Comedian to celebrate milestone with special
Q&A /
Carol Burnett was back in the sandbox, as she calls it.
The veteran entertainer had returned to Stage 33 on the CBS Television City lot in Los Angeles — the original home base of “The Carol Burnett Show” — to tape a special celebrating the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking comedy-variety show, which premiered in 1967 and ran for 11 years.
The series had almost been a sitcom called “Here’s Agnes.” But Burnett, a cast member on the variety series “The Garry Moore Show,” had wanted a 28-piece orchestra. She wanted a repertory company and guest stars. She wanted costume changes.
“I had this terrific and unheard-of contract that read if I wanted to push that button, the network would have to give me 30 one-hour comedy-variety shows,” Burnett, now 84, said during the October taping.
“I said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ And they said, ‘Oh, no, no, no. Carol ... all comedy-variety shows are hosted by men — Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Dean Martin. It’s not really for you gals.’”
Then, she added: “Well, here we are, 50 years later.”
The two-hour special, set to air Sunday on CBS, features Amy Poehler, Jim Carrey and other celebrities paying homage to the pioneering sketch show. (The special made headlines recently when CBS said it was editing out Kevin Spacey’s appearance after he was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple people.)
Burnett recently talked about her career and TV special.
Does it even feel like 50
years have passed?
Are you kidding? No! In fact, 25 years ago, we did a 25th reunion, and that just seemed like 10 minutes ago that we did that! Time has a funny way of changing. When you’re young, it never goes fast enough; when you get older, it’s a blink of an eye. Where did it go?
Taking questions from the audience is a hallmark of the show that you’ve kept going. Why do you revel in doing it?
It keeps the old gray matter ticking, you know? You have to be on your toes — you can’t be thinking about what you’re going to do tomorrow, what you did yesterday. And so it keeps the brain going, really.
It’s interesting that you are doing the answering because you had originally wanted to be a journalist, right?
Yeah. I was editor of my junior-highschool paper, and I was the editor of the Hollywood High News at Hollywood High School.
In fact, when I was a senior, I got the brilliant idea to interview famous people who went to Hollywood High. Joel McCrea was a big movie star way back then, and I interviewed him. And then I had one all set up for Lana Turner and somebody (told) on me and told the principal I was gonna cut a class, so I never got to interview her. But years later, she was a guest on my show.
What do you think “The Carol Burnett Show” would look like today? Do you think it would have found a way for the sketches to have some sort of commentary on the politics of today?
No, because that’s not what we were about. We were about doing a musical-comedy revue a week. It was like a little Broadway show. I think that’s why it has held up all these years: Funny is funny. We always went for that, and we got a little more serious when we started doing the family. Those were pretty heavy ... the, you know, dysfunctional family and stuff. The writing was so good. There wasn’t one joke in it. It was all character-driven.
What can you tell me about your Netflix show, “A Little Help With Carol Burnett,” for next year?
Oh, it’s so cute! These kids, they range from 5 to 9 years old, and they are presented with grown-up dilemmas — which is perfect because they’re not censoring themselves yet. So they just blurt out what they’re thinking, and some of them are just gems!
When we were auditioning some of them, a lady came in with a dilemma saying that she was gonna marry this gentleman who is raising his two young children. He’s a father.She said, “What can I do to make the kids like me? I don’t want them to think I’m some evil stepmother.”
One of the kids said, “Bribery always works.” I mean, that’s just priceless!