Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 4

More recaps and reviews of The Carol Burnett Show based on clips, segments, etc. from the previously unavailable first five seasons. 

Season Three:

Jan. 10, 1970: Nanette Fabray, Nancy Wilson

Carol and Nancy Wilson

Venerated jazz singer Nancy Wilson appeared on several episodes and I believe she was a regular on a short-lived, now-forgotten summer comedy series called Comedy Tonight which starred Robert Klein, Peter Boyle and Madeline Kahn. She and Carol are great together in a duet of that 1960s song "Come on People Now" (I think that's what it's called). Nancy cracks up during As the Stomach Turns with Nanette as a kleptomaniac, Harvey as a prissy theater person (again!) and Vicki as Marion's missing daughter showing up with a baby which Nanette steals and dumps in her shopping bag instead of Carol dumping it in the umbrella stand (as usual). For the finale, Carol, Nanette and Nancy don hippie outfits and pretend to be young girls singing about being hip mothers smoking, drinking, and doping with their babies. 

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.