About Carol Burnett
The Carol Burnett show was an extremely successful hit show running for nearly 11 years and winning in excess of 23 Emmys not to mention other awards.
The main cast member was of course Carol Burnett who had by this time played a number of smaller roles on TV in shows such as The Lucy Show, The Entertainers and Gower Pyle. She also sang on The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan show.
Carol was born in 1933, the daughter of two alcoholics and when her father left the family they moved in with her rather eccentric but adored grandmother. Carol finished every show with a tug of her ear which was a silent signal to her grandmother to tell her that all was well and that she loved her.
Carol didn’t become an overnight TV sensation but worked hard to become a star. She had a number of jobs in theater before moving onto TV and wasn’t ashamed to work in the stalls if she couldn’t get work on the stage. She was very hardworking and very appreciative of her success. She didn’t take any of it for granted, throw tantrums or behave as if the world was lucky to have her in it. She has very little time for the celebrities who didn’t answer their fan mail and complained about the press intrusion into their lives.
The Carol Burnett show was a joint collaboration between Carol and her husband, the producer Joe Hamilton. She was keen to do a variety show but TV producers at that time thought that genre belonged to men. She soon proved them wrong. The audience loved her parodies of Gone with the Wind and Sunset Boulevard. Some of her best known skits went on to become shows in their own right, most notably “the family” which became Mama’s family staring Vikki Lawrence who had made her name on the Carol Burnett show.
Part of the shows attraction was that Carol was as likely to come out with a Tarzan like yell as she was to take questions from the audience. She was never unkind or unladylike and her show was suitable for young and old alike. In fact when she tried to revive the Carol Burnett show in the early 1990s it wasn’t a ratings hit despite being very funny. Her brand of humor was probably too innocent compared to the other TV shows available.
When the show ended in 1978, Carol didn’t give up acting. Although she never had her own full show again, she was involved in several including Mamas family and a short lived talk show. She travels around America having gone back to her roots performing comedy sketches on stage. She has also appeared as a guest in many main stream TV programs and was nominated for an Emmy for her role in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
The Carol Burnett show is available on the TV via syndicated reruns and also on a DVD called The Carol Burnett show Collector’s edition