The Carol Burnett Show

The Carol Burnett Show, a.k.a. Carol Burnett and Friends, is my favorite show in TV history, without question. It made me laugh endlessly with its sketch comedy. For me, the best comedy revolves around lines that often seem ad libbed; the spontanaety often results in some of the best humor around. What also made this show special was Tim Conway's deliberate ad libbing of lines and actions to try to make the other actors bust up laughing. A classic example of this is when Conway, playing a NAZI officer in one sketch, tries to interrogate a POW (Lyle Waggoner) with an Adolf Hitler Puppet doll.

Whether its Tim Conway as Uncle Waldo, Carol Burnett as "Missus Uh-Wiggins" or "Eunice", Jim Nabors as Yung Fool, or Vicki Lawrence as Mama Harper, this show's absolutely priceless.

The jewel in the crown on CBS's Saturday night comedies. In one night you saw All in the Family, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, bob Newhart, and Carol Burnett. There was never that much great comedy on one evening, before or after. Must-see TV years before NBC. Me and my family stayed glued to the set from 8 to 11. A great cast and consistently funny; I found out later that several Mad magazine writers were on the staff. I did get tired of Harvey Korman breaking up very week... but opposite Tim Conway, who could resist? I remember a sketch where Harvey was in a dentist chair; Tim was the dentist. All was going well... until Tim injected the Novocaine into himself and not his patient. Various parts of his body went numb. I remember him slapping his dangling right hand with his left--the numb hand swung back and forth like a half-filled water balloon. Then the left half of his face went slack. Then the right. The his right leg gave out and he had to sit on the chair with Harvey. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard, and poor Harvey almost slid out of his chair with laughter. A class act, all the way. It's a shame Harvey Korman never went on to comedy stardom, when marginally talented folks like Adam Sandler became millionaires.

Was there ever a better sketch comedy hour than this one. For eleven years, Burnett and fabulous company made each week a laugh fest. Only seldom did a sketch fall flat. Thus, success is also due the writers who had a firm grasp of cast and material. And what a cast— the infinitely versatile Carol, the perfect counterpart Korman, the inimitable Vicki Lawrence, and the goofy Tim Conway. Together, their chemistry year after year was darn near perfect. I did feel sorry for handsome Lyle Waggoner who never appeared to have a defined role to play. I'm glad he settled in with the Wonder Woman series. The icing on the cake, however, was when Conway replaced him, and the laughs really gelled.

My favorites among the sketches—anything where a loony Carol descends stairs with a coat hanger for shoulders; the hilarious take-off on dysfunctional families with Eunice and Ed and snap-dragon Mama; and anything where Carol gets to do an eye- bulging impersonation. Guest stars also shone at times—Steve Lawrence was particularly good at tough talking thugs, while Jim Nabors did his slow-witted hick to perfection.

I suspect one reason for the show's longevity was Carol's obvious rapport with ordinary folks, like her audiences. None of the Hollywood celebrity about her, and somehow I expected to find her in my supermarket checkout line. Thanks Carol and Company. You guys shone like a rare evening constellation, but never one above our heads.

If my siblings and I were good, my mother would allow us to stay up until 11pm to watch 'The Carol Burnett Show' each Saturday night in the 1970s.

To say Carol, along with her co-stars Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, and Vicki Lawrence, were talented and funny would be an understatement. Each Saturday at 10pm, Carol and the aforementioned regulars, along with some 'special guest stars' (such as Steve Lawrence, Betty White, Roddy McDowall, and Julie Andrews, to mention a few) would sing, dance, and perform the absolute funniest skits ever seen on American television.

Who could forget Carol's "Eunice" constantly being belittled and nagged by Vicki's "Momma"? Carol's "Mrs. Wh-Whiggins" was a riot, along with Tim's "Mr. Tudball", and perhaps the funniest segments were those with both Tim and Harvey. The audience never seemed to mind it when Harvey lost control and laughed out of character.

Today's Hollywood elitist performers could learn a lot from this classic TV show: Carol Burnett and her co-stars entertained us for ten years without foul language, tasteless humor, sexual innuendo, or inserting politics. On the contrary, Tim, Harvey, Vicki, and Carol conducted themselves as professionals.

This show is classic American comedy for all ages. I highly recommend this outstanding program.

Half of the fun of watching Carol Burnett and Friends was watching the actors and actresses try to maintain straight faces during their skits, even when on the inside they were dying to burst out laughing. What made this series funny is that the actors and actresses ad-libbed most of their lines. This way, even the other actors didn't know what would be said next. I've seen many episodes of this show and each one of them keeps me laughing. This is comedy at it highest, at a time when humor was based on slapstick humor and the totally unexpected instead of sexual one-liners. If you ever get a chance to see this show, watch it. You won't be disappointed--especially if you're fortunate to see the episode where Lyle Waggoner is a prisoner of war in WWII interrogated by German officers Harvey Korman and Tim Conway.