The special kind are the celebrities that you loved for as long as you can remember, no matter how old you are! Today I wanted to talk about one of those for me anyway. I can’t remember exactly when I was first aware of Carol Burnett, she was also a big name to me. Of course this makes sense since she was around looonng before I was even born. But before I run down a list of projects, you may be wondering what brings this topic up today. Well, let me tell you.
On Sunday as a birthday present for my mother, I got to see literally see Carol Burnett live and in person at the Providence Performing Arts Center. Yep. And I gotta say you’d never know the woman was 83! It was a simple show, she took questions from the audience as she used to in her old show and did a lot of reminiscing. Yeah I could be a jerk nitpicker and note that I have heard these stories a hundred times…but so what, she was live on stage! Here are some highlights….
She did a tribute to Harvey Korman by showing that classic dentist sketch with him and Tim Conway.
Her best line came from the first question. A member of the audience asked “Would you consider running for president in 2016?”. Her response-“No, but I’d consider moving to Vancouver”.
She talked about Her friend Lucy and of course all her other co-stars from the old show Tim Conway and Vicki Lawrence. She gave some advice and discussed other work outside of The Carol Burnett Show.
She discussed her first big break in “Once Upon a Mattress” and told other stories, including how she felt that today’s comedy is not as good as it used to be because there is to much emphases on low brow humor.
Of course there were clips and the end of the night was, of course, “I’m So Glad We Had The Time Together”. And yes, she did the tarzan yell!
Burnett is one of the entertainers where you know who she is, I don’t care if your eighty or eighteen you know who she is. And why not with her career? She is a funny lady but she can also sing and is even a decent actress doing lots of drama. Let’s go over some of my favorite things that she has appeared in, these last forty years! Now as always this is just things I have seen, so to say the least this will hardly be a complete list of all her work. Normally I manage to cobble together quite a list, but truth is there isn’t that much I have seen of her episodic work. I never saw her in Magnum, PI, Hawaii Five-O, or All My Children for instance. I guess I know her more from her appearances as herself in various talk shows and other specials including a few Carol Burnett Show Reunions. And she has done a lot for Disney,
The Carol Burnett Show
I talked before about how much it kills me I missed out on this when it was broadcast originally. The little fact when the series ended I still hadn’t been born being the reason. But man was this show fantastic. Variets can get boring to be honest, after awhile all of these shows kind of feel he same. Music, sketches, more music, and so forth. What set this show apart then? The chemistry between the five leads, it really like they loved each other. It’s why we loved it when Conway would break up Korman for instance.
So I came to be aware of it when it was in re-runs as “Carol Burnett and Friends”. It was edited, I man seriously edited, but you got the idea and for awhile we loved watching those re-runs. Problem is the syndicated package, and yes today the clips are all over the place, is not the same. In fact there is now an official channel for The Carol Burnett Show and I’ve been watching a lot of sketches I either don’t recall or have never seen. But it still would be nice to see the whole show not just a sample of sketches. It took me ages to realize that every show ended with a lavish production number featuring the entire cast.
Sadly in 1990 she did try a new variety show with a new ensemble, but the magic just wasn’t there and it barely lasted half a season.
Mama’s Family
So let’s talk about the family sketches they did on the Carol Burnett Show. Eunice, Ed, and Mama were about as dysfunctional as it gets. They did these a million times and they were always funny. They were always very well done and you could tell they were taken seriously. I can only imagine how many people related to that stuff. It was so popular it got a spin-off sitcom. When it aired on the network, Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman reprised their roles from the original sketches. When the show went to syndication they disappeared from the series. And it was kind of better without them, since it allowed Mama’s Family to carve out its own niche and not just be longer versions of the old sketches. Vicki Lawrence made a career playing Mama and she did fantastically. By the way before “Mama’s Family” there was a more dramatic special called “Eunice” which explored the character of Eunice more, and even killed of Mama in the end.
Annie
When I was young I couldn’t believe she was in this. I still can’t quite believe Burnett was playing Ms.Hannigan. It just seems like a…well, the kind of role she would never get. I guess she’s so funny that we forget she can really play drama! She’s just fantastic, taking something that would have been funny on The Carol Burnett Show and ramping it up enough so that she was, well, creepy! You were scared of her at least during the first part of the movie. I never got the sudden redemption in the end, was that in the play? But she still kills it in this movie.
The Muppet Show
Carol Burnett on the Muppet Show…do I even need to go on?
Carol and Julie:Together Again
She did try to do keep the variety feel alive. She did several variety specials including one with Robin Williams. The only one I remember seeing was this, which featured her long time friend Julie Andrews. It was a great show, one of five the did, and I decided it deserved a mention.
Carol & Company
This one has been mostly forgotten, and it’s a shame because it wasn’t bad. Heck I can’t even find the opening on YouTube, and that has everything! Thankfully I do have some episodes of this show on VHS. NBC was kind enough to put it on a horrible time slot on Saturday night’s. And the writing wasn’t quite as good as the old CBS show. The premise? This was an anthology series where every week Carol and a bunch of up and coming actors (“the company”) would create different “playlet’s” with whoever the guest star of the week was. And yes some were better than others but it was still Carol playing all kinds of different characters. The no named “company”? They included Richard Kind, Anita Barone, Meagen Fay, Terry Kiser, and some guy named Peter Krause. Actually they’re all recognizable names today and they all got their start with Carol Burnett.
Noises Off
I already voiced the fact that I did not like this movie, and yes that includes Carol Burnett though I’m sure she was trying.
Mad About You
This is an odd one. For some reason during the last few years of the show’s run, Burnett was brought in to play to Jamie’s mother. Weird since two other actress’s had already done the role, and to be fair Burnett wasn’t the most perfect choice. But she did a great job and was totally convincing. The nest scene of her’s came in the episode when Jamie and Paul had Mabel. She went into the room and saw that Jamie was in pain…and those maternal instincts kicked in! She threw a fit as only Burnett could throw and it’s just a great scene which I would share…if it existed on YouTube! She won an Emmy Award for the role.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention she’s also tons of stage work. I wish I could convey in this forum how much I love Carol Burnett. And it’s not that she’s hysterically funny, it’s because she’s a great person. She treats everyone nicely and all you need for proof of that is to see her answer questions from the audience before every single one of her shows. She’s a class act and everything she touches is gold.
Finally, I wanted to leave you with the final sign off to her old show. Check it out, a classier sign off you will hardly find. Her sign off song “I’m So Glad we Had This Time Together” will always belong to her.
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