With the publishing of her Memoires, and the attendant publicity I have been thinking of the days when I used to watch the Carol Burnet Show with my family. Two skits stand out in my memory, but since I was quite young when they aired I don’t remember anything about the episodes or guest stars or even the air dates to help me look. With 11 years of comedy (188 episodes) and no real episode guides that I have found (ok I have found some lists, it just tells who guest stars) I am completely stimied. If these skits exist on Youtube I haven’t found them
One of the skits I am pretty sure has the Eunice character (but it might be another girl character, I can’t even remember for sure) sitting at the table as time marches on, not allowed to leave until she eats her dinner. It seems like decades go by, the brother joins the army, the war ends, and she is still at the table. The punch line is she couldn’t eat because she doesn’t have a fork. This became a family joke when someone didn’t have a proper place setting at the table. The other skit revolves around a woman who cannot open packaging. As the episode progressed her attempts to open ???something??? became more desparate and extreme. This one beame a joke between my Grandmother and I, because she could never open packages either. It was probably Carol, but maybe it was Vicki Lawrence.
Now granted I was not yet nine when the show left the air, my memory is hazy. I am assuming I saw these as new episodes, with air dates in mid-late seventies, I am thinking they would have had to be most likely from about 1975 -1978, however even that I cannot say with 100% certainty. I have spent an hour on youtube watching fun skits, but not found the ones I am looking for. If anyone has a clue how I could nail down these skits without watching all of the last three seasons I would be grateful. Any help ou could give this child of the seventies get a case of the warm fuzzies would be appreciated!
It definately wasn’t a Eunice sketch as I’ve seen all of them. I can’t recall any Carol Burnett show sketch like that? Do you remember if it was color? Maybe it was from a Carol Burnett special, she had them in the 60s? Or perhaps the Garry Moore Show, which was a sketch comedy show that Burnett was on prior to her own show.
Well I am sure it was from the Carol Burnett show, and in colour. I saw them 30+ years ago, no repeats until Youtube this morning, and it is really vauge to be sure, but I was not watching Garry Moore or any special in the 1960’s. I am only 40 now, and I really can’t think of any variety skit show that I would have been watching around age 7-9 with my parents and/or grandmother. Also we had 7 channels at the most in those days, and for a while only one channel. (CBC)
Is there a way I can get lists of individual skits from the shows?
I feel your pain. I’ve been looking for years for a video of the old man painfully slowly crossing the room. It was so desperately funny, and based upon absolutely nothing but Tim Conway’s brilliant comedic timing.
I can’t help with finding those sketches, but I love Carol Burnett. When I was 13 (mid-'80s) and home from school for a week after having an appendectomy, I remember having to turn off the TV because watching the Carol Burnett Show was making me laugh so hard I was crying with pain.
The funniest one of Tim Conway’s was when he was a galley slave, and Lyle Waggoner was the slave driver. Somehow the old man got a key to his chains but dropped it in the aisle. Lyle strode by and saw it, and roared, “a key, eh?” Old man mumbles to himself`, ". . . he speaks Spanish . . . "
I definately remember this skit. This was akin to the “product placement” skits where Carol would use a product. Like she’d open a stick of gum and the “Doublemint” guy with the huge package of gum would come in. Or she’d spread “Mop and Glop” on the floor.
I recall the packaging skit clearly. She was a housewife and she came home and procedes to try to open things. As she opens things a voice over (which we don’t see) is reading the directions to the audience.
She can’t get them open. From a child proof cap, to a band aid, to a milk carton. I loved the milk carton 'cause Carol is struggling to get it open and she just rips the whole top half of the milk container off and the voice reading the directions says “Open other end.” And Carol says “I’ll open the end I want.”
And the sketch finally finishes with a distraught Carol and her husband, played by Harvey comes home and she’s feeling amerous and as he starts to unzip Carol we hear the voice over announcer give instructions on how to unzip the blouse
Yes, it comes back to me as I read this post. I watched it with my Grandma, and we laughed and laughed. As long as she was still in her own house, if she had something she couldn’t open, she would comment that she was like the lady on Carol Burnett. I was definitely no older than nine, and I only ever saw this skit once the once, but it has become legend. Grandma definitely identified with the milk carton. She would also use scissor to open a Band-Aid ™ package, since she could never deal with the little string.
But…what about “I need a fork?” Seems the whole world changed, decades went by and this girl-become-a woman is still sitting there, with a plate of untouched supper. I thought maybe it was Eunice bu the more I think about it, it probably wasn’t, just Carol playing a little girl stuck at the dinner table.
I got a good laugh at Charades, and Elaphant Ears, and no frills airlines this afternoon. Its rare that a frustrating search is so much fun.
Unfortunately, I looked through the episode highlights that Marxxxx linked to, but my problem is at my age I would not have recognized any guest stars on that list except maybe Alan Alda and Betty White and Sally Struthers.
Funny, I remember watching Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, and MASH from a very early age, but my son doesn’t watch much network sitcom tv. He watches Corner Gas reruns with us, and has caught the odd episode of 2 and a Half Men, but maybe because we don’t watch sitcoms, or because there are channels like YTV and discover (and DVDs) he really doesn’t watch things like that.
Does anyone remember the sketch with Tim Conway as the dentist and Harvey Corman as the patient? It was just priceless. Shortly before my mother died, I sat there with her one afternoon and pulled up Carol Burnett sketches on YouTube and we just howled together.
You know, I’m always bothered that the primary skit people mention is the Scarlette O’Hara one with the drapery rod. I just never found that one funny, and it bugs me because for so many people it’s the only one they ever see.
I remember the package-opening skit every time I try to follow directions when opening something, and it doesn’t work. Apparently package designers aren’t any better today than they were then.
And the Scarlet O’Hara with the curtain rod . . . people mention it because it was comedy perfection . . . especially when you know how much Carol wanted to crack up, but didn’t.
The movie skits were great, though. I recall one where Carol was in England during the war, and her roommate was a (bom-bom-BOM-bom). Hilarity ensues. Given her roommate’s profession, one presumes the other thing also ensues.
Or another where she was a pair of identical twins, one good and one evil…
She played Nora Desmond, that was memorable. And “As The Stomach Turns” - the doorbell would ring, there would be her ‘daughter’ coming home with a ‘baby’, and Carol would take the ‘baby’ and drop it into the umbrella stand, THAT was hilarious (because on soap operas, characters pop out kids and the kids aren’t ever seen again until they’re old enough to be soap-opera interesting!)
I’m looking for a Carol and Vicki sketch. My mind escapes me but its a clip where Carol is talking or lecturing Vicki and Vicki is on the sofa blowing bubbles in defiance of Carol. I believe the sketch was around 1976-78. Be helpful if anybody could flesh out this sketch more, but any information is helpful. Thanks