Carol Burnett shares secrets behind her long-running TV series – Press Enterprise

Carol Burnett has been doing live Q&As about her long television career for years, but two shows coming later this month at Rancho Mirage will be special for her.

She hasn’t been able to perform live for nearly two years due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“I can’t wait to get back and connect with an audience,” she said in a phone interview from her home in Santa Barbara.

The program, titled “Carol Burnett: An Evening of Laughter and Reflection,” will take place Friday and Saturday, January 28 and 29 at the Agua Caliente Rancho Mirage Casino Show.

He focuses on his variety show, “The Carol Burnett Show,” which ran from 1967 to 1978 on CBS, winning 23 Emmy Awards in the process.

The show was a mix of comedy sketches, film and television parodies, and musical numbers. Even though it ended decades ago, it never really went away, thanks to syndication and video streaming on the Shout Factory website, although the episodes were shortened.

Burnett, who is 88, is recognized in the film’s closing credits”Licorice Pizza“, which is currently in theaters. Set in Encino in the 1970s, the film was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and features a short clip of Burnett on analog television.

“I’ve known Paulie since he was a kid because his dad was our announcer at one point, Ernie Anderson,” she said. “So that’s how I know Paul. Ernie gave him an 8mm camera for his birthday or Christmas or something, and he started making home movies when he was just a kid.

These are the kinds of stories she shares on her live show.

“I fly without a net. I don’t want to know what someone is going to ask, so when I call someone it’s random.

The Q&A is interrupted by video clips of musical guests and film parodies with its regulars: Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Vicki Lawrence and Lyle Waggoner.

“The Carol Burnett Show” was shaped by her childhood in Hollywood in the 1940s, which she wrote about in three memoirs. She was originally from Texas, but her mother moved to California to pursue a film career. Both of her parents were alcoholics and she was largely raised by her grandmother.

“We would go on weekends and watch maybe four to six movies a week,” she said in the phone interview. “Movies shaped me in a funny way. When I saw Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland put on a show in their barn and the next week they were on Broadway, it meant nothing was impossible.

Burnett began to flourish as a student at UCLA until an anonymous mentor loaned her enough money to move to New York and pursue a theatrical career in the 1950s.

She starred in a Broadway hit, “Once Upon a Mattress,” and was successful on television, mentored by Garry Moore, who had his own variety shows, and Lucille Ball. After nearly a decade of appearing on sitcoms and TV specials, she got her own series.

It was recorded at Television City, a studio next to Farmer’s Market in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles.

Here are some of Burnett’s thoughts on the series.

The need for speed

With its sets, costumes, bespoke musical numbers and choreography for its own dance troupe, “The Carol Burnett Show” was like putting on a Broadway show in five days.

“We did a musical review every week. We were taping it twice in front of a live audience, once at 5 p.m., and the second show was around 8 p.m. with a different audience. We would tape both shows for safety.

“I wanted to do it like you would a Broadway show. I didn’t want to keep the audience waiting. We did about an hour and 15 minutes, because we were going a little past some of the sketches or Q&As, and the audience would be gone in maybe two hours, a little over two hours, which would be the time that an audience would be seated watching a Broadway show.

“I said to everyone, the crew and everyone on the show, when we change costumes, act like your life depends on it, real quick. I could do a skin change faster than the team could only move a sofa on the stage.

Regulars

“The Carol Burnett Show” debuted with Korman, Lawrence and Waggoner, which started as announced. They were later joined by Conway. Each brought their particular talents to the mix.

“I don’t think there’s anyone better as a comedic actor than Harvey Korman. He was brilliant. There was nothing he couldn’t do. He was an accomplished professional actor. .

“Conway was a genius. We would rehearse something that could last four minutes in the rehearsal room. By the time he started doing things in front of the audience, it was 10 or 12 minutes long. But it was still gold and we had to keep it. Plus, he was as sweet as he was funny.

“Vicky was wet behind her ears at 18, but I trusted her, and look what she’s become. She soaked it all up. She even says she learned it all in front of 30 million people a week.

“Lyle Wagoner was a lover. We hired him because he was good looking and I could make him googly eyed. After a while it got old. Because I said, wait a minute. I am an adult, I am married, I have children. I shouldn’t run into our handsome presenter. So we took that idea further, and then Lyle started sketching. And he was very, very funny.

Bob Mackie Influence

Perhaps the most famous moment on “The Carol Burnett Show” was in a parody of “Gone with the Wind” in 1976 when Burnett stepped into a ridiculous dress made of curtains with a curtain rod over her shoulders.

This outfit was the inspiration for costume designer Bob Mackie.

“He designed everything everybody wore, not just me. He designed 60 to 70 costumes a week. Do the math. Eleven years, about 270 shows, he designed over 17,000 costumes.

Burnett said Mackie shaped many of her performances, including recurring characters like petite office worker Mrs. Wiggins.

“Sometimes I didn’t know how I was going to do a character until I went to the costume fitting to see what Bob had come up with for that character.”

“I remember Mrs. Wiggins, for example. Tim wrote these sketches, and he originally wrote that Mrs. Wiggins was this spoiled old lady. And I went to the costume fitting and Bob said, “You know, you’ve been doing a lot of old ladies lately. Let’s make her this blonde bimbo.

“He put me in this blonde wig and push-up bra with a floral top and high stiletto heels. Then he gave me this old black skirt. It was wool. It was very tight around the knees, but it was bagged in the behind. I said, ‘Bob, you’re going to have to take him back there.’ He said, ‘No, no. Stick your behind to it. I did, and it gave me what was called the Wiggins walk. And that’s how she was born.

Prestigious guests

Burnett said her favorite guest stars came on the show so often they were almost like regulars, including the late Betty White, Bernadette Peters and pop star Steve Lawrence, who starred opposite her in a number movie parodies.

“We had them on and off, constantly. Steve Lawrence did something like 39 of our shows.

“Once when he was at an airport with his wife Eydie, our show had been syndicated and they had cut all the musical numbers, just the sketches. He was in the airport waiting room and these teenage girls ran up to him and said, “Oh, you’re that funny guy on the Burnett show.”

Sometimes big stars have volunteered to appear on the show after being parodied, such as silent film actress Gloria Swanson. Burnett made several sketches based on her character Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard”.

“She called and said, ‘Can I come and play in your sandbox?’ I was just amazed.

“I thought I died and went to heaven after I had my show and I could ask people to come as guests I grew up watching in the movies: Mickey Rooney, Bing Crosby , Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Lana Turner.

“I swear my grandmother, if she hadn’t already died, it would have killed her.”

“Carol Burnett: An Evening of Laughter and Reflection”

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, January 28 and 29

Or: The Show at Agua Caliente Rancho Mirage Casino, 32-250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage

Tickets: $65 to $125 plus fees

COVID-19 procedures: Fully vaccinated guests are not required to wear masks.

Information: aguacalientecasinos.com