The Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special (CBS) - General Discussion

[chitowngirl]

The Carol Burnett Show turns 50 and to celebrate the momentous occasion, CBS will honor the groundbreaking comedy series with The Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special, which airs on Sunday, Dec. 3 at 8/7c on CBS and CBS All Access. The one-night event, which will film at the series' original soundstage at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, will feature Burnett, original cast members Vicki Lawrence and Lyle Waggoner, costume designer Bob Mackie, and a slew of special guests, including Jim Carrey, Kristin Chenoweth, Stephen Colbert, Harry Connick Jr., Bill Hader, Jay Leno, Jane Lynch, Bernadette Peters, Maya Rudolph, and Martin Short. 

[Gemma Violet]

I DVR'd this.  Can't wait to watch it.  Carol Burnett is one of my all-time favorites.  

[kitmerlot1213]

Watching the old clips were damn funny, especially the classic moments with Tim Conway and Harvery Korman.  I loved listening to Harvey's various accents and his facial expressions killed me and I always loved it when he started laughing at Tim--awesome :)

I just wonder why Beth Behrs and Kaley Cuoco were standng on the same stage with the sheer brilliance of Carol Burnett, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and Viki Lawrence--they had absolutely nothing  to add, and just sat there looking massively stupid.

[surreysmum]

It does my heart good to see how enormously beloved she is by other comedians, both her peers and those who followed in her footsteps.  Strangely and sadly, I think I've seen the "Dentist" and "Went With the Wind" clips just once too often now, but everything else was fresh and surprising, and I genuinely laughed out loud many times.

I hope to see Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews together on my screen at least once more, too - I know this was not the right occasion, but surely one could be found.

[Runningwild]

I loved the show when it ran originally and loved this special. Laughed a lot. A little disappointed they cut some of Tim’s elephant story. Eunice tried to ask Mama a question several times. That’s what made the ad lib so funny. 

[ebk57]

I thought this show was delightful!  While I've seen "Went With the Wind" many times, it's never not hilarious!!  And I hadn't seen many of the sketches shown tonight for a long time, so I was laughing a lot.  Even the current guest spots weren't as cringe-inducing as they could have been (although I do agree about Beth and Kaley - why were they there??).  And it's so nice to see so many folks still around - Steve Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner and Bob Mackie! 

[Wings]

Tim and Harvy are  the draw for me and they didn't show enough of them.

I did a lot of FFing.  Why the hell was Chenoweth there?  I would think she could have gotten better talent.,

There was too much scripted worshiping of Carole.  The entire show was stiff. 

I loved Jim Carry's remark a about Tim. He is like a feral child!  

A horse taking a dump on stage is hardly hysterical.  Zzzzzzz.  

The Gone With the Wind skit was funny the first time.  It isn't on the 5th.

I loved seeing Bob Mackie.  I wanted more of him. 

[formerlyfreedom]

41 minutes ago, ebk57 said:

(although I do agree about Beth and Kaley - why were they there??)

I will venture to guess that Kaley was there as the female lead on The Big Bang Theory (on CBS); Beth is a stretch, because Two Broke Girls is no longer on, but again, another CBS sitcom.

I caught bits and parts of this, and what I did catch had me literally LOLing - even though the show debuted before I was born, I do have vague memories of the later years, and I will tell you, there are many family stories about the "Went With The Wind" sketch. It still reduces my mother to hysterical tears to talk about it!

[Constant Viewer]

I would have liked to see more of the skits. I missed the show in its original run and only ever caught a few reruns on tv growing up. I would love to be able to watch the whole show.  I guess the best place to start would be the library.

Edited December 4, 2017 by Constant Viewer

[sheetmoss]

Jody Hamilton, Carol's daughter, is on  Stephanie Miller's radio talk show once a wee. ,She said Kevin Spacey was supposed to be on the special because he's a friend of Carol's and they're mutual fans of one another - he was edited out... and his segment  was re-shot.

God, that was an unusual group of  mostly worthless guests

[Browncoat]

I loved the show in its original run, and the special was mostly fun, too.  Seeing the clips again made me howl with laughter — I don’t care how many times I’ve seen it, hearing Carol say, “I saw it in the window and I just had to have it” about the dress made from curtains will always be funny.

But I could have done without Jim Carrey and some of the others.  And Vicki Lawrence looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there.  I also wondered if they’d planned more with Jim Nabors that had to be cut.

Edited December 4, 2017 by Browncoat

[Caseysgirl]

I haven't seen the entire special yet but was there any mention of why Tim Conway was not there? Is he ill?

[grooveshinney]

10 minutes ago, Caseysgirl said:

I haven't seen the entire special yet but was there any mention of why Tim Conway was not there? Is he ill?

He was ‘under the weather’ but he sent a tweet, which I can’t remember what it said. 

[Writing Wrongs]

11 hours ago, kitmerlot1213 said:

I just wonder why Beth Behrs and Kaley Cuoco were standng on the same stage with the sheer brilliance of Carol Burnett

CBS employees, maybe? Jay Leno looks terrible.

Mama and Eunice are still my favorite.

[Qoass]

I floved the Carol Burnett Show as a child but boy, did I hate this special. So much time wasted on vapid conversation that could have gone to more clips. The only thing I took away from this is that Maya Rudolph must somehow be related to Edie Gorme and that Bernadette Peters must have a scary looking portrait in her attic.

[bmoore4026]

Besides Pat Boone, I thought this was pretty nice.

[lookeyloo]

3 hours ago, Qoass said:

I floved the Carol Burnett Show as a child but boy, did I hate this special. So much time wasted on vapid conversation that could have gone to more clips. The only thing I took away from this is that Maya Rudolph must somehow be related to Edie Gorme and that Bernadette Peters must have a scary looking portrait in her attic.

We agree with you - we just wanted clips of the old shows - a lot of FF 

[Gemma Violet]

20 hours ago, Constant Viewer said:

I would have liked to see more of the skits. I missed the show in its original run and only ever caught a few reruns on tv growing up. I would love to be able to watch the whole show.  I guess the best place to start would be the library.

I don't know if you get the MeTV channel, but it airs The Carol Burnett Show each night--not the hour-long originals, but rather the truncated half-hour versions that went into syndication in the '80s.

[txhorns79]

I did enjoy Carol looking perplexed by Jay Leno's "gift" to her.  I half expected her to say "Why in the world would you expect me to like this?" 

Quote

I just wonder why Beth Behrs and Kaley Cuoco were standing on the same stage with the sheer brilliance of Carol Burnett

I kind of got why they brought in Cuoco, because CBS synergy and all that, but Behrs was a strange choice.  I did half wonder if there some kind of 70s dress code that they were enforcing with Maya Rudolph's and Cuoco's giant quasi-caftans.  And Amy Poelher just looked kind of rough.  I wasn't sure why she chose such an unflattering look.  It made her look much heavier than she is. 

Overall, the special had some nice moments, but I thought they devoted a lot of time to the random celebrities praising Carol, when they should have focused more heavily on the show itself.  I will say that I'll always enjoy the story of how Carol and Vicki got together.  That story is so cute, and I can't even imagine a celebrity today responding like Carol did.   

[kassygreene]

I told my mother this was coming on and we watched together.  I was expecting something a lot more along the lines of the '80s syndicated version, or even the infomercials flogging the DVDs from a few years back.

It got better (in glacial increments) as it went on, but the celebrity stuff was clearly scripted.  I suspect the audience questions were too.  Tom Selleck & CB have been friends since Magnum; Pat Boone was a guest on TCBS often enough, and I think the last questioner might have been Julia Louis-Dreyfus.  But the first segment with the female comediennes was painful, and everyone's non-stop eye-contact with the teleprompters was irritating.  Martin Short was refreshing (words I would have sworn I would never put together) with his immediate and constant going off-script.

[Irlandesa]

I missed the last ten minutes because of football--grr!  Overall, I enjoyed it.  I wonder how well it played for people who hadn't seen many of her most famous skits because some of the laughs they got were predicated on my memory of the full skits. 

[Blergh]

Liked the clips and Miss Burnett's comments and recollections.

Disliked seeing IMO Bad Penny Jay Leno on it (and the revelation that the late Mr. Korman insisted on the late Johnny Carson seeing Mr. Leno's act a 2nd time to give him a chance somewhat soured my otherwise positive POV re the late Mr. Korman).

Still, seeing the footage of Mr. Conway's antics was great and hope he won't stay 'under the weather' for too much longer. 

 

 Also, good seeing Steve Lawrence  perform who seemed a few decades younger than his years (and who easily sung circles around Mr. Colbert) .

Yeah, as much as I like Miss Burnett as a person and performer, I have to agree that the genuflecting and fawning threatened to derail the whole thing. 

 

 Where was Julie Andrews?

[Writing Wrongs]

I have been re-watching The Family sketches and watching them as an adult they are really kind of brutal. There is some good verbal comedy, but it's really sad how the family dynamic was and a bit hard to watch. I could never really get into Mama's Family, because I felt that they softened up Mama too much.

[kassygreene]

I never liked The Family sketches either.  In the later years they seemed to eat the show.  And I'd forgotten that Julie Andrews should have been on, although I can't recall if she was ever a guest on the show (I seem to remember they did at least one special together).  They've been BFFs forever, I thought.

[theatremouse]

I was disappointed how frequently the chat segments were just:

          Celeb Guest: <ask Carol some question>

          Carol: Well, gee, you know, let's take a look.

          <air clip>

If it were going to be a straight clip show, just own it. Be a clip show. But don't give me lip service to guests interacting with CB when they're not actually talking to each other. They're not having a conversation. They're not doing a (new) schtick/comedy bits to join the segments together. It was just...fake segues. There was no there there.

[Locutus]

I, like so many, grew up watching this show. I shudder to criticize the special, but couldn't we have just had those actually associated with the show and ALOT more clips and longer ones to what we did see. Where were those great commercial parodies!

[msrachelj]

On 12/4/2017 at 0:26 PM, Qoass said:

I floved the Carol Burnett Show as a child but boy, did I hate this special. So much time wasted on vapid conversation that could have gone to more clips. The only thing I took away from this is that Maya Rudolph must somehow be related to Edie Gorme and that Bernadette Peters must have a scary looking portrait in her attic.

i was so very disappointed. kaley cuoco? good lord, can anyone be more over rated? they should have had more full clips of the skits and not have cut so many and really, i don't think we needed the endless gabbing with the "celebrities". 2 hours of carol, 5 second praises from peers worthy! of her , and clips from the show would have been much better. i tried to watch it but wound up fast forwarding most of it , vapid celebrities. 

[chitowngirl]

It would have been much better with just Carol, Vicki, and Lyle, maybe Bob Mackie sitting on the couch telling stories and then the clips. And then bringing out the guests that were actually in the clips: Bernadette, Steve Lawrence (boy, was he a good sport in some of those sketches!), Steve Martin... There was no need for Kaley, Beth, and Kristin Chenoweth eating up time.

[Blergh]

Let me add one more thing. Miss Burnett having to fight off tears as she launched into her Closing Theme at the end was quite poignant indeed- ALMOST enough to get me to overlook all that fawning, genuflecting and these   flash-in-pan celebs trying to link themselves to her legacy.  I also liked hearing it in its entirety (and thought Harry Connick, Jr. did an excellent job of performing it with her).  Oh, and it was great seeing her very real fangirl reaction to Jimmy Stewart playing the piano on her last show (I believe that she'd always considered him  as an idealized version of her own flawed father). 

 

Yes, where were the commercial parodies? Did the companies retroactively say 'no way' to having them shown all over again?

[Irlandesa]

I do think a way to improve the show would have been to have longer flashback clips while incorporating celebrities the way they incorporated Tina Fey.  It'd be just a brief discussion of why that show was important to them. 

[Thumper]

On December 5, 2017 at 8:20 AM, kassygreene said:

I never liked The Family sketches either.  In the later years they seemed to eat the show.  And I'd forgotten that Julie Andrews should have been on, although I can't recall if she was ever a guest on the show (I seem to remember they did at least one special together).  They've been BFFs forever, I thought.

I disliked The Family sketches and did not watch the spinoff, Mama's Family.   Too much yelling.

[AuntiePam]

On 12/6/2017 at 7:40 PM, Irlandesa said:

I do think a way to improve the show would have been to have longer flashback clips while incorporating celebrities the way they incorporated Tina Fey.  It'd be just a brief discussion of why that show was important to them. 

I agree.  The scripted comments -- segues to the clips -- were too obvious.  Carol deserves better.

I'd forgotten about the questions from the audience.  One that I do remember may have been a set-up, because the audience member gave Carol her full name -- Teresa Renteria -- and Carol just took that ball, the rhythm of that name, and ran with it. 

It's too bad they didn't show some clips from Garry Moore.  I think Carol's first appearance there -- or maybe it was a talk show -- is Carol hearing some music or a song and going "Isn't that wonderful!", like she's never heard music before.  I may be remembering wrong, but it was really funny.

I had no idea Bob Mackie designed all those costumes.  Wow.

[hoodooznoodooz]

I am going to duck in advance of admitting: I thought this show was soooo funny when it aired, but now the clips only make me incredibly happy. They no longer make me laugh. 

Carol chose the perfect vintage Mackie to wear for her special. 

Poehler, Burnett, Rudolph and Lawrence sitting next to Cuoco? Nope. In fact, if I were Cuoco, I would have told them, "Thank you for the invitation, but I have no right to be up there with those women."

The theme song still delights me. 

Harry Connick, Jr. is 50?!? When did that happen?

[opus]

2 hours ago, hoodooznoodooz said:

Harry Connick, Jr. is 50?!? When did that happen?

Sept. 11, 2017

Oh, that was a rhetorical question.... ;)

[Snarklepuss]

I just caught this on "on demand".  Wow, some of that was awkward and hard to watch but I enjoyed it immensely despite that as I grew up watching the CB show.  I don't think Carol got the joke with Jay's gag gift so it went over like a lead balloon.  I think they were going for a "women of comedy past and present" thing with all those women there but that didn't really come across.  Kaley was obviously uncomfortable being there and clung to Beth while Kristin clung to Bernadette, who if you squint just a little looks exactly the same as she did decades ago.  I'll bet that Kaley accepted due to the honor of being invited by a living legend (and how it would look if she said "no") but then realized "oh crap" at the mortification factor of not knowing how to contribute.  I don't blame her for going, though.  It was probably go or look bad and I'll bet it was the producer's idea to have those women there to "represent" women in comedy, not necessarily Carol's.

Speaking of feral children, Martin Short fits that category too.  I actually thought Carol looked annoyed with him for making like he was grabbing her ring.  It was actually refreshing to see some of these people again because we don't get to as often as we used to, which is regrettable.  Back in Carol's show's day stars both young and old often made appearances on other stars' variety shows.  Other than a scant few talk shows and "Dancing with the Stars" (and Jay's Garage show) where do we see any of these people anymore?  Lyle Waggoner?  Steve Lawrence?  I didn't even know these people were still alive although it was amazing seeing them again.

My high point was the Jimmy Stewart surprise.  He was always my absolute favorite male movie star ever too (sorry Bogie).  I actually saw that show as it was the series' last and I remember watching it.  I also watched this show in reruns for several years after school.  In all, an uplifting trip down memory lane even if bumpy in spots.

[Calvada]

I finally got around to watching this.  I did FF through some of her "friends" gushing about her (Kristen Chenoweth gets on my last nerve) but loved seeing most of the clips.  I remember always babysitting on Saturday nights in the 70s and making sure I got the kids in bed in time to watch Carol.  My favorite part, other than Tim Conway causing Harvey Korman to break up, was always the questions from the audience.  I remember when a young woman asked Carol if she remembered someone she had dated - let's say John Smith.  Carol said of course I remember John Smith, the young woman said I'm his daughter, and Carol said you could be mine!  I too remember her last show and she was THRILLED when Jimmy Stewart surprised her.  I think a lot of people could relate to her because she always remained a fan - she was just like us!  

[BW Manilowe]

On 12/10/2017 at 11:34 PM, Snarklepuss said:

I just caught this on "on demand".  Wow, some of that was awkward and hard to watch but I enjoyed it immensely despite that as I grew up watching the CB show.  I don't think Carol got the joke with Jay's gag gift so it went over like a lead balloon.  I think they were going for a "women of comedy past and present" thing with all those women there but that didn't really come across.  Kaley was obviously uncomfortable being there and clung to Beth while Kristin clung to Bernadette, who if you squint just a little looks exactly the same as she did decades ago.  I'll bet that Kaley accepted due to the honor of being invited by a living legend (and how it would look if she said "no") but then realized "oh crap" at the mortification factor of not knowing how to contribute.  I don't blame her for going, though.  It was probably go or look bad and I'll bet it was the producer's idea to have those women there to "represent" women in comedy, not necessarily Carol's.

Speaking of feral children, Martin Short fits that category too.  I actually thought Carol looked annoyed with him for making like he was grabbing her ring.  It was actually refreshing to see some of these people again because we don't get to as often as we used to, which is regrettable.  Back in Carol's show's day stars both young and old often made appearances on other stars' variety shows.  Other than a scant few talk shows and "Dancing with the Stars" (and Jay's Garage show) where do we see any of these people anymore?  Lyle Waggoner?  Steve Lawrence?  I didn't even know these people were still alive although it was amazing seeing them again.

My high point was the Jimmy Stewart surprise.  He was always my absolute favorite male movie star ever too (sorry Bogie).  I actually saw that show as it was the series' last and I remember watching it.  I also watched this show in reruns for several years after school.  In all, an uplifting trip down memory lane even if bumpy in spots.

Lyle Waggoner apparently retired from show biz somewhere between 1979 & 2005, according to his Wikipedia page. He & his wife now live near Jackson, Wyoming; he's 82 & is a sculptor. His works are shown at a gallery, Galleries West Fine Art, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He was on the Burnett show from its premiere for about 7 years, until 1974. For about 3 TV seasons, starting about a year after he left the Burnett show, Waggoner played 1940's military pilot Steve Trevor in the first season of the Wonder Woman/New Adventures of Wonder Woman TV show, starring Lynda Carter. When the timeline was advanced to the 1970's for the last 2 seasons of the show, Waggoner played military pilot Steve Trevor Jr., now the son of his original character. In 1979, Lyle created Star Waggons, a company which customizes the trailers celebrities use as their dressing rooms & other things on the sets of movies & TV shows. Somewhere between 1979 & 2005, Waggoner retired from show biz to run Star Waggons full time.

As for Steve Lawrence, I think he's either retired or semi-retired from the entertainment business. He's best known as part of the married singing duo, Steve & Eydie. The duo ran professionally from 1957 through 2009, when Eydie Gorme retired from the business. They were married from December 29, 1957 through Eydie Gorme's death on August 10, 2013 (so they would've celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary 2 days ago, as I'm posting this). They had 2 sons, award-winning music composer David & Michael, who unexpectedly died at age 23 of a previously undisclosed heart condition. Michael was an assistant film editor at the time of his death.