems like a good a time to remind everyone that this long career wasn't some kind of fluke. White is a genuinely funny human being who may have nothing left to prove except that she's still got what it takes. And at 88 1/2, I think we can all admit: That's not as easy as she made it look.