Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 43

It's been almost a year since we've visited the Carol Burnett Show. Except for one brief musical excerpt found on YouTube, I haven't found any missing material from the "lost" years of the first five seasons. However, I did came across DVD collections of episodes from Seasons 6 through 11. Carol's Favorites was found at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts while This Time Together was hiding at a Salvation Army store for $1. These episodes are available in their entirety. Some of the ones on these collections have been covered in previous blogs. Here are reviews of shows I have not already commented on.

(This Time Together) Season 6: Nov. 1, 1972
Guests: Peggy Lee, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara

The show starts with the the infamous Mary Worthless sketch where everything went wrong. Lines and props were dropped. Harvey tripped while jumping out of a window with a cake in his face. Carol's last line was "Don't be surprised if I show up on your doorstep." She added, "Better yet, be surprised because I'm not doing this again."

Meara and Stiller as Lyle's uncouth parents

Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were the premiere married comedy duo of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I think there was one other--Mitzi McCall and Charlie Brill, aka The Fun Couple. But Stiller and Meara made more high-profile appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, Mike Douglas, etc. I saw them in Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers and The Prisoner of Second Avenue at Philadelphia's Playhouse in the Park while they co-hosted the Mike Douglas Show during the day. Here they perform a sketch imagining the reactions of Mr. and Mrs. Chou En-Lai to Richard Nixon's famous visit to China. The scene is stuffed with Chinese stereotypes which wouldn't play today. ("These foreigners all look alike to me.") Would Stiller and Meara's ethnic humor (he's Jewish, she's Irish-Catholic) still work now? 

Lyle as Hugo Biceps, Carol and Anne Meara
in the Circus episode of
As the Stomach Turns

As the Stomach Turns finally gets out of Marian's living room and shifts to the circus with Anne as a bearded lady and owner of the big top which she suspects is being sabotaged from within. Lyle makes a heart-stopping appearance as Hugo Biceps, the strongman whom Marian salivates over. Lyle is practically barechested in a lionskin outfit which Carol as Marian does her best to remove. Of course, this scene and Lyle's gorgeous exposed muscles have stayed in my mind for 50 years. There was one joke I didn't get when I was 12. Marian is questioning Hugo as to his whereabouts the previous night, trying to ascertain if he is the saboteur. "I was in bed, alone," he answers. "And the night before that?" "Alone." "And the night before that?" "Alone." "You really are the strongest man in the world," Marian tremblingly observes. I didn't get the gag then and my mother failed to explain it adequately. Only now do I realize Marian meant Hugo was strong because he resisted the obvious temptation that everyone in Canuga Falls wanted to sleep with him.

Peggy Lee has a silky solo and duets with Carol on a silly ditty on women gossiping. The finale combines music and comedy as Harvey and Carol as Vicki's patrician parents clash with Jerry and Anne as Lyle's low-class dad and mom when the kids want to get married. The class distinctions provided chuckles and the wedding is conducted by Peggy singing "The Rhythm of Life" from Sweet Charity.

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 37: Carol Channing, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, and Others

Season Two
Sept. 30, 1968: Carol Channing

(Previously reviewed on Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part Ten: Carol and Carol Q&A, Bored Political Wife sketch, Golddigger sketch)

Carol and Carol

(ShoutFactoryTV.com) I found the complete version of this episode on ShoutFactoryTV's Original Masters series. Amazon was supposed to have it but the thumbnail promising the two Carols show led to an episode with Tim Conway from the first season that was already posted in the same series. Evidently someone at Amazon screwed up. So did someone at TV Guide which listed the original episode in 1968 as starring Mission: Impossible stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. (The husband and wife team never appeared on Carol's show, but there was a Mission: Impossible spoof a few seasons later.) 

Previously missing material includes Carol Channing recreating "Homesick Blues" from the Broadway production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The song about missing America while in Paris did not make the film version and neither did Carol, as she was replaced by Marilyn Monroe. Channing is delightful in her 1920s garb, warbling about Mutt and Jeff, Texas Guinan, and bathtub gin. 

There's also a Carol and Sis sketch, employing the overused plot point of a misunderstanding leading to an awkward martial situation. Husband Roger (Harvey) finds a wristwatch in the living room with the current date inscribed on it. He assumes it's an anniversary or birthday that he's forgotten and rushes to buy his wife Carol a pearl necklace. Turns out the watch was a present for another couple for whom Carol was holding onto, so she uses Harvey's forgetfulness to leverage the necklace into a matching set of earrings, because all women just care about jewelry, right?

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 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 29: Paley Center for Media Visit Two

I returned to the Paley Center for Media and viewed another brace of complete Carol Burnett Show episodes unavailable on DVD or YouTube. This set had segments previously seen on the MeTV series of chopped-up episodes, but with much missing material now finally unearthed.

Season Two:
Jan. 20, 1969: Tim Conway, Perry Como

Tim as the warden on New Year's Eve

Two sketches from this show featuring Tim Conway are part of the abbreviated syndicated package but I have not reviewed them previously because they were not particularly memorable. In the first Tim is a drunk prison warden called out of a New Year's Eve party to quell a riot. Harvey is the head guard vainly attempting to get his blotto boss to address the dire situation. The second features Tim as rich, plain girl Carol's fiancee seeking to impress her ultra-stuffy father Harvey. (Lyle appears as Carol's swishy, ultra-handsome brother for exposition purposes.) The only trouble is Tim has been given an allergy shot which makes him act like a cat. This basic premise was repeated on another show with Tim reacting to an injection meant for the family dog by behaving like a canine in front of his supervisor (Harvey again). 

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 28: Paley Center for Media Visit One

Carol at the Paley Center for Media

Now that it's the summer, I have more free time to complete my life's work of piecing together the missing Carol Burnett Show episodes from the first five seasons. Amazon has made available several complete masters of shows which have been chopped up for half-hour segments in syndication (see Part 26 and 27, and future blogs). But there are still incomplete episodes with missing material. About eight or nine of these are available for viewing at the Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Broadcasting) in Manhattan. My fellow Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle member Jane Klain who works there, helped me to take a look recently. I spent a lovely summer afternoon filling in the blanks on several episodes, some were in black and white, many contained the original commercials. 

Season One:
Sept. 18, 1967: Sid Caesar, Liza Minnelli
(Previously seen on MeTV/Amazon/ShoutFactory and YouTube and reviewed in Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Parts 9 and 15: VIP sketch Lucy Brains; Liza sings "The Debutante Ball"; Sid first time father monologue; "Who's Afraid of Virginia Robot" sketch; Liza and Carol in Time medley; Carol and Sis--sleeping pill Sketch with Reta Shaw)

The only new pieces of material from this second-ever broadcast episode were the opening number, a brief commercial spoof and the finale. The opening features Carol singing the title song from Cabaret (funny to think it was brand new at the time). For some reason, we are in a giant kitchen with the chorus boys dressed as chefs (look closely and you will see future Tony nominee Lee Roy Reams) and the girls as waitresses. Carol sings the number while the chorus balances trays and glasses, finally setting up a table with a bucket of champagne for Carol and she promptly drops her tray and breaks the glasses. The short commercial spoof has a disappointed Carol coming home from a date. She's down because her fellow offered a handshake at the door instead of a kiss. Her roommate suggests using a new mouthwash. "I'll try it, maybe it'll work," Carol moans. Then we cut to a few weeks later, Carol enters with her clothes half-ripped-off, her hair disheveled and she cries happily, "IT WORKED!" So in 1967, the goal of every young woman was to have fresh breath and be sexually assaulted?

The finale involves Carol as a clumsy chorine lousing up Sid's big number in a Ziegfeld Follies type extravaganza. She manages to rip his sleeve off, get her bracelet stuck on his costume, and her feather boa attached to his back. 

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 27: More Original Broadcast Masters

Here are some more reviews of full-length Carol Burnett Show episodes now available on FreeVee via Amazon. 

Season Two:
Dec. 30, 1968: Mickey Rooney, Nancy Wilson
Previously seen on MeTV: (reviewed in Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 14): Pat Nixon and Lady Bird; Kid Town Movie Parody; Nancy Wilson and Carol in awkward audition sketch with Harvey as swishy director.

Both guests have musical solos--Nancy Wilson with "The Man That Got Away" and Mickey Rooney with a sad number about a guy who's been fired and his wife has left him, but he still keeps his chin up, then sings Auld Lang Syne because it's New Year's Eve, you see. Carol does a satiric yuletide number called "The Twelve Days After Christmas." The Carol and Sis sketch is particularly lame with Carol suffering from amnesia after a hit on the head. She can't recall the last four years. She and Roger have been married for three years and only met one year before that. Hilarity ensues as Roger tries to convince Carol he is her husband and they can sleep in the same bed (Oh no!) Fortunately, Crissy bangs Carol on the noggin with a kitchen cabinet door and everything comes back to her. Vicki is featured in the finale with the chorus boys posing as a rock band, delivering "Rhythm Is Our Business."

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 26: Original Broadcast Masters Collection

I knew if I waited long enough, the missing, original hour-length versions of Carol's variety series not available on streaming, PBS reruns, or DVDs would eventually emerge. At long last they have--or at least some of them have. While scrolling through Amazon Prime, I came across a new platform called FreeVee (formerly the streaming arm of imdb.com) which contains the "Original Broadcast Masters Collection" of the series. There are several full-length episodes not already on various DVD collections. But you have to endure several minutes of commercials to get through each segment. This new collection contains many complete shows only previously available on the hacked-up, 22-minute syndicated reruns. Here is the first installment of these episodes with the missing material. I will note which pieces have been seen in the MeTV/Shout Factory vignettes and if I've reviewed them in previous blogs.

Season One
Nov. 13, 1967: Richard Chamberlain, Kay Medford, Gloria Loring
Previously seen on MeTV (reviewed in Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 8): Gone with the Breeze sketch, Carol and Sis sketch with Kay Medford as Roger's domineering sister.

Richard Chamberlain in a long-lost
musical number from Carol's show in 1967;
he's got that far-away look in his eyes.

Richard Chamberlain, America's heartthrob from his starring role on the Dr. Kildare series, gives Carol a big kiss during the audience intro, ostensibly to make Lyle jealous. Almost sixty years later, we know Chamberlain was a closeted gay and when he says to Carol, "It won't work," we know he's wasn't just referring to failing to turn Lyle envious. Also in the intro, Carol mentions that Kay Medford is currently filming Funny Girl as Barbra Streisand's mother. 

There's a brief sketch with Harvey at an airport interviewing passengers, which was used as running gag in later shows. Here he only speaks to one subject: Carol as mother of the year with septuplets. Jokes about confusing babies and her husband's sexual prowess proliferate, then it abruptly ends with Carol loaded down with seven dolls wrapped in blankets. Musical numbers excised from the MeTV version include Carol singing "Everybody's Gotta Be Someplace" with the chorus is orange and brown, semi-tropical wear, evidently on vacation in the Carribbean; Richard Chamberlain and the kids in flower-power slacks and sweaters warbling about loving some girl on a lazy day (he does some nice ballet moves); Gloria Loring singing "A Taste of Honey" and "I've Gotta Be Me" in front of a bunch of mirrors; Carol and Vicki in the finale boogeying in red-sequined maxi dresses, the chorus boys in blue Nehru jackets and black wigs and moustaches, and the girls in black sequins.

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 25

Season Six: 
March 17, 1973: William Conrad, Peggy Lee

Carol and Isabel Sanford
as Broad and New Jersey
in the parody of Maude.

I happened to be scrolling through the program guide on TV the other day and decided to record the MeTV half-hour butcher-shop edition of Carol's show which featured William Conrad because it said TV parodies. That sounded like fun so I DVRed it. The 22-min. edition begins with a typically lamebrained Carol and Sis sketch. Harvey as Roger has been mugged and Conrad is a police detective visiting the house to take his statement (like that would happen today.) This plays on Conrad's role as TV detective Canon. The scene ends with Roger having to admit he mistakenly attacked an old man thinking the geezer was trying to rob him. Turns out the old guy is a judge and Roger's in big trouble (Wah-wah!)

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show, Part 24: The Elusive Ethel Merman Episode

Season 2:

March 3, 1969: Tim Conway, Ethel Merman

This one has been difficult to pin down but I finally watched the whole thing on Channel 21 reruns. The MeTV/ShoutFactory/Amazon chopped-up version only featured the infamous dentist sketch with Tim cracking up Harvey as a rookie tooth doctor shooting himself up with Novocain and the scene with Carol as Ethel Merman's understudy scheming to get her out of the way so she can go on for the closing performance of Fanny Get Your Gun. The latter was based on Merman's reputation of never missing a performance during her many Broadway shows. There is a YouTube video of Carol and Ethel singing a Broadway medley and I seem to recall the sketch about a murder mystery being part of the promotion package to market DVDs of the show. But this complete episode does not appear on any of the DVD collections so it was exciting to see it pop up on Channel 21's program schedule.

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. 

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 19: More Movie Spoofs

As 2021 comes to an end and I am recovering from being in an auto accident (I was struck by a car while crossing a street while I had the light), here is a new installment in our series on the Carol Burnett Show. This time we focus on the series' brilliant movie parodies.

Season Seven
Dec. 15, 1973: Ruth Buzzi, Richard Crenna

Harvey and Carol in 
Raised to be Rotten

(Full episode found on YouTube) The high point of this segment is a salute to Bad Girls of the Movies. Ruth plays Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate and then Richard comes in as Benjamin, the much younger object of her seduction--dressed in a boy scout outfit. Then Carol does her over-the-top Bette Davis impersonation while Vicki plays Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington from All About Eve. After Vicki smears Carol with make-up and smacks her with a powder puff to make her look bad, Vicki then takes Carol-Bette's dress and imagines replacing the great star. Carol throws Vicki out of the dressing room. Then Harvey as Gary Merrill comes to comfort Carol, but tries on the dress himself. (More condescending gay/trans/cross-dressing humor).

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 17

Season One: 

March 18, 1968: Tim Conway, Jack Jones, Ruth Buzzi

(The Lost Episodes Ultimate DVD Collection) Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In had debuted on Jan. 22,

Ruth Buzzi thinks Roger is "groovy"

1968, just two months before this episode aired. That may have been the reason Ruth Buzzi was not announced as a special guest. She had not caught on yet as a major TV comedy player on that series. Instead her name was read over the closing credits but she did get to sign Carol's book with Tim and handsome singer Jack Jones. (That was something I loved about Carol, the non-star guest actors were treated equally to the big names.) Ruth would appear on Carol's show twice more and was an official guest star. She also made a cameo as her Gladys character with Arte Johnson as Tyrone when Vicki and Don Creighton did a parody of their old-maid-dirty-old-man act. Here, Ruth uses her rubber-like features in the Carol and Sis sketch as Gretchen, a studymate of Crissy who has a crush on Roger. She also appears briefly as a jungle girl in The Jungle Kook, one of three brief sketches satirizing the Late, Late Show reruns of old movies, good or bad. The highlight of this triptych is Shut Uppa You Face, a hilarious send-up of Italian films because of Harvey's ludicrous accent and slipping moustache as well as Lyle's appearance in a tank top. The middle sketch--Sing Sing Dingaling was funny mainly because of Tim and Harvey's reactions to a door that wouldn't stay closed. In other sketches, Tim suffers physical abuse as a drunken matador and he inflicts it on Carol when they play a pair of clumsy castaways. 

The finale is a bizarre combination of camp and hoedown. Jack and Carol sing a medley of Texas-related tunes while the chorus cavorts in weird outfits. The boys sport yellow rubber chaps with ten-gallon hats while the girls are in black-and-white checked blouses and bonnets with daisies. It's as if Bob Mackie dropped acid while in a yellow taxicab.

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 16

It's been a while since I've viewed any episodes of the Carol Burnett Show on the various DVD collections received as Christmas or birthday gifts or on the various platforms that display chopped-up 22 min. versions of the originals. A few weeks ago, I attempted to view missing material at the Paley Center in Manhattan, but it's still closed for COVID. In the first 15 installments of this series, I just went after episodes that contained sketches that interested me, such as all of Carol's brilliant movie parodies or segments from the first five seasons previously unavailable. So, until the Paley Center re-opens, my only option is to go back to my DVDs and online and analyze the episodes I haven't gotten to yet, perhaps in chronological order. Maybe I'll find unexpected gems.

Season One
Sept. 11, 1967: Jim Nabors

Carol with Jim Nabors during 
one of his many appearances on the show

Carol's very first show in its entirety is contained on both the Best Of and Lost Episodes collections. There's nothing particularly outstanding here, expect, obviously, for a bunch of firsts. The debut of Jim Nabors' annual premiere appearance of each season, the first Carol and Sis sketch, the first Q&A with the audience, Carol's first awkward drooling over Lyle, etc. During the opening, we learn the show is on opposite I Spy and The Big Valley and Carol jokes that she might have Pearl Bailey on so they can do a take-off on I Spy's interracial casting. (This idea was done later with Carol and Barbara McNair.) Carol does the first of many VIPs mock interviews with Harvey as a newscaster. Here she is Shirley Dimple and there are gag references to the foray into politics of the real-life Shirley Temple and other show-biz has-beens like George Murphy and Ronald Reagen. The most interesting and revealing bit comes during Carol's Broadway duet with Jim. After partnering on songs from West Side Story, How to Succeed, and Annie Get Your Gun (with Carol imitating Merman), they switch gender roles and Carol warbles Billy Bigelow's Soliloquy from Carousel. Naturally, this leads to Jim holding his hands primly and intoning "When I Marry Mr. Snow." The audience laughs at the absurdity of big, tall Jim acting like a coy girl. But Nabors' gay sexuality makes the joke doubly significant. Especially when Carol then asks "What about Rex Harrison?" 

"Well, I guess he'll do if I can't have Mr. Snow," Jim replies. Were Carol and Jim winking at the audience and having a laugh between themselves about Jim Nabors' really wanting a Mr. Snow of his own? 

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 15: Who's Afraid of Virginia Robot?

Sid Caesar as Mr. Spook, Carol as Virginia Robot, 
Harvey as Capt. Quirk 

Season One: Sept. 18, 1967: Sid Caesar, Liza Minnelli

While scrolling through YouTube during an idle moment, I came across a long-missing sketch from the first season of the The Carol Burnett Show. It's a parody of Star Trek which was a brand new show at the time. The voice of Lyle Waggoner announces we are in for another thrilling episode of Space Trip in which the starship Intrepid boldly searches the galaxy for a higher TV rating. Harvey enters dressed in a bright red tunic with a lighting bolt across his chest as Captain Quirk. (He doesn't attempt a William Shatner imitation, probably because the actor's annoying mannerisms and weird pauses have not solidified as of yet with the viewing public.) Guest star Sid Caesar enters as Mr. Spook and the audience laughs at his freakishly huge ears. There is comic business as Spook attempts to tune in to a vital message from earth. The communication relays that a dangerous bomb in the form of a robot is floating around in space, so don't pick up any hitchhikers. At the moment, Carol floats by dressed alluringly in metallic fashion thumbing for a ride. Spook unwittingly brings her on board and she seduces him in order to blow up the ship. 

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 14: Carol's Lost Christmas

It's Christmas again and time for a Carol Burnett Show present and recap. Last year my husband Jerry got me the massive Lost Episodes collection and for my birthday last May he bought me the Best of retrospective. (Episodes and fragments from those collections have appeared in previous posts in this series of Reconstructing the Burnett series, parts 1-13). This bleak yuletide season was made a mite brighter by my 2020 present from Jerry, Carol's Lost Christmas, a single DVD with three episodes from the "lost" years of Carol's variety series. Episodes from Season Six to Eleven had been in syndication as Carol Burnett and Friends for decades, but the first five seasons were controlled by another company and have not been available until recently. This Lost Christmas collection has no bonus material or features, but does include two complete holiday episodes and one nearly complete episode. They are not the best of the series, but they do fill some holes in the Carol canon. 

The previous 13 blog entries in this series have chronicled my reactions to episodes available on the DVD collections, MeTV, YouTube, Amazon and ShoutFactory! The Amazon and ShoutFactory shows are chopped up into 22 minutes. For this entry, I will cover the shows on Lost Christmas (all were watched during Christmas Day) and start to pick up the other episodes not previously mentioned in other posts. Eventually, I'd like to write about every episode available. There are some fragments still missing because of music copyright issues that I would love to find. Once COVID is under control, I plan to visit the Paley Center for Media where there are several complete Burnett episodes which were only partially viewable on Amazon, etc. 

Season One: Dec. 4. 1967: Barbara Eden, Jonathan Winters, Leonard Nimoy

Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman on
I Dream of Jeannie

(Carol's Lost Christmas) Barbara Eden was the star of the NBC fantasy sitcom I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70) where she played a sexy genie whose only wish was to serve her master, Tony Nelson, a dull astronaut played by Larry Hagman. The comedy was supposed to erupt when Tony tried to hide Jeannie from his stuffy commander, Hayden Rourke and his snooty wife. (Perhaps someday I will write a blog comparing Jeannie and Samantha from Bewitched.) Eden did have considerable musical talent which she displayed occasionally on Jeannie. In this Christmas episode from the first Burnett season, Eden does have a fun Greek-inspired number, "Bend It," with the chorus (you can see future Tony nominee Lee Roy Reams among the boys). George Chakiris did a similar number also in Season One. Barbara's only other appearance is a short bit with Carol and Lyle where she uses her alleged magical powers to grant Carol three wishes. Carol's first two wishes are that Lyle flatters and then hugs her, but the last wish is reserved for Barbara herself when Lyle passionately kisses her. ("I gave you two out of three, Carol," Barbara quips.)

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.