The Carol Burnett Show - Continuations and Revivals

Continuations and Revivals

The comedy sketches of the show were reedited into freestanding programs; the resulting show enjoyed success for many years in syndicated reruns (as Carol Burnett and Friends, a half-hour edition of selected 1972–77 material).

In the spring of 1979, a year after The Carol Burnett Show left the air, Burnett and her husband Joe Hamilton hosted a party at their home which included Tim Conway and Vicki Lawrence. At that gathering, Burnett got wistful and started reminiscing about the show and making suggestions to Conway and Lawrence of future sketches that she wished they could create if the show was still running. Hamilton suggested to Burnett that she do a summer series. Taking that idea, Burnett and Hamilton approached CBS about doing a four-week program in the summer of 1979. CBS already had their schedule filled for the summer months and rejected the idea. However, ABC was interested and as a result, four post-script episodes of The Carol Burnett Show were produced. Under the title Carol Burnett & Company, the show premiered on Saturday, August 18, 1979 and included many favorite sketches such as "Mr. Tudball and Mrs. Wiggins", "The Family", "As The Stomach Turns", and Burnett doing her impersonation of Queen Elizabeth II. Its format was very much similar to Burnett's series with two exceptions. Due to the unavailability of Harvey Korman (who, ironically, had been under contract to ABC since he had left Burnett's show in 1977), comic actors Kenneth Mars and Craig Richard Nelson were added to the supporting cast, thereby joining Lawrence and Conway. Ernie Flatt, who had been the choreographer on Burnett's show for its entire 11-year run, was replaced by the show's lead dancer Don Crichton. The guest stars in that four-week period were chronologically Cheryl Ladd, Alan Arkin, Penny Marshall, and Sally Field. The reviews of the series were very favorable with several critics heartily welcoming Burnett back to weekly television, albeit on a limited basis. Plans were announced for the program to become a yearly summer event but the ratings, while respectable, did not warrant an annual renewal of the series, although Burnett did headline several ABC specials during the 1980s.

The "Family" sketches led to a 1982 CBS-TV special called Eunice starring Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Betty White and Ken Berry. The success of this program spawned a spin-off sitcom entitled Mama's Family starring Vicki Lawrence and Ken Berry which ran from 1983 to 1990. It occasionally featured Burnett and Harvey Korman guest starring as Eunice and Ed Higgins, respectively. In the first year and a half of the show's run, Korman also appeared as narrator Alastair Quince introducing each episode (a parody of Alastair Cooke hosting Masterpiece Theatre) and also directed 31 episodes of the series.

NBC aired a comedy half-hour repertory series called Carol & Company that premiered in March 1990. It proved to be moderately successful in the ratings and was renewed for a second season. The regulars on the show included Peter Krause, Jeremy Piven, Terry Kiser, Meagen Fay, Anita Barone, and Richard Kind (and occasional guest stars such as Betty White and Burt Reynolds); each week's show was a different half-hour comedy play. This program lasted until July, 1991.

CBS brought back The Carol Burnett Show for another run in the fall of 1991; new regulars included Meagen Fay and Richard Kind (brought over from the NBC show), and Chris Barnes, Roger Kabler and Jessica Lundy. However, the times had changed and Burnett's humor, however hilarious and funny, seemed rather tame in the cutting edge flavor of the 1990s. As a result, the series failed to catch on with the public and only nine episodes of this revival were aired.

In 1994, reruns of the syndicated Carol Burnett and Friends package aired on Nickelodeon. The show also aired on The Family Channel in 1996.

Over the years, the cast of The Carol Burnett Show were reunited on three CBS TV specials:

• The Carol Burnett Show: A Reunion (January 10, 1993) featured several clips of the show's best moments from 1967–1978 with the gang reminiscing about their time together on the show.

• The Carol Burnett Show: Show Stoppers (November 26, 2001) consisted mostly of bloopers and outtakes from the series. The program was a major ratings success; the media credited its timing, being broadcast not long after the September 11, 2001 attacks, as contributing to its success.

• The Carol Burnett Show: Let's Bump Up the Lights! (May 12, 2004) featured one of Burnett's favorite ongoing bits, turning up the house lights and then taking questions from members of the studio audience.