PART TWO

On September 11, 1967, The Carol Burnett Show debuted with guest Jim Nabors ('Gomer Pyle'), joining CBS's winning Monday Night schedule that included Gunsmoke, The Lucy Show, The Andy Griffith Show and Family Affair, the series proved a perfect fit.

Because of the show's initial success, Burnett had Jim Nabors as her guest for every season opener thereafter as a good luck charm.

'The Carol Burnett Show' featured TV bit player Harvey Korman, Lyle Waggoner and a young high school girl who contacted Burnett because of her remarkable resemblance to the star.

In one of those great (true) Hollywood discoveries, Vicki Lawrence actually got hired as a regular on a network prime-time variety series by writing to a star. That could never happen now, stars are instructed today not to read or respond to their fan mail because of stalkers.

Characters and skits made famous over the run of the series include Eunice and her bickering family, the queen of England, Mr. Tudball and his secretary Mrs. Wiggins, aged-out movie star Nora Desmond and broad satires of classic movies and TV shows.

One of the funniest Family sketches:

Writers on the staff included veterans of television and Mad magazine. Until 'Saturday Night Live' debuted, 'The Carol Burnett Show' was virtually the only topical satire on television, tame as it was.

There were very few changes during the 11 year run of the program. In 1974, Lyle Waggoner quit the series. Soon after, he starred in 'Wonder Woman', a move he later regretted. It never occurred to him that he would be upstaged by Linda Carter's breasts - that's not exactly career progress.

From You Tube - the first Eunice sketch:

Carol Burnett is as famous for her award-winning specials as she is for her series work.

Four years after 'The Carol Burnett Show' left the air, the Burnett team put together a wonderful special featuring one of the show's most popular characters - 'Eunice' (Monday, March 15, 1982).

The four-act, ninety-minute filmed theatrical production followed the outrageous characters from the Burnett show's 'Family' skits as they age through the years.

Based on the best scripts from the run of the CBS variety series, this production built the contentious Harper family into three dimensional people without removing the way-out farcical nature that made them work in the first place. The result was perhaps Carol Burnett's finest television work.

'Eunice' features Vicki Lawrence as Mama, Carol Burnett as Eunice, Harvey Korman as Ed and Ken Berry as brother Phillip. In this version, Phillip is a brilliant writer who goes off to New York and eventually wins a Nobel Prize. Of course, all of this is completely lost on his family.

Building like a Tennessee Williams' play, events only alluded to in earlier acts come crashing down around the characters by the fourth act, when the family congregates after Mother Harper's funeral.

Eunice (1982)

Act one finds teenager Eunice cheating on her dopey boyfriend Ed. Meanwhile, brother Phillip is headed to New York and no one can get dad out of the toilet long enough to tell him what a terrible mistake he's making.

Act two finds Eunice and Ed married - Mama's husband is dead, and Phillip has come back home after writing his first successful book. Naturally Eunice sees an easy way out of her dead-end existence.

Act three, Eunice and Ed are now divorced, as Eunice and her troubled kids find themselves living with Mama. Eunice has picked up a new hobby - drinking.

In act four, Ellen, Phillip and Eunice come back to the home after the funeral service for their departed 'Mama' Harper. Delicious family secrets are revealed by devious sister Ellen when she and Eunice mix it up.

The special was written by Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon, the creators of the original 'Carol Burnett Show' skits.

An interesting sidenote: Dick Clair had himself cryogenically frozen moments before his death, so that he could be resuscitated and made well when a cure was found for his illness. Listen to this exchange from the 'Eunice' special with that in mind.