Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 35: Down the Helen Reddy Wormhole

Season 10

Feb. 5, 1977: Helen Reddy

Carol with Helen Reddy

When I mentioned on blog post number 33 in this series that there was a missing musical sequence from this episode with Helen Reddy in the Best of the Carol Burnett Show DVD collection, a Twitter follower named Mamaleh Trump who bills herself as Donald's long-lost imaginary Yiddishe bubbe, posted a link to a YouTube video with the missing 12 minutes. Here's her tweet: "Episode with Helen Reddy is missing a WONDERFUL 12 minute medley where Helen & Carol sing an amazing group of songs from the 60s. Video/sound quality is not great, but it is still very much worth watching. Cost of rights to all the songs is the problem." Helen and Carol sing a prolonged medley of hits from the 1960s from Hello, Dolly to Eleanor Rigby.

And here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO3mThPo2os&t=608s

This link led me down a Helen Reddy wormhole. This YouTube channel (called ReddyRockedThe70s) has a number of musical clips featuring the Australian songstress on Carol's show, but not which episode. The link above led me to those clips and episodes and by piecing together clues from Amazon and imdb.com listings, we can guess where they belong.

Season Six

Sept. 26, 1972: Helen Reddy, Andy Griffith

Carol with Sheila Bartold as 
Aunt Celia in Rebecky.

The clip on the Helen Reddy channel features what must have been the big musical finale, with Carol and Andy Griffith starting off the song "The Chain of Life." They are joined by Harvey and Helen, Lyle and Vicki, plus all the dancers in a riotous hoe-down celebrating all of nature's biological urges. According to imbd.com and Carol's book In Such Good Company, this episode aired on Sept. 26, 1972 and was Helen's first appearance on the show. In another clip on the Reddy channel, Carol introduces her guest as making her first appearance on the show and she sings her enormous international hit, "I Am Woman." There is a complete listing for this episode with a link to the whole show on Amazon under "The Best of the Carol Burnett Show," but it's no longer available. 

On Amazon.com and MeTV, this episode is listed as a family show with no guests because they cut out all but two sketches: Carol plays a housewife obsessed with celebrity gossip and a satire of Hitchcock's classic Rebecca, called Rebecky with Harvey as Laurence Olivier, Carol as Joan Fontaine's shy title heroine, and Vicky as the evil Mrs. Danvers, immortalized by Judith Anderson in the original. Missing material includes a sketch with Carol visiting her husband (Andy) in prison and Helen teaching Carol on how to speak Australian. The Rebecky spoof is really quite brilliant with the writers cleverly satirizing all of the Hitchcock cliches and the cast perfectly capturing the essence of their roles' originators. Vicky is very funny as the evil Mrs. Danvers and Harvey switches from a perfectly clipped Olivier to his Mother Marcus character (no spoilers as to the reason for the dual role. You'll have to watch the show yourself and find out.)

Season 8

Nov. 9, 1974: John Byner, Helen Reddy

Carol, John Byner, Helen Reddy
and Harvey in the singles bar sketch

Helen shows a comic flair when she participates in a funny sketch about pick-ups in singles bars. Bob Mackie's costumes define the characters perfectly as would-be swingers Harvey and John Byner attempt to hit on Helen and Carol as shy what used to be called spinsters. This episode also featured one of the better Carol Burnett Show Awards for the Most Memorable Commercials. Harvey is a police officer dressed as a woman, presumably for an undercover operation. Lyle compliments him on his smooth shave, to advertising the shaving cream. Harvey then reveals he's not on duty but going to an officer's home for dinner. The skit could have ended right there, but Harvey ad-libs to Lyle, "What's a person supposed to do, stay at home? You never call" and then hits him with his purse which causes Lyle to crack up. John Byner does spot-on impersonations of Bing Crosby hawking orange juice and Euell Gibbons eating a tree (Gibbons was a naturalist, brief sensation and national punch-line for munching on tree bark during ads for Grape Nuts cereal.) We get to see Lyle shirtless with black tape on his armpits to simulate a deodorant commercial. He moans to his wife Carol he doesn't know how to get rid of these stains. "Well, I do," she answers and then rips the tapes off with Lyle howling.

The best of these vignettes, and perhaps the best commercial spoof Carol ever did has Harvey biting into a new margarine (Improper rather than Imperial) and a crown appears on his head just like in the real ad. But then Lyle enters dressed as a medieval knight. "Your majesty, the peasants are revolting. Your life is in danger," he warns. A stunned Harvey replies, "I'm just a guy eating some toast." Lyle exits, then a chorus boy dressed as a peasant rushes on and stabs Harvey. "You're not fit to be king!" Vicki rushes on garbed as an Elizabethan royal and screams, "The king is dead! Long live the king!" Helen as Harvey's poor wife returns to her husband mortally wounded. With his dying breath, Harvey exhales, "I don't want this margarine anymore" and then expires.   

Other highlights include the classic Family scene where Eunice nearly kills Mama and Ed over a game of Sorry; and a salute to women songwriters.

Season 11

Dec. 18, 1977: Helen Reddy, Ken Berry

There are two musical segments on the ReddyRocksthe70s channel which probably fit with this episode. In Helen's solo bit, "Blue," she's dressed as a rag doll in a shop full of the abandoned toys played by the chorus. This works because the song was from an animated feature based on Raggedy Ann. Then Carol and Helen engage in small talk about Helen's role in the Disney film Pete's Dragon before singing a number from the movie. They have had a laugh about something just before the taping started because they're both on the verge of cracking up during the dialogue. Their song is accompanied by animated images of the dragon and is introduced by a very funny Vicky doing an imitation of then-famous gossip columnist Rona Barrett.