Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 40: The Specials

Before, during and after her variety series, Carol headlined a series of specials available as bonus features on DVD collections or on YouTube.

Carol + 2

March 22, 1966: Lucille Ball, Zero Mostel

(Released on DVD on Carol +2: The Original Queens of Comedy, and as a Special Bonus Feature on The Carol Burnett Show: The Lost Episodes Box Set)

Lucy and Carol in the
Chutzpah musical number
in Carol + 2

This is sort of a pilot that CBS ran to see if Carol could carry a hour-long variety show but they insisted she have two top-tier guest stars to guarantee big ratings. Lucy was under contract to CBS to do at least a few specials in addition to her regular series The Lucy Show. Mostel had starred on Broadway and won Tonys for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Fiddler on the Roof, and the film of Forum was out this year. 

The hour begins with weird, mechanical music (it sounds like a 1960s idea of a computer spinning its tapes) and an announcer introducing the three principals as the camera zooms in on giant caricatures of each. Carol enters and lavishly praises her two guests. Like a bull or rhinoceros in a china shop, Zero breaks up the pleasantries by saying these self-congratulatory intros are ridiculous (Zero played a man who turns into a rhino in Ionesco's play). What if plumbers behaved the same way ("Oh, Irving what a lovely wrench. Is that a new plunger?") He suggests they shut up and get to work.

The first sketch features Carol and Zero as a bickering couple celebrating their tenth anniversary who rediscover their passion for each other when it seems they've never been legally married. The two master comics milk the physical and facial gestures for all they're worth. Zero's face changes from a blank stare to a devilish leer as he realizes his wife is now a single girl and the audience applauds. Carol is equally exaggerated in her horny reactions to Zero's offstage singing of love songs as she dons a revealing negligee. After the sketch, Carol sings in her character, "You're My Reason" written by MItzi Welch to a sleeping Zero. 

In "Goodbye Baby," Lucille and Carol are sisters quarreling over Carol's baby. Lucy urgently needs to catch a bus, but Carol strongly insists she not leave until the infant says goodbye. Zero then recreates his performance as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof with "If I Were a Rich Man." After a commercial break (you can see the commercials on YouTube), there's a brief sketch with Zero as a psychiatrist listening to Carol describe her brother who thinks he's a frog. Carol scratches her nose and Zero writes it down as a nervous tic. The central joke is Carol then spending the rest of the scene desperately trying not to scratch her nose, turning pratfalls and falling off the couch. Carol next sings a slow ballad version of "Wait Til the Sun Shines, Nelly." The set-up is she's a wardrobe mistress named Nelly in one of Hugh Hefner's Bunny Clubs, warbling of her thwarted attempts at romance with Zero as the club's bartender. Bunny clubs were exploitative nightclubs with women in skimpy outfits and rabbits ears serving drinks to sloshed tired businessmen.

The hour concludes with Carol and Lucy as cleaning ladies pretending to be show-biz big shots as they dust, mop and collect half-finished cigarettes at the William Morris Agency. When Carol doubts her illusions, Lucy peps her up with the specialty number "Chutzpah" by Ken Welch which sounds a lot like "Hey, Look Me Over" from Lucy's Broadway show Wildcat. The choreography is energetic and the two look like they're having fun. Before the end, Carol pitches sponsor American Motors' safety record. We get a second of Carol saying good night to the studio audience and asking them to watch the show when it's on the air to up the ratings.

The DVD Original Queens of Comedy also includes the 1972 version of Carol in Once Upon a Mattress, the 1959 musical fairy tale which made her a star on and Off-Broadway. I'll cover that show along with the other two televised versions in a later blog post.

Julie and Carol at Lincoln Center

Dec. 7, 1971: Julie Andrews

Carol previously did a special with Julie Andrews at Carnegie Hall. This encore was filmed live at Lincoln Center Philharmonic Hall and the opening number is a bonus feature on the Lost Episodes DVD box set (on the first disc of the first DVD collection of three). I have a vague memory of watching this when it aired, so I would have been 12. After chit-chat, they sing the opening number about how they need to be high class and not clown around as they did at Carnegie Hall. "No camping around tonight/Try to keep your gown down tonight." It ends with Carol ripping off the bottom of Julie's pink ball gown. 

The rest of the show is available on YouTube. The first sketch features Carol and Julie as cellist and violinist squabbling over infidelity while playing a symphony. In a modern dance satire, Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology is all mixed together with Carol as a Stella Toddler-like dowager performing Electra. But not like Agamemnon and Clytemenstra's daughter. Here she is the only woman in the Village of The Gods. The costumes and choreography, mocking Agnes De Mille and Martha Graham, are excellent and Don Creighton appears nearly naked as Apollo, the object of the elderly Electra's passion. Julie then has a beautiful solo combining folk and pop. The show ends with a 16-minute medley of hits from the last 10 years (since they covered everything from 1900 to 1961 at Carnegie Hall.) For the finale, they don raincoats to sing "Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nelly."

Carol, Carl, Whoopi, and Robin
Feb. 10, 1987: Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams
(Segments available on YouTube) Carol shares the spotlight with three top-notch performers at the top of their game. There are bits and pieces available on YouTube and the show is available in its entirety at the Paley Center, but I haven't been able to visit yet this summer. Here's a breakdown based on the description in the Paley archive and on the show's Wikipedia page:

Carol and Robin Williams in
the Funeral sketch

The titular quartet garbed in formal attire stand in front lecterns singing a specialty musical number on the root and cause of comedy. Robin steals the scene by fumbling with the wrong script, reciting the phone book and then a Spanish dictionary. It ends up with the four hitting each other on the head with foam rubber bats and throwing confetti at the audience.  

The first sketch is the famous funeral scene with Carol as the grieving widow and Robin as the oddball stranger clumsily trying to counsel her by encouraging her to keen like the Irish or sing a Negro spiritual. The really funny part follows immediately after as Carol confides to the camera that Robin wants to do the scene again and go off-book a bit. What follows is a series of hilarious ad-libs by Robin ("There's coffee in the embalming room, but it tastes a little funny"). Carol plays along and they both somehow wind up belting "Everything's Coming Up Roses" from Gypsy. This is probably the scene that won him an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety of Music Program. Playwright Christopher Durang (Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You) wrote this scene. He includes it in a collection of his short plays and on his website. But he doesn't receive a writing credit which I don't understand. The only writers listed on imdb.com are Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon, Ken and Mitzi Welch and Jim Evering. Harvey is listed as director with Roger Beatty.

Carl and Robin do a short parody of Shakespeare (I suspect it was also improvised) and then Whoopi and Robin do a brief bit with Whoopi as a hipster drummer and Robin as an uptight business who lets himself go when Whoopi begins playing.

In a separate YouTube clip, I found the Mother-Daughter sketch with Carol and Whoopi, tracking the relationship from Whoopi's infancy to Carol's old age. Whoopi begins by wearing a giant diaper and cute onesie and Carol croons a cute lullaby. They engage in schtick on baby feeding and first steps, progressing to first day of school, teenage tantrums, wedding, Thanksgiving dinner, marriage breakups, and ends with Whoopi feeding Carol. Each brief vignette captures the situation and the feel of the conflict in a few seconds. Whoopi is expert in her physical comedy as she attempts her maiden upright walking.

The only missing segment from YouTube appears to be a musical duet where Carol coaxes a reluctant Whoopi to join her in a song about friendship.

Men, Movies, and Carol
Oct. 24, 1994: Scott Bakula, Tony Bennett, Barry Bostwick, Michael Jeter
(YouTube) An entertaining hour featuring Carol in her highest form of sketch comedy--old movie parodies. Her guest stars were headlining TV series at the time--Bakula (Quantum Leap), Bostwick (Spin

There was even a
VHS tape of
Men, Movies, and Carol

City) and Jeter (Evening Shade), plus Tony Bennett, probably the greatest singer of his era. The sketches begin with a take-off of Double Indemnity call Double Insanity (Carol had previously satirized the Billy Wilder noir masterpiece as Double Calamity with Steve Lawrence on her show). Bakula is the Fred MacMurray anti-hero Gus Niff ("With two ffs like in Philadelphia") and Carol is Barbara Stanwyck again as temptress Babs Dietrichson ("With a Z like xylophone"). The brief sketch does not adhere as closely to the original film as the spoof on Carol's original series did. They do use the bit of multiple lines of dialogue beginning with "Suppose" as in "Suppose you cry on my husband's shoulder." The whole movie of the pair killing her husband and collecting the insurance money is boiled down to five minutes. It's all filmed in black and white and they mock the noir cliche such as the smoky sax playing on the soundtrack ("That's an alto sax, not a tenor," observes Babs) and the narrator ("How did you know that?" "I heard the voice-over.").

In "Remainders of the Day," Carol and Barry Bostwick impersonate Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins from that Merchant-Ivory adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel. The dialogue fairly drips with sexual innuendoes as they discuss flowers, dusting and waxing the furniture, beating the rugs, and ironing the linens with clipped British accents. 

"Sicilian Proposal" satirizes sexy Italian films with Michael Jeter as the intimidated intended groom of virago Carol in a fat suit and fright wig. Bakula ironically translates the Italian dialogue. Carol and Barry then pay tribute to Fred and Ginger in a brilliant musical take-off written either by Ken and Mitzi Welch who wrote the special musical material for Carol's show or by Gerard Alessandrini, the author of hundreds of satiric songs from the numerous Forbidden Broadway revues (they all have writing credits. Carol has a writing credit too in addition to one for executive producer). The joke is Barry just wants to dance while Carol just wants to make love.

A spoof of The Graduate follows with Scott Bakula particularly funny as the fumbling young Dustin Hoffman. There is a clever montage of close-ups imitating Mike Nichols' famous direction of the seduction scene. (Carol previously satirized the Graduate on her show with Ruth Buzzi and Richard Crenna.) Carol then introduces Tony Bennett who delightfully delivers Schwartz and Dietz's "By Myself" to a drum solo. After some awkward banter, Carol and Tony warble a lovely, slow duet of the Gershwins' "He Loves and She Loves" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me." 

The hour concludes by borrowing a bit from Carol's 1991 rebooted series where the wait staff of a truck stop diner unexpectedly performs show tunes. In this case, it's a tribute to MGM movie musicals. Carol does a funny imitation of the late-career Judy Garland singing "Get Happy" from Summer Stock. In a clever coda, Tony Bennett greets Carol at the door of the diner after she has closed up and she says "Hi honey, how was your show?" Tony: "Fantastic. We got a standing ovation from twelve thousand people." Carol: "That's great. We got one from twelve" and then she gives her signature ear-tug as they walk off arm in arm. (Note: Bob Mackie won one of his 9 Emmy Awards for his costume design.)