Stuart Smalley  Stuart Smalley is a fictional character created and performed by comedian and satirist Al Franken. The character originated on the television show "Saturday Night Live", in a mock self-help show called "Daily Affirmations With Stuart Smalley." It first aired on the show's February 9, 1991 episode hosted by Kevin Bacon. Stuart is Franken's middle name. Franken has stated that his "going to Al-Anon meetings inspired [the character] Stuart [Smalley]". (He attended the meetings in support of his wife, who was battling alcoholism at the time.) Stuart participates in many (sometimes fictional) programs, not limited to Overeaters Anonymous, Children of Alcoholic Parents Anonymous, and Children of Rageaholic Parents Anonymous. He is an effeminate man with a perfectly coiffed bleached-blond hairdo, who regularly wears a yellow button-down shirt with a powder blue cardigan. It is frequently hinted that Stuart may be gay, but his sexual orientation is never clearly stated. All his romantic partners have names which could be male or female, like Dale, Chris, or Merle. His father gripes, "You'd drink too if you had Liberace for a son." Within the context of the show, Stuart is quick to point out that he is "not" a licensed therapist but relies instead upon the credibility of his own experiences as a non-professional. His guests are very often celebrities; however, Smalley is seemingly unaware of his guests' fame as he never uses their full names so as to "protect (their) anonymity." Other guests who appeared are his family members, such as Macaulay Culkin playing his nephew or Roseanne Barr playing his sister, who suffers from battered wife syndrome. A Canadian relative, Leon Smalley, played by Kiefer Sutherland has a show called "Today's Meditation", which is a big hit in Canada. The character was popular enough to spawn a 1992 novel, "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!: Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley". The book keeps in line with the concept of the character and is presented (tongue-in-cheek) as a legitimate day-to-day affirmation book. Each page is dated and the reader is "supposed" to follow through as if they were actually seeking help. Naturally, however, things go wrong in the writing process, and thus the affirmations branch off into Stuart's own commentary about what a hard time he is having writing it, etc.