Holy shit, Ana Gasteyer was The West Wing’s Butterball hotline operator

Remember a few months back, when Christina Hendricks just casually let slip that hers was the hand on the American Beauty poster? This is like that, but sub voice for hand, Ana Gasteyer for Christina Hendricks, and just block the existence of Kevin Spacey from your mind entirely. Ana Gasteyer was the voice of the Butterball Hotline operator in The West Wing’s season three episode “The Indians In The Lobby,” and we are gobble-smacked.

Gasteyer dropped this bit of information on Twitter, after seeing a jokey little chat between a West Wing fan and the Butterball Twitter account:

Reader, we have watched a lot of The West Wing, and this clip in particular gets trotted out a lot because the way that Martin Sheen says “Joe Bethersonton” is perfect. (See also: “I do radio commercials for… products,” “Phil Baharnd,” etc.) At no point did we detect that the voice on the other end of the line was Ana Gasteyer, but you know what? That’s Ana goddamn Gasteyer.

The West Wing Weekly co-host Hrishikesh Hirway did not know.

Bradley Whitford did not know.

And it goes without saying, but we did not know, not even a little bit. And she has receipts:

Between this and Schweddy Balls, Gasteyer has really sort of cornered the market on iconic holiday bits of the late ’90s/early ‘00s, huh? She’s also got a Christmas album, so she’s kind of killing it with the holidays at the moment. Well done, Ana. We’re sure that Joe Bethersonton of Fargo, North Dakota, sends his best.