Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 22: PBS Reruns

Public television stations have been playing full-hour episodes of Carol's show under the umbrella title Carol's Favorites. I first caught this while visiting my mother in Pennsylvania. Channel 12, the Philadelphia PBS station, was showing the one with Pearl Bailey and Tim Conway. These reruns have been shown in the NYC area on WLIW, Channel 21, the Long Island-based PBS station. I have seen most of these hours on DVD or I remember them vividly. They are mostly from seasons six through eleven which have been accessible in one form or another. But occasionally a stray episode or two has popped up with material I've never seen, usually from seasons 1-5 which only recently became available. Here is one I just saw:

Season Five
Dec. 29, 1971: Steve Lawrence, Dick Martin, Vivian Bonnell

Steve and Harvey
in Sunnyset Boulevard

This almost New Year's Eve segment is probably best-known for containing the first of the spin-offs of Billy Wilder's classic Sunset Boulevard with Carol as decrepit, damaged version of Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond (here called Nora Desmond) and Harvey as her Teutonic, fanatic butler Max. 

This episode had been chopped up and seen on the Carol Burnett and Friends, 22-minute syndicated series, but has been missing even from that venue. I notice that a lot of episodes on Amazon have become unavailable, including this one. I had only seen the shorter version which had the Sunset Boulevard sketch and an edition of As the Stomach Turns and never viewed the missing material. 

After answering the audience's questions, the opening sketch has Carol and Vicki as rival airline clerks vying for the business of traveller Dick Martin, who was then starring with his partner Dan Rowan on the phenomenally successful Laugh-In. One of Dick's bits was to play a drunken sot. Here Carol and Vicki ply Dick with booze to get him to make a reservation on their airline. Their offers get more and more extravagant as Dick gets drunker and drunker. The sketch echoes an earlier one from Season One with Carol and guest Lucille Ball as car-rental saleswomen battling for Tim Conway's patronage. The punchline has Vicki kissing Dick and Carol topping her by calling out a sexier Swedish bombshell to practically rape him.

Then Carol introduces Steve Lawrence to sing Stephen Sondheim's Losing My Mind from Follies, then on Broadway (I think). To prove that Steve is a masculine he-man and not some queeny hysteric falling apart over a woman, the setting is a very manly study complete with pipes, paintings of sea battles and miniature ships. The window looks out over a harbor. Steve shifts gears in the next scene by doing an accurate Groucho Marx impression as a Henry Kissinger-type political advisor opposite Vicki as a reporter. Kissinger, despite being a middle-aged plain-looking snook, had a reputation as a ladies' man. He later become Nixon's National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State. Here he is called Henry Kissinggame.

Dick Martin, Carol and Vivian Bonnell in
As the Stomach Turns

As the Stomach Turns follows with Carol as Marion getting her fortune told by Madame Natasha (Vivian Bonnell in one of her frequent guest appearances). This was one of the show's attempts to include African-American players. There's also a bad joke when Madame Natasha (real name Beulah, ugh!) reveals a black ace. The doorbell rings and an African-American guy in a pilot suit is at the door. (Get it?) With each new card, a different zany guest appears. First it's Vicki, once again as Marion's wayward daughter carrying a baby. After the usual jokes about sleeping around, Vicki leaves and Carol dumps the baby in the umbrella stand. Then there's the black ace, then Dick enters as Cesar Deniro, Canuga Falls' leading gigolo and rumba instructor. Harvey follows as Sam Snorty, always-absent mayor of Canuga Falls. This is a parody of Sam Yorty, then mayor of LA who was always out of town. (This was a popular subject of humor back then, as if people outside of Los Angeles cared anything about its internal politics. I remember Yorty guest-starred on an episode of Here's Lucy.)

The second half of the show is given over to a salute to the Oscars with brief take-offs on Some Like It Hot and Tea and Sympathy (Carol is mistaken for a man and Vicki plays Mrs. Robinson). Carol and Steve do a medley of songs that lost the Best Song Oscar, then the Sunset Boulevard spoof. This sketch follows the film in condensed form. Steve is Joey Gillis (William Holden), an unemployed screenwriter stumbling into the run-down mansion of run-down silent film star Nora Desmond. Harvey as Max, her devoted butler, forces him at gunpoint to act out a scene from Salome with wigged-out Nora. Everyone winds up getting shot. Carol and Harvey continued this basic schtick for several sketches with Nora auditioning for an insecticide commercial and appearing on a Friars Roast panel. Gloria Swanson herself enjoyed the parody and later appeared on the show (They did not do the Sunset Blvd. bit on that one).

The hour wraps up with a salute to Walt Disney characters and Carol singing an original song about her animated "Friends." Carol then flies in as Peter Pan. Harvey is Mickey Mouse, Vicki is Snow White, Lyle is a big, cute, manly White Rabbit with oversized glasses, Steve is Pinocchio, and Dick is Prince Charming.

More PBS reruns to follow. Also the Paley Center has finally re-opened after COVID. I will try to get there and view further season 1-5 shows with previously unrevealed old material.

The cast including Vivian Bonnell 
at the goodbyes. Harvey looks a bit uncomfortable
dressed as Mickey Mouse.