There are two fantastic developments in the eternal quest to reconstruct all of the missing Carol Burnett Shows: First, MeTV has finished with the previously syndicated Seasons 6-11 and began showing the heretofore unseen Seasons 1-5 in chopped-down, half-hour segments. Second, I happened to be on Amazon Prime and discovered they are now streaming all of the first six seasons, plus season eight. I was so excited. I thought, now I don't have to buy that expensive second DVD collection, the Best of the Carol Burnett Show which has episodes not in The Lost Episodes DVD set I got for Christmas. So I eagerly clicked on the first episode expecting the entire hour, but all they have is the 22-minute edited version MeTV is running. If I want to see complete episodes, I will have to buy the DVD and even then, a lot of material will be missing from the MeTV/Amazon segments. Based on the complete list of episodes in Carol's book, In Such Good Company, there also seems to be a few episodes not included in either MeTV or Amazon.
Anyway, here is a rundown of the edited segments running on both platforms. Episodes already reviewed in the previous seven Carol Burnett blogs are not included, nor are those which can be found on the large DVD collections which will be reviewed later since there is access to the complete show on the DVD.
Season One:
Oct. 23, 1967: The Smothers Brothers, Diahann Carroll, Richard Kiley
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| Carol with Tommy Smothers |
Not much going on in this one. Carol introduces the Smothers Brothers as her neighbors from across the hall since they were filming their relatively short-lived variety series at CBS then. Tommy Smothers is a blissed-out yogi and Carol is buxom Hollywood starlet in a sketch satirizing the 1960s trend of celebrities seeking enlightenment. Then Carol, Diahann, and the chorus dancers are kids braving a haunted house in the musical finale. Richard Kiley has been cut out entirely. He probably sang "The Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha. Diahann and he co-starred in No Strings on Broadway. I wonder if they did a number together.
