Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 33

Here is the first David Desk blog of 2023. I haven't done a Carol Burnett Show roundup in quite a while. Here are some bits and pieces I came across since part 32.

Season One: Feb. 5, 1968: Jack Palance, Liza Minnelli

(Originally reviewed in Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 9, edited MeTV version includes gangster sketch; YouTube clips include Liza's two numbers, "The Ballad of Butterfly McHart" and "The Happy Time")

Carol as Trilby and Jack Palance as Svengali

Channel 21 continues to air full-hour reruns of Carol's show, but this is one of the rare ones that heretofore has not surfaced in its entirety. I discovered it several weeks ago and DVRed it. I had seen the MeTV edited versions plus YouTube clips of Carol's numbers with Liza. Previously unviewed material includes a typically lame Carol-and-Sis sketch where Carol and Roger entertain Crissy's date--a whacked-out hippie. But it turns out he's not her date, just a crazy guy looking for a hand-out, and then an even weirder guy in black leather motorcycle gear show up as Crissy's real date. Later Carol plays a saloon entertainer in the Wild West who destroys a bar with her Ethel Merman-like vocals. Then she has a solo warbling a slow version of "Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nelly." 

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 9

Lyle Waggoner

The corona virus lockdown continues. I am too disgusted with Donald Trump to comment on his hideous actions. With no theater or movies to go to, I have time to watch old Carol Burnett Show reruns on MeTV and Amazon. As noted in the previous blog, these are highly edited versions of the original, but I have found some missing pieces on YouTube. Also, Lyle Waggoner, Carol's ultra-handsome, muscular, gorgeous hunk announcer and supporting comedy player, has passed away at 84. One of my first TV crushes, he was on the show for 7 seasons, then played Steve Trevor on Wonder Woman. He appeared on numerous TV shows after that including Maude, Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat and The Golden Girls as well as the horrible Catalina Caper on MST3K. But he concentrated on his business of renting trailers for movie shoots. Perhaps he realized you can't be a handsome hunk forever. He will always have a special place in my TV-loving heart.

Season One
Sept. 18, 1967: Sid Caesar, Liza Minnelli
The edited version of this one is really heartbreaking. It's the second aired episode and a very young Liza Minnelli is one of the guests. Carol announces she will be on and says "I don't know where she

Liza Minnelli with Carol

gets her talent," referring to Liza's mother, the legendary Judy Garland. This was only a few years after Liza won a Tony for Flora the Red Menace and before she won an Oscar for Cabaret. So it would have been great to see her and Carol sing a duet. But the only appearance this multi-talented lady makes in this 22-minute slashed version is at the end signing Carol's autograph book. Whoever makes the editing decisions could easily have gotten rid of the stupid LBJ daughter sketch or the Carol and Sis vignette featuring a sleepy Carol trying to stay awake during an interview with Chris' college admissions director (played by Rhetta Shaw who later appeared in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.) (The writers recycled the same material a few episodes later with Carol being too drunk to speak with Chris' algebra teacher.) Sid Caesar did have a sorta funny monologue about an expectant father imagining his future relationship with his son.

Fortunately, while looking for pictures of Liza and Carol on Google, I found YouTube clips of four of Liza's appearances on Carol's show. From deductive reasoning, I figured which segments went with which shows, so this really was a reconstruction--the original intention of this series of posts. During this episode, Liza solos on Randy Newman's "The Debutante's Ball," which she sang on her first album. She also does a beautiful medley of songs containing the word "time" in the title with Carol.