The Carol Burnett Show - One More Time (Cast Reunion Interview)

well uh i wrote you this fan letter because everybody said i look like you in high school and really at mom's urging she said write that write the letter and um i the way the story goes at my end you took my dad's name out of this i sent my little newspaper article that said i was going to be in the miss fireball contest and uh you took dad's name out of that newspaper article looked him up in the phone book and called me after school um i don't i i remember picking up the phone and you saying hi this is carol burnett and i couldn't speak no you said hi marsha well maybe but i maybe when i realized it really was you i could not speak i literally could not speak and i handed the phone to my mom and you said i don't want to talk to you i want to talk to vicki put her back on oh i wouldn't say that to you very nicely she said i want to talk to vicki put her back on the phone tell her she doesn't have to say i said could i please i think you were a i'm just kidding i know i mean you said it very nicely but you said i don't wanna i want to talk to vicki and i got back on the phone and you said i want to come and see the contest you're going to be in and i'm very pregnant i would prefer not to be seen i want you to get me two seats away in the back i'm going to sneak in and sneak out i'll call you in a couple weeks and we'll have lunch and discuss your career sweetie [Laughter] and i thought okay she's out of her flipping mind so and i went to the guy that was in charge of the contest i said two seats away in the back and please don't tell anybody it's carol burnett and he's like yeah right okay and and it was it it was at the racetrack hollywood park yeah and i'm thinking is she gonna really come to the miss fireball contest i mean it's at hollywood park and it's the fire the fireman's ball and they've got like an 1890s firehouse theme going so there's eight girls we've got two canned canned numbers together and then i've got my little individual talent where i played the guitar and i think i sang in the kazoo bailey i had the kazoo strapped around my neck and you won the contest well yes and of course the guy that had promised not to say a word got up on stage and said we have a very special guest and i'm great thank you for your help and i still have the pictures from that night on you they crowned me and we took a picture for the newspaper with the mayor and you you're holding the little crown and you totally disappeared from my life that was november of my senior year uh january um i came home from school in the afternoon and on the radio they said carol had given birth at st john's in santa monica and i said thank god because you were really pregnant when i met you it was 14 months gone i'm thinking i'm thinking am i ever going to hear from her again so i was on my way to a recording session with the young americans who i sang with when i was young and we're doing this recording session and i said i'm going to get some flowers and stop by the hotel and and the guy i'm riding with goes you're not going to get in to see carol bernadette i know her married name i'll get in to see her i was so pushy wasn't it i know i loved it i remember you oh my god so i went to the maternity ward there's nothing going on there's two girls sitting behind the desk i said i'm here to see mrs hamilton and they said oh my god you must be your sister chrissy why don't you see her wait will you see the baby they took me right into your room i swear to god it was ridiculous you said i have not forgotten you i promise i'm going to get my tummy back i'm going to call you this is so now some more time goes by i think i finally got the call right at the end of my senior year to come down to cbs and audition would i audition to play your sister and at the time it was a very traumatic decision for me because i was supposed to go on tour that summer with the young americans i remember the director of the young americans pulling me aside and saying you listen to me young lady what are the chances that anything will ever come of this and if you back out of the summer tour you're not coming in in the middle you're not coming back i will replace you and i said i i think i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna roll the dice on this one i think but at the time it was that's a major decision you were what 18 yeah so i yeah i started at ucla same fall i started on your show i didn't know that story yeah and then you i have heard tell a very funny story about um well first of all joe saying what the hell is she a jockey we're going to going to the racetrack but the other story i remember you telling was your manager tom corcoran was in new york uh when you're at home recovering from the baby and the young americans had done a little guest spot on the andy williams show and so in the body of our big number i had a little tiny 10 second solo tommy sees at east coast time he calls you and says you are not going to believe this i have found the kid to play your sister and and you said who is she and tom said well she's i don't know who she is but she sings with the young americans and she looks just like you and you said i've already met her oh god i forgot that oh my gosh yeah that's what yeah they used to put together medleys for us for those medleys in forever and they'd give them to us on a cassette player back in the day would write what we call sometimes mini musicals where we would take a they would take a composer or lyricist like cole porter but make a story out of his songs and uh with characters and stuff and one of my favorites was gershwin that they wrote when we were you were my maid and i was and steve lawrence and harvey harvey was steve's valet and we had a whole love scene and the whole thing everything was built around the music and lyrics of the gershwins it was just so elaborate and fantastic and and always when we had kenny barry on uh he he was not only funny you know which people would remember from f troop and from mama's family and all that but a lot of people because when we went to syndication we didn't have the music didn't know that he's a superb song and dance man and uh so he he always was great so we would do these great finales with kenny berry and with bernadette who was not only a wonderful actress but a great singer harvey was always stressed about the music harvey but harvey had a good voice once he got the note once he got the note he was fine and you i used to love watching you in rehearsal doing your part in squiggles yeah some elaborate squiggly something that tells you you can't read much i just read the music carol would have this elaborate squiggly thing i couldn't read music and so you're always right well i kind of have to do the parts and you'd be there right there yeah i'd be right there i would do this and if it sounded like a minor note i'd put a little m over it and this no that goes down here and i'd squiggle so and the cue card guys knew my squiggles and at one time jimmy smith came up to me said you didn't put an m in there and i said oh you're right he he knew he he was musical and he said no that's that's a minor note so he was able to read it was like shorthand yeah oh well i used to love uh thursday nights when you had music because uh that's when the night i was dating while i was married and i used to say to my wife she said where were you tonight two o'clock i said hey thursday night music you know now she never realized that in 11 years i never sang anything a note on the show you know oh well oh yes you did oh yes well yeah or do you remember uh when we did showboat oh yeah nobody knows but you said you we gave you the uh old man river right yeah only it was old mississippi that oh mississippi and it was like they screwed up the melody so they wouldn't get paid for it yeah you know so comes the air show you go oh mister sippy right on key actual tune cost you about 20 grand oh well it's worth it bob mackey would get with [Music] our artistic designer for the sets and everything they would coordinate what colors and so forth that bob needed but he would i mean these finales were really musical brilliant pieces of writing and executed so beautifully because of the costumes that bob would design i couldn't wait to see what he would have us all in for some of these finales when we did the cole porter one that took place in louis xiv uh palace and tim you did you were musical you came in and blew the trumpet i remember and uh and that was a whole cole porter one and then we did julie stein we did irving berlin we did the pointer sisters and sisters yeah we did cinderella and you were the cinderella step mom right yeah you were the stepmother stepmom and bob came up with just fantastic outfits you know and i'm so happy they're going to be seen oh my gosh on this because nobody's seen them since they were first aired because they were never on the syndicated show so you're going to get a beautiful eyeful of what he could do so glossy so beautiful i remember too when i was talking about music when michael jackson passed away yeah and somebody sent me a youtube link to me dancing with yes i did not remember it until i sat and watched the number that went oh my god i danced with every single one of those boys and remember when we uh they were on uh i guess they were only on once right i think so but so then the finale of that was where we were in a school room yes and i was a teacher and they were doing this old man [Music] and there was an earthquake yes and you could just see it happening and the boys went look everybody's your eyes just popped out yeah but we kept going and then quite kind of settled down and the audience didn't leave or anything yeah it was just i said something see what happens when you don't study i think i said something like that yeah the earth moves yeah god and when the horse oh god oh the horse behind me decided to release shirley temple or something no we were doing uh judy and mickey oh kenny berry and kenny was mickey and i was judy and you and harvey were the grandparents naturally once again naturally and uh we were doing it was called babes and barns and uh i was doing a kind of a judy takeoff in the front and there was a horse because we lived on a farm behind us this horse decided to do quite a few things behind me yes and i remember the uh the wrangler came and and put a bucket under him and then took a bath and he took a bow like that and i was hysterical and this is what it always amazed me with you you always came up with the right line at the right time because you this horse is taking a leak behind you and you have no idea what's going on why the audience is laughing and everything and when you turned around and see all this carol said oh okay peter shall we take it now from number one or number two the perfect ending to what the horse was doing doing one and two [Laughter] we did a musical version of hamlet so i sang about the boy in blue makes me blue or something like that and bob came up with these again fantastic costumes carl reiner was the ghost and kenny was hamlet you know people don't realize i can't wait to see these yeah i know it's gonna say this yeah because there are things we haven't seen since you know yeah yeah i remember the fun family i think that was the first big musical one that i did and then the doily sisters and yeah yeah oh my god yeah it's gonna be great i'm gonna start dating again oh my god but i love the doilies you played the agent in the doily sisters remember no [Laughter] yeah keep going yeah yeah no you played the agent and you you and vicki hooked up at the end okay you don't remember that but i well that was enough oh i love the one when we were doing lovely story they take her up on a love story oh yes and you were the doctor right and uh oh and i'm sick and and harvey says oh don't you'll be all right daryl i'll get you the best doctor money can buy knock knock knock come in who are you and you said do you remember no i don't you said i'm the best stuffer and they had all of this background lush music and and harvey says to you how did you know she was sick and you said i heard the music okay all right it's coming down remember you and i should get together and talk about this once a while yeah you know the thing about you was that of course we you know we wanted a good-looking hunk and that was the idea at the beginning to be our announcer for me to go over you right and but that went the way of the dodo bird we just we didn't do that too often after the first year first or second year because understandable you were more than that you you did sketches and you had the comedic timing that uh nobody would really expect from just an announcer you know and so that's you evolved well thank you as a comedian i always had a good sense of humor and could find humor in most things and so like the stutter [Laughter] so i'm glad it worked out too oh yeah we missed you when you left thank you we did where i'm gonna go well not to do a wonder woman yeah oh yes what was your name in that steve you were kind of i was uh yeah major steve trevor uh-huh that was a linda carter's first show as a star there were a lot of people who would boost her up and say that she was beautiful and did the part well and then the other people who would knock her down and say that she was inexperienced and a bit of a prima donna so as you can see she had her boosters but she also had her knockers [Laughter] steve martin was uh as the stomach turns and uh marion's daughter vicki always played what was always coming in with a baby and uh and this time she was uh well first steve martin comes in and uh he's richard dryface and this is close encounters and he says i've seen the thing you know stevie and so he builds the shape the shape of the where where the aliens are going to land and it happens to be the same shape as my bedroom upstairs as my bed upstairs so the alien is going to land up there and betty white is in the sketch and uh and so then yeah betty me steve martin then vicki comes in she's been i thought she'd been dead as my daughter but she comes in with a baby you came in with a baby and um you'd been abducted by an alien [Laughter] makes sense yes and and here's my baby here's your here's your grandson and i remember i held the grant and i said oh he's got my smile he said mom you're holding him upside down [Laughter] then the lights dim and up on the top of the stairs we're all like this comes conway dressed as the alien with these fingers four fingers that's it and then you and steve martin have this thing where you go and you know sign language and then you finally you do this together and then you do this and [Laughter] oh jeez and then beach blanket bingo was that same show where we did a takeoff on the uh annette funicelli movies and stuff and uh we were two little teenage bimbos on the beach and you were the um you were a tough motorcycle gang yeah yeah and steve martin was the guy we all had a crush on and we remembered that scene when we're surfing it was so phony it was hysterical because we're just on the surface and then they have water going and did you ever figure out how many writers you had on that show over the years no you never did never did any one show there was like 14 or 15 writers weren't there no usually around nine nine nine yeah because there were three music you know with artie malvin and kenny and mitzi with the three music people then we had yeah the rest were all the right comedy writers but what was great was that there was at the same time we were on at one point there were nine variety shows that's right yeah it was dean martin and flip wilson and laughing and sunny and uh then sometimes uh the laughing people writers maybe got tired of writing you know quick jokes they wanted to write long form so sometimes they'd come over and write our show and our writers would want to go over and do the gags oh is that right well yeah and so there was a great pool of comedy writers at that time you know and people would would switch and go back and forth and um so we had a great staff you know that no absolutely the best they were fun on the set funny and funny ernie from dave powers everybody but i remember every wednesday the writers would get together during lunch and they would have a screen in the room and they would show old kinescopes of the gleason show of different some of them had written yeah on those shows so they would be doing and it would be fun and so forth so this one time i would usually come in and maybe talk to ernie for a whisper something that i wanted to change and then i'd look and i'd see jackie gleason up there sid caesar and so forth you know that's great so i would usually kind of come in and take a peek at what they were looking at so this one week i went in and i'm talking to arnie and i'm hearing moaning and i look up and it's a porn they set me up they totally set me up knowing i was going to come in and i'd never seen i'd never seen a porn film and i said oh that's awful and ernie looked at me and said carol he's doing the best he can great oh geez oh i don't know we laughed for 11 years i'm afraid so yeah i wish i remembered it [Laughter] i think the only ones that we ever did a lot of were the family and in the beginning carol and sis which we had often thought would you know like be what they did with the honeymooners on the gleason show they had a little thing that they would do every week until finally it took off but uh i don't think we did ted ball and williamson ted ball and wiggins of course yeah yeah uh yeah that we knew we would once we did those characters we would do them again yeah you know talk about laughing for 11 years one thing i remember and i don't know who did this somebody gave harvey a chain with a gold h on it do you remember that was it was it you or joe or somebody and you were asking ask the writers what would you call this chain an award and they came up with it's the preparation h award for the biggest pain in the ass and he laughed he laughed well stella tyler was this old lady uh then she was an acting teacher and she was always um being honored for something or whatever and then always got destroyed physically that's when was i i'm surprised i never broke bones seriously yeah because i didn't know how to do stunts i had no idea i wasn't trained you know but it was just trial and error and that's when i went to the bathroom that time to get her voice you know what i was saying you can always go to the back you can always go into the john you know and that's when i was saying yeah this will work yes good that's how i came up with stella at one time though what bob put me in was the funniest outfit the body that he had the boobs coming straight down here and then he had the rear end padded and all of that and so one time during a break after i'd done stella i took off the outside and showed the audience they were great didn't you stuff them with rice or beans nice rice because they moved oh they were great well it was uncooked they moved that's what he said a lot of the drag queens so that they look real [Music] the writing was brilliant um there are a lot of things that nailed it to that particular time like commercials and so on but most of it was timeless um and interestingly enough a lot of these things i can't remember doing but i see them on reruns and it's like watching them for the first time and they're funny they really are and so if something's funny it's going to be funny then and now and forever i i feel i mean i don't feel so old but i sort of feel like i got to touch the golden age of television and and i feel like our show was almost the end of that great era and it was just done so i think you set about putting together us a staff and a crew where unlike today's television you guys hired the very best people and then you let them do their thing you let everybody fly and everybody flew on that show and um gosh i remember i was doing um the pyramid when they brought pyramid back a few years ago and it was all computerized and uh the computers are breaking down every five minutes i'm standing on the side of the set during one of the many many breakdowns when you're not playing a game and you should be and one of the kids said to me hey you guys really had fun on the brunette show and i said you have no flipping idea and you never it was a different time and it was it was a time when when we got to have fun without nine gazillion people coming down from upstairs and going what are you doing yeah we need pickups we need this fixed do we need and that's what everybody loved about the show is like you what the people in the audience there saw is what the people at home got to see and last night i was watching television with charlene and there were two shows i won't say what they are because it doesn't matter but language took an important part in those shows we never even thought of coming close to any kind of foul language or anything or even yeah here yeah [Laughter] but it was never we never well i feel wandered into that area well that's those are really easy laughs yeah yeah you couldn't back then though could you no no you have the sensors on you a lot well i mean they would watch very carefully well that was charlie petty john yeah yeah he he was our sensor plenty but but one time we were doing a sketch where i was a nudist and i uh i had a best high basketball shoes and there was a fence so you could see my legs and you could see bare shoulders and then the fence said keep out right and harvey was interviewing me off like uh you know one of those masterpiece theater thing you know uh we're going down he's like edward r murrow right and uh so we're at a nudist colony and here's here's one of the old madam can we talk you know so i'm talking to him and he says so he's asking me all these questions about what we do in the camp in the nudist camp i said well also on friday nights we have we have dances you know and he said oh really well how did nudists dance and the line written for me was very carefully well no the network would not allow that right so we said okay and our first choice we didn't do we did very carefully hoping that they would not want us to do it so when it came to the air show he said how do nudists dance and i said cheek to cheek that went off it was fine that went away okay i guess looking back although when we started on your show we shared our stage with red skelton yes and i remember wandering up to studio 33 the first week we were there because i didn't have a lot to do other than carolyn says and i walked in and he was there i think like monday tuesday wednesday they clear out and we do thursday friday saturday at the beginning that's right and so we went in and he was in the dressing room that you used and the piano was playing and i peeked my head in and he invited me in and he had she was always writing music and he scrawled i told him who i was and what was going on and he wrote vicky across this piece of sheet music oh and gave it to me and said lek and you know how sweet he was and gosh i just remember over the years um i mean al did tom selleck's makeup for the screen test when he tested for the young and the restless they were across the hall uh remember how they had all the switchboards set up like mad the night all in the family premiered when we were there because they just knew they were gonna get the phone calls uh and like you said we had the smothers brothers down the hall and gillian campbell and barbra streisand would come in to do her specials and and then for quite some time we had sunny and chair next door like if you wanted to see what cher was wearing you'd run through the toilet right that's right again just run right through the ladies room they they were all attacked because the big doors i remember standing backstage with the girl dancers and we were going to do a musical number and al did your makeup and he also did shares so he goes running into the men's room he's like five seconds go by and he comes back out and is white as a ghost we all look at him we go what he said the duke is in there taking a pee and he was just speechless he was beside himself yeah was guesting on i don't know i think he was i think he was i want to say one of the guys shows like yeah maybe not smothers maybe one of those didn't you get hit in the head by him yes tell that one uh george slaughter uh was doing a show and john wayne was a guest on the show and so was i and i said um you know george do you think it would be funny if i called him the duck instead of the duke and he said oh he's got a great sense of humor yeah that'll be hysterical we were doing a scene and i said well it's great working with the duck he picks up a picture and breaks it over my head and a bottle and breaks that over my head and a chair a breakaway chair and breaks that over that was not enough pictures but i have all three of those pictures at home i really i ran into him one time when i i think was the first year i was on the show and i was having lunch with my agent at uh musso and frank so hollywood boulevard and i was busy chit-chatting and being a stupid little geek like i was and as as we left the restaurant i was sort of backing out the door and i turned around and ran into and i hit him like here yeah you know i came up to the middle of his chest and i looked up and he looked down he said excuse me little lady oh my god do you know who you are yeah you do that again was he ever on your show i never met him i mean never met him i know he was in the men's room damn i i should have gone there but uh well you know my idol was jimmy stewart yeah he was on your side he was on the last show as a surprise guest yeah that was that threw me you you introduced him and i had no idea he was going to be on the show but i'd been in love with him since i was three years old and uh but i then i did get to know him you know but i remember seeing him for the first time i was about three or four and my grandmother nanny and i were in texas and i had to be really young because my feet didn't touch the floor and there was this tall lanky drink of water up there on the screen and that voice that drawl and i was mesmerized and i nanny and i went home after that to the old house and i said i know that man she said all right and have your whole ovaltine i said no he's my friend he's i'm going to know him i i know him but i haven't met him yet and we will know each other and i'll be darned that's what happened he wasn't such a sweetheart such a lovely man yeah boy i was that really touched me that he came on the last show yeah i'm so glad we had this time together just to have a laugh or sing a song seems we just get started and before you know it comes the time we have to say so long left ear left here

Channel: TeeVee Classics

Views: 329

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Vicki Lawrence, Tim Conway, Lyle Waggoner

Id: _G_1f3iosE8

Length: 33min 13sec (1993 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021