Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 41: All 3 Mattresses

Once Upon a Mattress is the satirical fairy-tale musical that put Carol on the map. The show with music by Mary Rodgers (Richard's daughter), lyrics by Marshall Barer and book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller and Barer began life as a one-act at the Tamiment summer camp and then expanded for a full-length show opening Off-Broadway in 1959, directed by the legendary George Abbott. It later transferred to Broadway, playing several different theaters, racking up a total of 470 performances. In a daring bit of casting, African-American actress Jane White brilliantly played the wicked queen and repeated her performance in two of the TV versions. A popular choice for high school and community theater, I worked backstage on a production at the Barn Playhouse in Jeffersonville, PA, pushing the mile-high mattresses on and offstage. A 1996 Broadway revival starred Sarah Jessica Parker and an Off-Broadway one in 2015 starred Jackie Hoffman and Jon Epperson (aka Lypsinka). Sutton Foster is scheduled to headline an Encores! presentation Jan. 24-28, 2024. There were three different TV versions, the first two headlined by Carol in her original role of Princess Winnifred the Woebegone. The role cemented Carol's early persona as a boisterous, belting comedienne, not conventionally attractive and always man-hungry.

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 31

Summer vacation 2022 is dwindling down to a precious few weeks and there isn't much time to catch up on missing portions of the Carol Burnett Show. I hope to get to the Paley Center to view the remaining complete episodes unavailable anywhere else. Meanwhile, here's a survey of segments gleaned from Amazon Prime's release of original masters, Channel 21 broadcasts, and YouTube submissions.

Season Six

Sept. 20, 1972: Carol Channing, Marty Feldman

(Channel 21) (Previously seen on Amazon/ShoutFactory/MeTV) and Reviewed in Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 13: Sketches on Airplane Crew, Plastic Surgeon, Carol and Sis Jealousy Sketch, Commercials)

Lyle and Vicki in the
deodorant commercial spoof.

Apart from the pieces seen on the hacked-up 22-minute syndicated version, there's a marvelous honky-tonk number with Carol Channing and a few commercial spoofs including a bare-chested Lyle bragging about not using his deodorant for several days and then Vicki wearing a gas mask as his bedmate (They did the same gag on Laugh-In with Larry Hovis and Ruth Buzzi I recall.) Also previously missing was the finale, one of the early mini-musicals devoted to a single songwriter. This time it's Johnny Mercer and there are only four characters: Carol Burnett, Carol Channing, Harvey and Marty. Carol B. is a waitress in a greasy spoon, Harvey is a hobo, Carol C. is a flapper/vamp type, and Marty is some kind of eccentric partygoer. There are romantic couplings and uncouplings told through Mercer's lyrics. The best moment comes when Carol C. and Marty get together to the tune of "Jeepers, Creepers, Where'd You Get Those Peepers" and the two compare their notorious huge eyes.  

Jan. 27, 1973: Tim Conway, Kaye Ballard, Burt Reynolds (cameo during Q&A)
(Amazon Prime Original Broadcast Masters) I distinctly remembered watching this episode when it first

Kaye Ballard imitating
Sophie Tucker in Carol's
salute to vaudeville.

ran in 1973 or parts of it anyway. Kaye Ballard joins Carol in front of a set of old-fashioned radios, remembering their favorite radio shows. This leads to Carol introducing Kaye in a song from a musical based on the radio and TV series The Goldbergs. Kaye explains the show is called Molly's World (after the matriarch Molly Goldberg whom she is playing) and they are planning to opening it on Broadway in the spring. The title was shortened to Molly and it opened on the Main Stem in November of '73, running only 68 performances. Though the show was a flop, Kaye's rendition of the song, "Go in the Best Of Health" is lovely. 

Kaye also appears in a sketch with Carol and Vicki as three friends getting drunk at lunch and stiffing snobby waiter Lyle with the bill. Then she is one of three bachelorettes, again along with Carol and Vicki, vying for contestant Harvey's hand on the Daters' Game. Lyle is host Ken Plastic (love the name). The twist here is new technician Tim Conway (this is before he has joined the cast as a regular) rips Vicki's dress off by accident and must sub for her since it's a live show. There are some funny moments as Tim answers Harvey's questions about romance in a deadpan manner with no attempt to disguise his voice or gender. This is the second spoof of the popular daytime game show. The first featured Mickey Rooney and John Davidson during Season One.

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 30: Still More Broadcast Masters

Here are more broadcast masters of episodes that were unavailable on DVD or in the syndicated Carol Burnett and Friends hatchet jobs. Now you can find them on Amazon and the FreeVee service (formerly imdb's streaming platform)

Season Five:
Oct. 20, 1971: Dom DeLuise, Peggy Lee
(Previously seen on MeTV/Amazon/ShoutFactory and Reviewed in Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part Two: Carol and Dom in Antique Store; Murder Mystery with Alice Portnoy.)

The highlight of this complete episode is a game show spoof called Do or Die. Contestants can win

Vicki, Carol and Dom DeLuise
in the Do or Die Game Show sketch

ridiculously lavish prizes like a key to Fort Knox or the gross national product of a European country, but the penalties for wrong answers are equally extravagant: getting shot in the leg or beheaded. Dom is the overly enthusiastic and sadistic host while Harvey as George is the contestant and Vicki is the dumb but curvaceous model. Naturally, George's wife from hell Zelda (Carol) is hauled out to help her hubby. Today, this sketch would probably be censored for its stereotyping of women as either stupid and sexy or plain and shrewish. But the extremes are pretty funny with George putting his head in a guillotine and Zelda having to shoot out a candle before the flame burns the rope holding the blade. 

In the next scene, Zelda interrupts Peggy Lee's solo number and pleads with her to sing her signature hit "Is That All There Is?" When Zelda loudly munches an apple and then calls Peggy overrated, the singer gives her a karate chop. Earlier, Lee gave her smooth silky style while being shot in soft focus to Carol King's "I Feel the Earth Move" and Michel Legrand's "Watch What Happens."

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 21

Lots of news on the Carol Burnett Show front: The Paley Center (formerly the Museum of Broadcasting) appears to have finally opened its doors after almost two years of COVID shutdown. They have several complete episodes from the "lost" years (Seasons 1-5) which are not on DVD or have been hacked up on the syndicated reruns seen on MeTV, Amazon, Shout Factory! and other outlets. I will have to pay them a visit soon and find the missing pieces. Speaking of those syndicated half-hours, several have mashed together segments from different episodes. They recently showed one with separate sketches featuring Sammy Davis Jr. and Cher who never appeared together on the show and another with Alan King and an extended sketch which was originally on the family show for Season 10 with no guests. Also Channel 21, a local PBS station, is running hour-long episodes, although none are the missing complete shows from season 1-5. But they do have some really interesting segments from seasons 6-11. I checked the programming schedule of other PBS stations and it seems they do have the complete Ethel Merman episode from season 2. Here's a rundown of recently seen episodes from my DVD collection I hadn't gotten around to, reruns on Channel 21, and mash-ups on MeTV.

Season Three:
Nov. 23, 1969: Lucille Ball, George Carlin

Carol and Lucy as the Rock Sisters

(The Lost Episodes/Classic Carol) Old and new comedy styles are highlighted as the Queen of TV past (Lucy in her third appearance on Carol's show) co-stars with then-hip comic George Carlin. The main sketch has both guests in a time-warp show-biz mash-up. Carol and Lucy play the Rock Sisters, a sibling vaudeville act too corny even for 1919. Harvey plays a parody of Ted Lewis, a now forgotten crooner whose signature was a lisping "Is everybody happy?" Theater manager Lyle fires the girls and Harvey and they remain unemployed for 50 years, denoted by pages falling off a calendar. 

Half a century later, Carlin plays a disc jockey staging a concert at the same theater where Carol, Lucy and Harvey were terminated. He's one act short in his bill of 100 attractions. His dim-witted assistant Tondelayo (Vicki) hires the now ancient siblings to complete the show. There are plenty of geriatric gags as the grey-haired entertainers hobble their way to their latest gig. The "girls" are almost booed off the stage for their old-fashioned rendition of "Happiness Cocktail," a piece of special material parodying the songs of the 1910s and '20s. But the chorus boys, dressed as hippie rockers lend a hand and the old broads are a hit. 

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 13

New York is entering Phase 2 of reopening, but we may as well still be in lockdown. You can't eat indoors at a restaurant, browse in a bookstore, or stroll through a museum. I'm definitely not going to a movie theater anytime soon and Broadway appears to be off limits until at least spring 2021. One museum I definitely will visit once this ends is the Paley Center (formerly the Museum of Broadcasting.) A search of their archives of old TV shows turned up several complete Carol Burnett Show episodes available only piecemeal on MeTV, Amazon or ShoutFactory. Until then, there is still plenty of Burnett bounty to analyze in our continuing series of reconstructing the show. For this blog, I thought I would concentrate on presenting a broad range of episodes from across the entire 11 year run.

Season Three
Sept. 13, 1968: Jim Nabors

Jim Nabors and Carol in Hollywood Canteen

During the Q&A, Harvey accepts his Emmy and delivers a long-winded speech. There is a super-brief commercial take-off with Harvey as a Russian chess champion playing against Jim. Then Carol as the ancient Stella Toddler is assaulted and battered during a dedication of a theater named for her. She eventually winds up under the corner stone. The Stella Toddler character was not as funny as Tim Conway's Old Man, and I never found him that funny. The majority of the episode is devoted to movie send-up of generic WWII homefront films. Hollywood Canteen features Jim and Harvey as GIs attached to USO girls Carol and Vicki. There are five specialty songs, written by Ken and Mitzi Welch, climaxing into a Goodwill-and-Brotherhood number, There Will Never Be Another War, which erupts into violence as stereotype-costumed nationals engage in hand-to-hand combat. My favorite is a geisha attacking a Greek soldier with chopsticks.

Oct. 6, 1968: Steve Lawrence, Edward Villella, Rock Hudson
(MeTV/Amazon/ShoutFactory) The only two sketches in the pared-down edition were quite interesting for different reasons. In the first, a Carol and Sis vignette, Roger (Harvey) is insanely

Carol with Rock Hudson

jealous of Lyle again--a trope to be played dozens of times, but this one was slightly askew from the usual. The scene opens with Carol expecting a visit from an interior decorator and a plumber as Roger is leaving for a golf game. Roger goes on a homophobic rant, imitating a stereotypical swishy decorator and declaring he doesn't want one of "them" in his house. Enter hypermasculine Lyle in a sober business suit as Mr. Bruce, the decorator. Immediately, Roger forgets his golf game and fears Carol may be seduced by this hunk of man. In order to grill Mr. Bruce on his sexuality, he gets Carol out of the room to fix coffee--this act in itself is a fascinating example of male privilege. Roger asks Bruce if he would like some java and then insists Carol go and make it.

With Carol in the kitchen, Roger asks Mr. Bruce highly personal questions. Is he married? Does he live with his parents? Does he have a roommate? Bruce reveals he played pro football and you can tell from Harvey's subtextual acting and Lyle's reactions, the presumably straight decorator thinks this weird husband is coming on to him. (That potentially fascinating angle is not explored.) Eventually, Roger cannot control his envy and tells Mr. Bruce his wife will be doing the decorating herself. Just as he leaves, Lyle asks Carol if the couple have any children. She replies in the negative and Lyle says, "It figures." Does that mean he thought Roger was a closet case?

Roger apologizes profusely to Carol for his behavior and is about to leave for his golf game when the plumber arrives--Rock Hudson! Before Carol can ogle the gorgeous plumber, Roger rushes him off to the dripping sink. End music! Carol proceeds to drool over Hudson in a post-sketch chat while he plugs a war movie he just finished--The Hornet's Nest (1970, a war-movie bomb just like Robert Goulet's Underground, also plugged on Carol's show). Ironically, the closeted gay Hudson was playing a super-manly threat to a hetero hubby.

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 2

More reconstruction and reviews of The Carol Burnett Show from MeTV, YouTube, and Amazon Prime, so I don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on DVDs. In watching these reruns--both the ones I remember and those I've never seen--the more outlandish satiric sketches such as the old-movie spoofs and As the Stomach Turns, the soap opera parody, hold up better than the sitcom or one-note bits like Carol and Sis or Zelda and George. I also noticed that these variety shows afforded performers an opportunity to burnish their brands and become better known to the entire American public. Everybody knew these people. With today's niche marketing, the youth market only knows hot pop and rap singers, while older folks like me are ignorant of them.

MeTV is now into Season Five of The Carol Burnett Show. That was the last season that contained previously unreleased material. Season Six marked the start of the episodes in the syndicated Carol Burnett and Friends which began airing when the series was still on CBS in its 11th and what would become its last season. So will MeTV continue with Season Six once they reach the end of the "Lost Episodes" or will they go back to the beginning of Season One? I hope they do the latter because I didn't start watching until just recently. They began the reruns in April when I was busy teaching high school. I'd hate to have to go through six more seasons before they went back to the start.

SEASON FOUR
Oct. 12, 1970: Nanette Fabray, Ken Berry

Carol and Lyle in Flight 13 to Nowhere

Found on YouTube. Mostly routine sketches. Once again Carol and Nanette are secretaries competing for boss Harvey's attention as they did in a Season One show. The Old Folks was a recurring bit with Carol and Harvey as senior citizens. Harvey always wants to have sex, grabbing Carol's knee and Carol shuts him down with a wisecrack. This time, for variety, the pair are vacationing in Florida and the sketch ends with a sweet song. Ken Berry sings "Mister Bojangles" in an elaborate production number with the dancers.

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 1

Harvey Korman, Vickie Lawrence and Lyle Waggoner
surround their star Carol Burnett

In 2013, I wrote a blog post about my love of The Carol Burnett Show and how much I enjoyed viewing clips from the show's 11-year run on YouTube. At that time, the first five seasons were not generally available because a different company had the rights to those shows while the the ones from seasons 6 to 11 played endlessly in syndication in half-hours called Carol Burnett and Friends. These shows I remember because they are from the days I was old enough to stay up late and watch Carol on Saturday nights at 10PM. Only recently have the earlier episodes became available in a DVD collection called The Lost Episodes (it only includes 16 episodes out of over 100.) That was about two years ago. I knew if I waited long enough I would not have to shell out a couple hundred bucks to buy this massive collection. Amazon Prime has been streaming 13 of these segments and this summer MeTV has been rerunning them at 11PM in half-hours just like Carol Burnett and Friends, expect they have occasionally included the musical numbers which the former packages excised. They even sometimes stretch a single one-hour original show over two 30-min. blocks, but still leave some things out so they can sell more elder-targeted products like medication, insurance, walkers, wheelchairs, med-alert bracelets, and canes.

Lately, I have been DVRing the MeTV shows so I can fast forward through these ads. (I only started this recently and MeTV has just finished with the fourth season, so I must wait till they start over to get to the first three seasons.) I also just finished reading Burnett's In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox which includes a complete list of all the episodes and the guest stars and writers. Some fragments of these early shows are vaguely familiar, but most of them I'm sure I have never seen before. It's like discovering long-buried comedy treasure. So through YouTube, MeTV, Amazon, Carol's book and my own memory, here is a breakdown of all the episodes I've been able to recreate so far and my reviews of them.