Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 3

Someone is deleting episodes of The Carol Burnett Show from YouTube. While I was on vacation in Mexico, I found several episodes from the first five seasons. Most were posted by the same person, but now they are gone. The person may have been contacted and told to delete them for copyright violations.

Season Two: Nov. 25, 1968: Garry Moore, Durward Kirby

Found on YouTube. Garry Moore was at one time a major TV personality, hosting his own variety series as well emceeing the popular panel show I’ve Got a Secret. Carol first hit it big on Garry’s

Carol with Garry Moore and Durward Kirby

show where Durward Kirby was his second banana. I knew Moore best as the host of the syndicated To Tell the Truth which used to come on every afternoon at 5:30 with Bill Cullen, Peggy Cass and Kitty Carlisle. Durward I only knew as the punchline of a joke on Rocky and Bullwinkle when the moose and squirrel were searching for the famed chapeau, the Kirwood Derby (Get it?) Here Carol pays tribute to her mentors by having them on as guests. In this segment she reprises two classic sketches from the Moore show, the Princess of Moravia and the safety first skit. In the former Carol is a monarch filming a toast and drinking wine in honor of a dignitary. She gets drunker and drunker while Garry as the newscaster tries to get her to sober up. In the latter sketch, Carol is a secretary to safety executive Durward who ironically burns her with his cigarette, stabs her with a pencil, pours hot coffee on her and ultimately pushes her out of a window. Would such physical violence get laughs today? In another sketch, the Old Folks Burt and Molly are visited by Garry and Durward in drag as two old biddies who enjoy a nip now and then. The four exchange jokes about Humphrey and Nixon who just won the presidency. The irony drips as Nixon is praised as a poor boy rising from nothing to become Chief Executive. (I don’t know if this sketch was not shown on MeTV for being dated.) Additional strange topical references include a pre-Jeffersons-Isabel Sanford as Blondie demonstrating integration on TV shows and an African-American newscaster calling his Caucasian co-anchor Whitey. So that they have something to do Vicki and Lyle strum guitars and sing a duet of “Call Me,” making me think of telephone commercials. Lead dancer Don Crichton is given a featured finale spot with film clips of him with Julie Andrews in the then-current film Star. 

Season Three: Nov. 17, 1969: Andy Griffith, Merv Griffin, Isabel Sanford, Elaine Joyce

Found on YouTube. Loads of sex, violence and gay humor in this really weird one. First off, Merv Griffin receives guest star billing in some listings but only appears briefly in Carol’s intro sequence. Irony is very thick as the closeted Griffin mentions his wonderful wife Julanne and Carol pretends to faint in his manly presence. Cross dressing and gay stereotypes are given to Harvey in two sketches (I wonder what Griffin thought of these homophobic bits). One of the the show’s recurring bits is an interview sequence with parodies of famous people mocking Edward R. Murrow’s Person to Person. In this one, Lyle is interviewing all of the female cast members as the King Sisters, a famous vocal group of the time. They were all blonde, All-American and painfully wholesome. Amidst the 11 blonde wholesome female singers is Harvey in drag and Isabel Sanford in a blonde wig. I guess they hired her whenever they needed a black woman. Lyle says to Harvey, “Will you tell me something?”

The King Sisters Sketch with Harvey as Becky (second row, left)
and Isabel Sanford as Beulah (top row, right)

Harvey answers flirtatiously, “I’ll tell you anything.” Lyle hints that Harvey’s character Becky is different from all the other girls and Carol explains that she adopted. “Yes, many years ago, Becky was left on our doorstep....in a fruit basket.” Then the sisters sing a line from the hit "Nature Boy": “There was a boy/A strange enchanted boy..." And Harvey says "Now cut that out!" Clearly, they are making fun of "Becky" not only cross-dressing, but also being attracted to other guys. Race is also a strange topic for humor as the presence of Isabel, aka "Beulah," is explained by Carol. "The Supreme Court asked us to integrate, but we love her just as much as any other sister." Beulah chimes in, "Then why do I have to sing in the back row?" This is pretty advanced for 1968. (Beulah was the name of an African-American maid character on radio's Fibber Magee and Molly who later had her own show. Not surprisingly, she was voiced by a white man. When the character moved to TV, she was played by no less than Ethel Waters, Louise Beavers, and Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel.)

Back to the gay humor: Harvey later appears as the Fairy Godfather in a countrified take-off of Cinderella called Cinder-Elly. Once again, the sissy jokes are laid on with a shovel, and not just jabs at being effeminate. Harvey camps it up and hints he should try on the glass army boot of Cinder-Elly. "But what if it fits?," asks Andy as Mr. Prince, the Prince Charming figure. "I can't marry you." "You're such a square," Harvey replies. In the finale when all are singing about the happy ending, Harvey is whispering something in Andy's ear and Carol laughs and hits him. Obviously there some kind of ad-libbed private joke along the lines of "If you ever get tired of Cinder-Elly, give me a call.") There were two other Cinderella spoofs during the course of the show, an Italian opera parody and a rock take-off. This one is pretty funny with country-western songs as well as a Cole Porter-inspired number for Harvey about his magic wand.

Violence gets its due when Carol plays the distraught wife of a cop (Andy) who brings his work home. Punches, tear gas, night sticks are all used, but Carol is the one punching Andy. Griffith was a big star with a show of his own on CBS and he is given four minutes during the intro to tell an Aesop story in his down-home style. Can you imagine that on today's TV? 

Elaine Joyce, wife of Bobby Van and later Neil Simon who I once saw on the street in NYC decades later, appears briefly as a cute divorcee in a Carol and Sis sketch. The premise is typical husband-wife conflict. Harvey as Roger wants to watch football all day Sunday and Carol isn't having it. Elaine drops by for a cup of sugar and Harvey immediately turns off the set to ogle her. Carol is rightfully furious and she and Vicki unplug the TV set.

(Cont. in Part 4)