The Carol Burnett Comedy TV Show
Unless one is comedic historian of sorts. I would suspect that many under age 40, probably have never heard about or seen the Carol Burnett TV show, which ran from 1967 to 1978 on CBS. The show received 23 Emmy awards and Golden Globe, it really was the premiere of all the comedy shows because of the many other top-notch comedians: Vicki Lawrence, Tim Conway, Harvey Korman.
What made the show so funny were the skits, sometimes original, sometimes a parody of movies or popular TV shows. They usually had all of the comedians in them and many of them were so funny or silly, you literally could not stop laughing and hoped a commercial would arrive to provide relief! Seriously! The show was live, so there were many times that something went wrong- like a prop fell or dialogue was forgotten and the performer would ad lib. The viewer could see this- that brief moment of surprise on their faces- there was a stumbling- that simply made it funnier because many times the performers could not cover it up. One time, Carol Burnett responded to Tim Conway's ad lib, "That is not your line", Tim, trying to not laugh, simply garbled a response with laughter, which made Burnett start to laugh. The whole skit was ruined but it was even better as they tried to maintain themselves (from not laughing) and each time they tried to carry on with the skit, one would burst out laughing. So hilarious! I was hurting with laughing pain.
If you think Saturday Night Live is funny, watch the Burnett show for REAL funny, constant funny. If you missed the TV series, rent the DVD's.
Carol Burnett tried to bring back the series in the early 90's, but it failed because the core comedic group of the original TV series were not in it. It was still funny, but she needed the others. She is now age 79. Even now, few can match Carol Burnett, but most comedians aspire to be her.
