On Saturday my daughter began another weekend at my place. The weather was nice and we played outside.
Monday, 3 August 2026
Carrie Hamilton
On Tuesday morning I posted “Bonnot’s Triumphant Tragedy”, my translation of “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian on my Boris Vian Facebook fan page and on my personal Facebook page.
I worked on memorizing the final verse of “Shylock” by Serge Gainsbourg and should have it in my head on Wednesday.
I weighed 90.2 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin during song practice in the last of two sessions and as usual it was always out of tune.
Around midday I took my bike trailer down to Canadian Tire in Uppety Village to shop for a new vacuum cleaner. My old one of many years still sucks but it sucks at sucking. It was hard to make a choice but I finally settled on a Hoover Wind Tunnel because it looked like the kind I’m used to. After tax it cost over $400. I also bought a big roll of two-sided carpet tape. I strapped the box to my trailer and rode home. I put the vacuum together immediately to test it. I think we always expect a vacuum to be more powerful than it is but when I put the hose against my open palm and turned my palm down the hose stayed sucking on my hand. I threw out the old one on the sidewalk outside my place and a few hours later it was gone.
I weighed 90.7 kilos at 15:00.
I took a siesta and woke up too late to take a bike ride.
I weighed 91.05 kilos at 17:35.
I was still several days behind in my journal.
I had a potato with gravy and my last two chicken drumsticks while watching Carol Burnett: A Woman of Character. An American Masters biography of Carol Burnett.
It opens with one of Carol’s audience warmup segments and someone asks Carol what was the most embarrassing question anyone had ever asked her. She said it was if she’d ever had a sex change. Then the next person asks, “Did you?”
John Cryer says Carol was willing to go anywhere in a sketch.
Tracy Ullman says Carol doesn’t imitate people to put them down but to celebrate them.
Carol says when she was a kid she used to cross her eyes and her mother would tell her nothing good will ever come of that.
Tim Conway says Carol could move like a delicate lady but then play against that. It was hysterical that a lady would allow herself to be so comedically abused.
Carol says the first time she was ever asked to do a stunt was on The Garry Moore Show in 1959. It was in a sketch written by Neil Simon called “Playhouse 90 Seconds”. Derward Kirby plays Jack in a hospital bed with life threatening injuries. Carol comes to him in distress over his condition and says he’s got to get better. She asks Jack why he went up the hill. Carol was supposed to jump out the window and was asked if she’d ever taken a fall like that before. She lied that she had. She landed on a mattress and thanked them for providing one proving that she’d never done it before.
Carol loved live theatre because it was instant gratification when you got a laugh. It was also instant depression when you didn’t but you knew where you stood.
After she arrived in New York in August 1954 it started to rain because of Hurricane Carol. Carol loves the rain and good things for some reason happen to her when it rains. Because of the rain she stopped being nervous about being alone in New York.
She moved into a boarding house for women in the entertainment industry called The Rehearsal Club. They were all going to auditions for parts they didn’t get and so Carol decided to organize The Rehearsal Club girls to put on their own show. The hall they rented was packed for two nights in a row and three of the girls ended up with agents.
Ken Welch accompanied Carol on piano for her auditions. He decided to write some comedic material for her to do and one of the first routines he wrote for her was called “The Singers”. She got a lot of publicity for Ken’s song “I Made A Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles”.
Bob Mackie says he never saw anyone who could learn a sketch faster than Carol.
Carl Reiner says Carol was extraordinary in that she could get a laugh out of everything she did.
Carol won her first Emmy for The Garry Moore Show. Professionally Carol’s role model was Garry Moore. She could see how he treated everybody and everybody had fun while at the same time getting it done. That’s exactly how she wanted her show to be.
Don Saroyan was Carol’s first boyfriend and they got married in 1955. Carol says he was a good man but turned out not to fit but they parted lovingly.
One time during the audience warmup someone asked how she can find the ladies room. Carol brought her up on stage and directed her backstage to the washroom.
Gary Shandling says it’s a common problem for sketch players to be themselves in front of an audience. But Carol had that ability to be herself.
Dean Fuller, the co-author of Once Upon a Mattress says that if it hadn’t been for Carol Burnett, Once Upon a Mattress would never have happened. Carol says she was terrified on opening night of that play. One of the songs she sings is called “Shy” in which she conveys her shyness in a confident and overbearing manner. It made her an overnight sensation on Broadway. Carol does a comedic ballet of tossing and turning on top of the mattresses. They started the play Off Broadway then moved to Broadway and then to the biggest theatre on Broadway, which was The Winter Garden. Carol has been connected to every production of Once Upon a Mattress.
An audience member asks Carol why she doesn’t sing more ballads. “Your singing is so sad”. Carol was terrified of singing as herself but very comfortable singing as a character. Betty White says that Carol was an actress singer. She would act the lyrics and think the lyrics. You don’t expect to see that with a funny lady because every once in a while she’d let you see through into the poignancy of it.
On her show Carol could play act her favourite films like she did as a kid but now with costumes and an orchestra.
When she wore the window curtain gown with the curtain rod attached in the Went With the Wind sketch she didn’t tell anybody but Harvey beforehand because otherwise he would have had a laughing fit.
Carol says when she and her grandmother went to the movies they would steal the toilet paper.
Harvey Korman says people who become comedians come from pain and conflict. Phyllis Diller says no comic has not come from tragedy (I don’t know if that’s true. Conan O’Brien doesn’t seem to have come from tragedy). It takes an irritation to make a pearl in an oyster.
Carol’s father was an alcoholic but not a mean one. He just got sweeter when he drank.
At UCLA Carol was in a one-act play called Keep Me a Woman Grown. She made the other students laugh and it was the most accepting feeling she’d ever had.
Carol’s anonymous benefactor also leant her boyfriend Don $1000 to go to New York. Carol’s father told her that he wished he’d been able to give her that money.
Even though Carol puts her characters through impossible situations it comes across that she respects and loves them.
“The Stripper” by David Rose became a #1 hit in 1962 and Carol heard a DJ say it was the favourite song of his listeners who were housewives. Carol first created the Charwoman character to show her dancing ironically seductively to that song.
Julie Andrews says Carol is brave in her comedy and in her life.
After becoming a success in New York Carol became worried about her younger sister Chrissie in LA. Nana was getting old and Mama was drinking and Chrissie was starting to get wild with no one to take care of her, so Carol asked them to let her have custody and take her back to New York. Chrissie was just told she was going to spend Christmas with her sister in New York.
Julie Andrews went to see Once Upon a Mattress and they met afterwards to become instant lifelong friends. Betty White says Carol and Julie struck fire together.
In May of 1963 Carol and Joe Hamilton got married. Unlike theatre and movie stars, TV stars have time to spend with their families.
On the first day of rehearsal for The Carol Burnett Show, Carol told the cast that since there was no guarantee the show would last, she wanted everybody to just have fun. It was successful right away. There were a lot of variety shows on at the time but Carol’s show stood out.
Harvey Korman was a special gift for Carol. Vicki says Harvey was a rock but a crazy rock. Harvey would always complain but then he would take the stage and be brilliant. Harvey admits that he was often rude and Carol almost fired him for being rude to one of the guest stars. Carol called him into the dressing room after the show and said, “I hear you’re not happy on this show.” He said, “Sometimes I’m not.” “Well then why don’t you just get off it?” He said he didn’t know. She said, “When you come in on Monday for the reading I want to see a smile on your face.” He says she scared the crap out of him and so when he came in on Monday he acted as happy as he could and on his dressing room door Carol had put a plaque that said “Mr. Happy Go Lucky”.
Joe would deal with all the problems sometimes without telling Carol about them. He protected her.
Peter Bogdonovich says Carol’s show was a combination of vaudeville, burlesque and satire.
Carol says after a few years she stopped letting people make jokes that would be negative towards a woman. She stopped being the kook who would faint in Lyle Waggoner’s arms.
Carol was originally supposed to play Mama but Eunice became dear to her heart because she was like her mother. A woman frustrated with her dreams having not come true.
When she started the movie Pete and Tilly with Walter Mathau she was very stiff because she was intimidated by him. At one point he asked her. “Why do you do all this television crap?” She was no longer intimidated because she felt insulted. Then she realized that he did that on purpose to loosen her up.
Harvey says that Carol is a marvellous actor because people that really do comedy well do tragedy well. Tim says she was excellent in Friendly Fire.
John Cryer was a friend of Carol’s oldest daughter Carrie Hamilton. He says she was a very troubled girl. Carol says Carrie was young when she became a drug addict and still young when she kicked it. Once Carrie had recovered, Carol went on Dinah Shore’s show to talk about it and raise awareness.
Gary Shandling says that when Carol appeared on his Larry Sanders Show they wanted her to say something that she would never say on her own show. She whispers to Larry about a sketch they did in which he was wearing a loincloth. She tells him that he should talk to wardrobe because she saw his balls.
John Cryer says Carol transcended feminism just as Sidney Poitier’s work transcended the Civil Rights movement.
Tim says (jokingly) that since Harvey was a very poor performer he was cracking up all the time. Carol was very difficult to break up and her professionalism was very annoying. Harvey says there’s no other star than Carol that would have given everybody the latitude that she did, especially with Tim who thought it was his show.
Carol worked with Carrie on Fame the TV series on which Carrie played Reggie Higgins in the fifth and sixth seasons. Carol loved working with her and says she was quite a good actor. Julie Andrews says Carrie was a young Carol. John Cryer says Carrie owed much of her comedic sensibility to her mother as much of the United States did. Carrie co-wrote the play Hollywood Arms with her mother. It was Carrie’s idea to turn the first part of Carol’s memoir One More Time about raising her daughter’s and turn it into a play. Carrie developed lung cancer and died at the age of 38 in January of 2002 and so Carol had to finish the play. It premiered in Chicago two months after Carrie’s death.
There’s a clip of Carol singing “I’m Still Here” by Stephen Sondheim from the 1971 musical Follies.
Carl Reiner says Carol’s show lasted 11 years because it was the best. She kept the variety genre alive. Vicki says it was the last of its genre and hung on for dear life because nobody wanted to see it go away. It was nominated for an Emmy every single year it was on.
There’s a clip in which an audience member tells Carol that she played Winnifred in a small production of Once Upon a Mattress. She asks Carol if she would sing part of the song “Shy”. Carol says she will if she comes up to sing it with her.
Harvey says “We were wonderful together”.
Julie Andrews was Carrie’s godmother. Carrie studied music and acting at Pepperdine University. She was a member of the rock band Big Business. She made her TV debut in the movie Love Lives On. She played Maureen Johnson in the first national tour of the musical Rent. She starred in Tokyo Pop. She and Carol appeared on five episodes of Family Feud. She guest starred in The X-Files episode “Monday”. She wrote the short film Lunchtime Thomas, which won the Women in Film Award at the 2001 Latino Film Festival. Carrie and her mother guest starred as a mother and daughter on Touched by an Angel.
August 2, 1996: Brian and I busked on Bloor
Thirty years ago today
On Friday I busked with Brian Haddon on Bloor Street and in the evening we performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.
Saturday, 1 August 2026
Once Upon a Mattress
On Monday morning I went to bed at 1:45 and slept a little for an hour but then started feeling the bedbugs. I was picking them off me and my bed and crushing them while trying to sleep. I got up at around 3:30 for a search and destroy mission and tried to figure out where they all come from. I have a bedbug proof mattress cover so they can’t be nesting in my bed although I do find them all over it. I’m not sure if the ones that were nesting under the baseboards can get past all the diatomaceous earth I’ve put down. There might be nests in the cracks between some of the floor boards so I might have to get some wood filler. Now that I’ve finished mounting my bathroom mirror I was going to finish cleaning up the splattered paint on the tiles but right now the bedbugs are a priority so I have to focus on the bedroom until they are under control. I need a new more powerful vacuum cleaner so I think I’ll buy one this week.
I searched for images of Boris Vian to post on my Boris Vian Facebook page and found a few.
I memorized the first verse of “Shylock” by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s only be one more verse to nail down.
I weighed 90.7 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin during song practice for the first of two sessions and as usual it went out of tune all the time.
I weighed 91.65 kilos before lunch.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 91 kilos at 18:05.
I was several days behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up.
I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching the Archive of American Television Biography of Carol Burnett. This is done as an interview by Karen Herman.
Carol was born Carol Creighton Burnett in San Antonio, Texas on April 26, 1933. Creighton was her mother’s maiden name. She says. “I had no nicknames growing up that I could repeat here.” She finished second grade in Texas and then her grandmother took her by train to Hollywood so they could be near Carol’s mother.
She grew up a block north of Hollywood Boulevard but it was really a million kilometers from Hollywood. They were on government assistance but her grandmother managed to save enough so they could see four double features a week. She got in for 11 cents and her grandmother paid 26 cents. They would always go before the peek hours so they got the lower prices. Her favourites were Betty Grable movie musicals. At one time Betty was the biggest movie star in the world and a very popular pin-up girl for soldiers during WWII. After seeing a picture Carol would get together with neighbourhood kids and they would reenact it. Her favourite actor was James Stewart because he reminded her of her dad. Years later she got to know James Stewart and his wife very well.
Carol didn’t think about becoming an entertainer until she went to college. Before that she wanted to write like her mother dreamed of. Her mother wanted to interview movie stars and she did do some freelance work. She interviewed Rita Hayworth and Bob Hope.
Carol was the editor of her junior high school and high school newspapers. When she went to UCLA she majored in Theatre Arts English because then she could take play writing courses. When you major in Theatre Arts, as a freshman you have to take everything. You have to take Scenery, Costume, Lighting, Sound, and Acting. She was scared to death to stand up and perform but when she did a comedy scene and got laughs she felt a wonderful freedom that she had never felt before and she was bitten by the bug.
Carol was a quiet nerd as a child and a good student with good grades.
She would sing as a child with her mother and grandmother in the kitchen while her mother played the ukulele.
In college she was cast as one of the nurses in a production of South Pacific and while singing with the chorus she was louder than the others. Because of that she was asked to sing “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls. Then she realized that she wanted to do musical comedy. She never learned to read music.
Carol’s mother lived across the hall and she had a small TV set. Her mother watched Korla Pandit and The Continental. Pandit was an exotica musician who played the organ and looked and talked sexily to the camera. He claimed to be from India but he was a black man from the southern US.
Carol’s goal was to be on Broadway and she had no dreams of being on television. She was in a musical comedy class at UCLA and the professor had the class be the entertainment at a party in San Diego. Carol did a scene from Annie Get Your Gun. Later she was stealing hors d’oeuvres to take home to her grandmother when someone tapped her on the shoulder. It was a man and his wife who told her they enjoyed her performance. He asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She said she would like to perform musical comedy on stage in New York. he asked, “Why aren’t you there now?” She explained she was only making 75 cents an hour as an usher on weekends and it would take quite a while to save the money. He told her he would give her the money and at first Carol didn’t believe him but his wife confirmed that he was serious. He told her to be in his office a week from Monday morning at 9:00 and he would write her a cheque. A week later he gave her the cheque for $1000 and told her it was a loan. She had to pay him back in five years with no interest if she became successful. He told her that he had to remain anonymous and that she had to promise to help others if she became successful. She’d never seen $1000 in her life. Her grandmother wanted her to spend the money at home to help the family but Carol had made a promise so she kept it.
Carol quit school and headed for New York. She’d never been further east than Texas. She didn’t know enough to be scared in New York so she wasn’t cynical and didn’t put up any barriers. She thinks her positive attitude was nurtured by watching those Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movies in which life was simple and there was always a happy ending.
She came with the goal of being in a show directed by George Abbott, who was the number one director of musical comedies. A few years later Carol’s first show on Broadway was Once Upon a Mattress and it was directed by George Abbott.
Five years to the day Carol paid her benefactor back. To fulfill his other stipulation, she started Musical Comedy scholarships at UCLA, an Acting scholarship at Emerson College in Boston, a Journalism scholarship at the University of Hawaii, and sometimes she helps people out on an individual basis. She and her husband anonymously sponsored the high school education of a very poor child, paid for him to be sent to a private school and he started getting A grades.
Her first appearance on television was on Omnibus when Leonard Bernstein was the host. She came in and belted out a song then Bernstein hugged her and said, “You’re on next Sunday!” She did a song from DuBarry Was a Lady called “Give em the Ooh La la”.
She was on the Paul Winchell kiddy TV show for a few months starting on December 17, 1955. She called her grandmother to tell her to watch and her grandmother asked her to say hello to her. So that’s how Carol’s ear pulling signal began. Her only job on that show was singing.
She worked on a sitcom starring Buddy Hackett called Stanley and it was the only live sitcom ever to have been done. It was produced by Max Liebman who had done Your Show of Shows. Carol played Buddy’s girlfriend.
Her role as the Princess in Once Upon a Mattress led to her being cast as a second banana on The Garry Moore Show. It was then that she started liking television because she was able to do sketch comedy as opposed to a sitcom where you’re the same character all the time. It was different every week and so she never got bored. Then she realized that what she really wanted to do was musical comedy variety.
Before Garry Moore she appeared on Jack Paar’s Tonight Show and she did a number called “I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles”, which was written by Ken Welch, who along with his wife Mitzi later became Carol’s writers on her show and after. The song was written during the Elvis Presley craze and Ken thought it would be funny to write a song about someone who was just as gaga over the very boring secretary of state as other girls were over Elvis. Carol had sung the song at The Blue Angel nightclub and the audience went nuts so Jack asked her to do it on his show. After that Dulles’s television advisor asked Carol to do it on The Tonight Show again because Dulles had missed it. After that Ed Sullivan booked her to sing it on his show. The next Sunday Dulles was on Meet the Press and at the end he was asked about his relationship with the girl who sings that song about him. He just said he makes it a matter of policy to never discuss matters of the heart on television.
One of the times when Carol appeared on Ed Sullivan, Elvis was on as well. He gave her an autographed picture for her sister Chrissie.
Carol had done The Garry Moore Show as a guest. But one week when Martha Rae was supposed to be on the show she got sick and so Carol was asked to take her place. A week later Carol was invited to be a regular. She says Garry Moore was very underrated as a showman. He was also very generous. If he and the cast were going over a script he might decide to give a line written for him to Carol of somebody else if he thought it was a better fit. Garry said, “My show is a success because I know where the strengths are.” He never raised his voice in anger which inspired everybody else to be nice. It was a happy show and that inspired Carol to do the same thing when she got her own show. She tried to give everyone a chance to shine.
On The Garry Moore Show they tricked Carol on her final appearance. They had done a sketch on found money on another episode. Gerry asked Carol if there’s a sketch she’d like to repeat for her final show and she picked that one. Carol plays a woman who comes home with an airline bag containing $10,000 she found in the back of a taxi. In the middle of the sketch Carol was supposed to make a costume change and she would normally do that in the elevator but it didn’t come. So Carol ran up four floors to her dressing room. Meanwhile Garry is telling the audience that they are tricking her. Carol comes in with the bag and was supposed to open it but they had wired it shut. Several other things went wrong. Derward was pretending to be drunk. Carol really thought everybody had lost their minds. When Carol was starting to be overwhelmed, Garry came out to reveal the trick. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Carol met her second husband Joe Hamilton when he was producing The Garry Moore Show.
Carol left The Garry Moore Show to do more Broadway. She was pregnant and trying to do too much. She was on a show called The Entertainers while at the same time doing a Broadway Show called Fade Out Fade In and she was overwhelmed.
Carol and her husband Joe Hamilton moved out to LA and didn’t do much for a while. She did a couple of guest appearances on The Lucy Show. Lucy told Carol she was lucky she had Joe because he could be the heavy and Carol could relax and be Carol. Lucy had that when she was with Desi but after she divorced Desi she had to get tougher and they started calling her Lucille Balls. Men in show business who take charge are normal but when a woman does it she’s a bitch. Carol says she was always afraid to speak up on her show. She would just say she didn’t feel she fit in with the way a sketch was going. Now she realizes that “No” can be a complete sentence but she tries to be nice about it.
Carol says she learned from Lucy that comedy, no matter how silly has to be truthful and serious. She was meticulous and so her show was a well-oiled machine that could be taped in an hour. Carol thinks it’s ridiculous that some sitcoms take 24 hours to shoot.
Carol was on The Twilight Zone in 1962. Rod Serling had been a guest on The Garry Moore Show and they did a takeoff on The Twilight Zone that was written by Niel Simon who was a junior writer for Garry’s show. That week Rod told Carol that he had a pilot he wrote for comedian Jesse White in which he’d play an angel and he asked Carol to be in it. She played an usher and she did a routine similar to when she was an usher in college. The theatre where she’d worked had a crazy manager who refused to talk or be talked to and just used a series of signals. Carol was the spot girl because she was the tallest and had the loudest voice. He had hand signals to refer to “spot”, a hand as a pointed gun to mean “shoot” and then signals for aisle 1, 2, and 3 and another meaning “balcony”. Carol would stand in the middle of the lobby on an amber spot and shout “Aisle 2 straight ahead and the stairway to your right!” One time Carol got in trouble when she told him with words that he was wanted on the phone. He barked at her and told her from now on to use the “phone” signal with the thumb and pinky extended and the middle fingers folded in. She was fired one night when Strangers On a Train was playing. In those days people would just come in in the middle of a movie, watch it to the end and then sit until the next showing so they could see the beginning and then leave when they got to the point where they came in. A couple came in during the last five minutes and wanted to be seated. Carol suggested they go get some popcorn and wait to see it from the beginning so they wouldn’t spoil it for themselves. The ushers were all female and they wore fezzes and jackets with epaulets. When the manager saw Carol wasn’t letting them sit down he tore off her epaulettes and drummed her out of the usher corps. She says she must have told that story to Rod Serling because he wrote the usher character into the pilot. Years later when Carol got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame she arranged for them to put it directly in front of the theatre where she was fired.
Carol had signed a contract with CBS for ten years when she left The Garry Moore Show that required her to do two guest appearances and a special every year. She had the very rare option in the contract that within the first five years she could push the button and they had to put her on the air for thirty weeks in a one-hour variety show. At the time she and Joe were not doing well. They had a family coming and they were trying to buy a house. They had one week left before pushing the button would no longer be an option. She called up the head of CBS and told him she wanted to push the button to get a variety show and there was silence on the other end. He said, “Let me get back to you” and Carol knew he didn’t know what she was talking about. She says he must have went to the lawyers and found out about the option. He called her the next day and offered her a sitcom called “Here’s Agnes”. She told him she wanted to do a musical comedy variety show. No woman had ever had a comedy variety show. Dinah Shore had a musical variety show. Since Carol wouldn’t accept the sitcom they were legally bound to give her the variety show.
She got Monday nights opposite I Spy and Big Valley. She never dreamed she’d be on for more than 30 weeks.
When Carol got the show she wanted to have what Garry’d had, which was a true repertory company. She’d seen Harvey Korman as Danny Kaye’s second banana and she told Joe they needed somebody like Harvey because Harvey was like Carl Reiner was for Sid Caesar. Danny’s show was going off the air just as hers was coming on and she ran into Harvey in the CBS parking lot. She grabbed him and pushed him against a car, saying, “You’ve gotta be on our show!” He couldn’t say no.
Vicki Lawrence had written to Carol asking for advice. She was in a singing group called The Young Americans. She wrote that she was vying for the title of Miss Fireball of Inglewood but the letter reached Carol on the day of the contest. She looked at Vicki’s picture and had a feeling. Carol was pregnant and could go into labour at any time but she told Joe they were going to the Miss Fireball contest that night. She got Vicki’s father’s number from the operator and called. Vicki’s mother answered and when she heard that Carol Burnett wanted to talk to Vicki she started screaming for her. Vicki answered the phone saying, “Hi Marsha!” because she thought it was her friend’s crank call. Vicki was hired for the show but for the first four years she just did the Carol and Sis sketch and a few musical numbers. But she was a sponge and absorbed everything that Harvey and Carol were doing. In the third or fourth year she started developing her own characters.
Tim Conway had been a guest on The Garry Moore Show and he’d been on McHale’s Navy. Carol says there is nobody funnier in the world. He became a regular guest on Carol’s show. They didn’t sign him as a regular until season 9 even though everybody thought he’d been with her all the time.
Carol says Conway’s goal in life was to destroy Harvey. It started when they did a sketch in which Tim was a new dentist and Harvey was his first patient. Tim started going off script and shooting himself accidentally with novocaine so parts of his body were incapacitated while he was working on Harvey and it caused Harvey to lose control and crack up. He was laughing so hard that he was in tears. Once Tim got on a roll he would always go off script. He would do everything perfectly in the dress rehearsal but when he deviated it was always gold. Harvey and Tim love each other and now even go out on the road to do an act.
When Carol wasn’t sure of a character she was doing, Bob Mackie would solidify it with a costume or a wig. That would inspire Carol to develop a walk or talk for the character. For instance Mrs. Wiggins’s walk came about because the skirt was so tight that if Carol were to stand up straight the skirt would bunch up. Bob told her to stick her behind out. With Eunice it was different because she understood the character from the script. But Bob made the Went With the Wind sketch with the gown he made for Carol out of the curtains that utilized the curtain rod as well. Carol thought it was the most brilliant sight gag of all time.
Carol developed her Tarzan yell when she was still a child. She used to see the Tarzan movies with her cousin and then they’d act them out. Her cousin would play Jane and Carol would play Tarzan. After seeing a Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald movie Carol would play Nelson.
Carol hopes variety shows will come back but she thinks networks are scared of them. She thinks they’re scared of music. Carol says audiences love sketches and they love to see famous people thrown into sketches that put them in a different light. If she had her show today she’d have Megan Mullally and Julia Louis Dreyfuss on and have them sing. Carol admits that there could never be a show exactly like hers because of the cost. She had a twenty piece orchestra and the costumes today would be too expensive to make. She thinks Bette Midler could have had a great variety show because she’s variety performer. She suggests that Martin Short could also helm a variety show.
Carol says fame has never been important to her. She would have been happy just making a decent living. She doesn’t get stopped on the street in LA but she does in New York where a cab driver might shout, “Hey Carol!” She says little girls know her from the role she played in the film adaptation of Annie.
Carol’s advice to those starting out is to get an education because the more you know the more material you have command over and the funnier you can be.
The final question for all interviewees of this series is “How would you like to be remembered?” Carol says, “She made me laugh.”
Once Upon a Mattress was Carol Burnett’s first Broadway show and the fulfillment of a dream. It was a musical comedy with music by Mary Rodgers and lyrics by Marshall Barer. It was based on the Hans Christian Andersen story The Princess and the Pea. In this version Queen Aggravain has forbidden anyone in her kingdom from getting married until Prince Dauntless does. But any potential bride for Dauntless must be so sensitive that she can detect a pea under several mattresses. There are several other tests leading up to this one and all of the other princesses fail until Princess Winnifred from the Swamps arrives, played by Carol in the original production. Of course Winnifred wins. The first television adaptation was done in 1964 and featured the original Broadway cast including Carol. It also featured Elliot Gould in his first ever screen appearance. In 1972 another TV adaptation was done, this time in colour and also starring Carol. In 2005 another TV adaptation was produced by Disney with Tracy Ullman in Carol’s original role and Carol playing Queen Aggravain.
August 1, 1996: I swamped furniture
Thirty years ago today
On Thursday I might’ve gotten some work swamping furniture for Keith Anderson Moving and Storage.
Friday, 31 July 2026
July 31, 1996: I rehearsed with Brian and then went to the Art bar reading series
Thirty years ago today
On Wednesday Brian Haddon and I rehearsed for my feature at the Art Bar reading series and later I went there at the Csarda Hungarian restaurant to perform on the open stage.
Thursday, 30 July 2026
Craig Richard Nelson
I finished editing and then published “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian in my Christian’s Translations blog. Tomorrow I’ll look for a new photo of Vian to post on my Boris Vian Facebook fan page.
I worked on memorizing the first verse of “Shylock” by Serge Gainsbourg. I should have that nailed down tomorrow and then there’ll only be one more verse to learn.
I weighed 90.45 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time.
Around midday I finally mounted my bathroom mirror and it looked great. I bought it on August 8 of last year for $5. The frame was broken and coloured in an ugly three-tone combination of brown, beige, and silver. I glued it back together on September 16, 2025, and sanded it. I filled up the cracks with drywall compound and sanded it, then filled it some more and sanded that. Over the next a couple of weeks I primed it and then it sat for months as I waited to finish painting the bathroom. I started painting it blue on May 29, leaving the floral reliefs to paint pink. I only finished painting it last week.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 91.2 kilos at 18:00.
I was more than a day behind on my journal and worked on trying to catch up.
I made pizza on a slice of sandwich bread with rosée tomato sauce, tomato pesto, a chopped burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching the series finale of The Carol Burnett Show.
The audience gives Carol a standing ovation when she comes out.
Carol introduces the 85 year old Lillian Gish, who’s in the audience. Lillian blows Carol a kiss. They worked together the year before that in the film A Wedding.
Carol shows a clip of her first audience warmup.
Since Jim Nabors always guest starred for every season premier she shows clips of her introducing him and Jim always looks the same while Carol looks different in every season.
She shows several clips of her doing her Tarzan yell. She does it one more time and gunshots ring out as Carol falls to the stage.
She shows several clips of the duets she did with guest stars, starting with Liza Minelli in 1967 when they sang “Just in Time” by Jule Style, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green from the 1956 musical Bells Are Ringing. With Ella Fitzgerald she sang “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” by Bacharach and David from 1968. In 1969 she sang with Perry Como “My Funny Valentine" by Rodgers and Hart from the 1937 musical Babes in Arms. In 1972 she sang “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry” with Ray Charles. In 1969 she sang “Flattery” with Bing Crosby. In 1975 she sang with Rock Hudson a song written for the show. In 1976 she sang “The 12th Street Rag” with Steve Lawrence. In 1976 she sang “Hooray for Hollywood” with Eydie Gormé.
Carol shows a clip of Burt Reynolds doing pratfalls while singing “As Time Goes By”.
Carol introduces the final Tudball-Wiggins sketch. She says it takes a full week to rehearse one of these sketches: one day of rehearsal and six days to get her into that skirt.
Mr. Tudball is packing up to move to his new offices across town. Wiggins grabs a box from his desk but he tells her it’s too heavy. The bottom falls out and his files fall to the floor. Wiggins says, “It’s light!” He angrily says he doesn’t know why he keeps her on or why he hired her in the first place. We see a flashback (not to a past skit but to Wiggins’s hiring as written for this skit). Tudball is interviewing secretaries while Mrs. Tudball (played by Vicki) is sitting there. Toni Kaye the cutest of the Ernie Flatt dancers is showing her resume and Tudball is impressed, but Mrs. Tudball simply shakes her head. She has the same fake Swedish accent as Mr. Tudball when she tells him that when the right one comes through the door she’ll let him know. Mrs. Wiggins comes in and says, “Here’s my resumé” but pronounces it as “rezoom”. Her resumé only has her name on it. He asks if she takes shorthand and she says no. She also has no filing experience. He says, “You type don’t you?” She says, “I don’t know, I’ve never tried.” He asks if she can use a Xerox and she asks, “A what?” He’s about to reject her but Mrs. Tudball insists that Wiggins is the one. If he doesn’t agree then Mrs. Tudball would come in every day and do the job and so he agrees to hire Wiggins. He tells her to get busy and she looks for something to do. She sharpens his pen in the electric sharpener. Returning to the present, Wiggins tells Tudball he has yet to give her the address to the new office. He tells her he’s decided to cut the office staff in half. She says she can’t run the office all by herself. He says he’s decided to let her go. She says, “You’re the best boss I ever had” and then she leaves his office to sit at her desk and cry. He feels bad so he tells her he’s keeping her on. She just says, “Okay” then keeps up to get her coat and tells him they better shake the leggy if they want to get to the new offices. He pauses to look at the old offices and reminisce but she locks the door behind her and he can’t get out.
Carol brings Tim out and he reminds her that “You have a favourite performer who you’ve never had on the show, but he’s been here all week with his piano. So since it’s the last show I’d like to take the opportunity to give the guy a break. Do you mind? Excuse me.” Tim walks off and the curtain behind Carol goes up and she is shocked to see her hero Jimmy Stewart sitting at the piano. He starts playing and singing the 1912 song “Ragtime Cowboy Joe” by Grant Clarke, Lewis F. Muir, and Maurice Abrahams. When he finishes, Carol is in tears as she gives him a big hug. They walk out to the front stage and she’s still crying as she tells the audience they don’t know what this means to her. “I have worshiped this man my whole life!” He says, “I feel so wonderful to be part of these millions of people to thank you.” He tells her he loves her and she says the same as he kisses her and then walks off.
Tim comes back out and they show a series of clips of musical numbers in which the comical gimmick that accompanied them was water. The first one shows Harvey Korman as a he steers a ship in a storm while singing “They Call the Wind Mariah” by Lerner and Loewe from the musical Paint Your Wagon, while the ship falls apart around him and he gets hit by a lot of water, several big fish, and an octopus. Then we see Carol singing “Come Rain or Come Shine” by Arlen and Mercer as she gets pelted with water from every side.
We see Carol and Tim sitting now as Tim says, “Here are a couple of solos Carol sang that are my favourites and I’m sure they won’t be yours either.” They show the skit in which Carol while playing a beatnik type character sings “The Lady is a Tramp” by Rodgers and Hart. Then there’s a skit where Tim plays his stunned farmer character sitting in a bathtub as Carol pours in hot water and then washes him while singing the 1977 song “You Light Up My Life” by Joseph Brooks. Then with her dress on she gets into the tub with him.
They show a clip from the spoof Carol did with Steve Lawrence on The African Queen in which her parody of Hepburn keeps knocking his Bogart overboard until she finally gives in to her love for him but he throws her overboard.
They show a clip from the spoof on The Postman Always Rings Twice in which Carol plays the Lana Turner role all in white. Harvey plays Nick, her unwanted immigrant husband and Steve plays Drifter, her tough guy lover. She tells Drifter her husband is insured and asks him to kill him. He asks, “What do I get out of it?” She says “$10,000 and me.” he asks, “”How bout a straight $5000?” Nick catches them kissing and Lana tells Drifter to shoot but he can’t do it. They struggle for the gun and she is fatally shot. She says goodbye to Drifter, Nick, Tony the truckdriver, Bill the milkman, Mike the cook. Then she is gone and they start to cry but she opens her eyes to continue with, “Larry the waiter, your cousin Nicky, your Uncle Harold” then she’s gone again but comes back to continue with “Shirley the waitress, Bob the night watchman…” At this point Nick and Drifter let her drop to the floor and walk away together.
They show a clip of their take-off on Betty Grable film The Dolly Sisters in which Carol’s character Jenny wakes up with amnesia and sings “Hello Who Are You” to the mirror.
Carol tells the story of receiving a fan letter from a girl who enclosed a picture to show how much she looked like Carol. Carol says she felt so sorry for her that she gave her a job and it was one of the smartest moves she ever made. She brings out Vicki Lawrence to sit on stage with her and Tim. They show a clip of Vicki performing her 1972 hit song, “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” written by her then husband Bobby Russell. They then show a clip of Vicki’s parody of the country song “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” that was a hit for Tammy Wynette while Vicki is made up as a parody of Loretta Lynn.
They show a clip from a skit they did when they had Bing Crosby as a guest. In a restaurant scene, Carol plays a waiter who is gaga over having Bing at her table. He asks, “Can we order?” but then she surprises Bing by saying, “Don’t bug me! Here comes the biggest star of them all!” and then Bob Hope walks out.
They show a clip from the first sketch that Tim did on the show in which he played a news anchor being handed incomplete information. “Here are the sports scores: 2 to 1, 3 to 5, and 8 to 2”. Tim says he wrote that sketch but he never got paid for it.
“It’s a little late I suppose”.
They show a clip from a takeoff they did on Columbo in which they had no idea what Tim was going to do. Tim says, “Neither did Tim”. Tim plays a Butler who serves Harvey. A murder has just been committed and there is a knock on the door. Harvey insists that Tim put on his gloves because of fingerprints but he has just waxed the doorknob and can’t turn it with his gloves on. He climbs up and tries to use his feet, then he sits on the knob to try and turn it with his legs. He cracks Harvey up as usual.
They show the clip in which Dick Van Dyke played a once famous piano player who is trying to get his wife (played by Carol) to injure his hands so they can collect on a $50,000 insurance policy. But Carol keeps missing and injures everything else but his hands.
Carol is dressed as Eunice as she tells the audience that tonight they’re doing what they should have done a long time ago, and that’s send Eunice to a psychiatrist.
Eunice arrives in Dr. Tate’s office and says, “You win”. She was there last week and said she wasn’t gonna come back but she did. She says, “After all what can you do for me?” “What would you like me to do?” “There you go again! Answerin a question with a question! I don’t need to pay good money for that!” “This is a County service Eunice. You’re not being charged.” “There is the gasoline money gettin here and back. And my time is worth somethin ain’t it? Besides we both know what the problem is.” “How would you define the problem?” “I do everything for everybody and everybody treats me like dirt! Now my husband, I gave up my entire life for him and one day he just up and leaves without so much as a turn green or kiss my foot! Leaving me with two miserable brats! And then my Mama moves in on me and she’s makin my life absolutely unbearable! And if people hadn’t kept interferin with my life I could’ve had a big career!” “Now now Eunice! You know what we say about could’ve and should’ve?” “Could’ve and should’ve are words we don’t use. They only depress us and give us the blues.” “Now we had a little plan didn’t we? You were going to take that first step on the road to independence and get yourself a job. How many job interviews did you go on this week?” “Well I went to that uppity insurance company.” “That was last week.” “I don’t belong in an office anyway. I belong in show business!” “Did you go on any job interviews this week?” “No. Sometimes you talk just like Mama. It makes me so nervous I can’t even think!” “You know you don’t have to react. Remember that little poem we learned?” “When confronted with a foe bless him praise him let him go.” Eunice relates how the other night Mama looked up and said, “My my, just look at that big clump of cobwebs on the chandelier!” Eunice says she went into a rage and wound up smashing every light bulb in the house. Eunice says she doesn’t like the funny moods she’s been having. The doctor says, “Let’s examine these moods. Let’s put them on the table and see if they bounce.” “I know what my problem is! It’s my mother!” “All right, let’s examine that. Did you bring her along like I suggested?” “She’s out there in the waiting room.” “Let’s just bring her in.” Mama comes in and Tate tells her he’s really happy to see her. Mama says she doesn’t want to butt in on Eunice’s time. “Lord knows she needs all the help she can get. I ain’t gonna haveta lie down on the sofa am I?” “No, we’re into sitting in this office.” Mama says, “It’s really none of my business…” “Oh but it is your business. You two share the same house. You occupy the same vibe space.” “Now that’s not true. I sleep in a completely different room.” “I mean, two women who live under the same roof. That’s just bound to cause tensions and anxieties. Your daughter’s hangups become your hangups and vice versa.” “You understand what he’s sayin Mama?” “I understand that I’m being made the heavy again when you’re the one that broke every single lightbulb in the house!” “Let’s just forget about the lightbulbs. We’re gonna relax now. Close your eyes and start out by taking a deep breath.” Mama is not closing her eyes and looks disgusted. She says, “I don’t think we got very much time left on that parking meter.” “We got plenty of time. I put a dime in the meter!” “That’s typical! You put in twice the amount that is necessary!” Tate says, “I’m getting angry! I’m feeling anger because I just made a suggestion not two minutes ago and both of you have decided to ignore it completely!... There. Now the anger’s gone. You see how easily I dealt with that? Now let’s relax! (He precedes to try to guide them through a relaxation exercise that is very similar to one that I guided my yoga students through at the end of each class) Close your eyes.” Even Mama closes her eyes this time. But when Tate says, “Let’s all become aware of our toes” she opens them again. Tate says, “Just let a golden light ignite in your toes.” Mama is looking at everybody’s feet and then looking away in disbelief. Tate says, “Just let a golden light ignite in your toes. It feels good so let it rise up your legs, your calves, your thighs, your hips…” Suddenly Mama asks, “What in the hell is he talkin about?” Eunice says, “If you shut up you’ll find out!” Tate says, “Ladies, just let me get the golden light up to your heads! Mrs. Harper, close your eyes!” “All right but you stay over there! I don’t want no funny business!” “The golden light is in your chest, it’s moving up your neck, it’s in your head, you’re floating on a cloud. Now open your eyes. See? Our tensions are gone. The lines of communication are freeing and opening up. And we’re in the present, we don’t care about the past. What is it we care about now?” Mama says, “I don’t know what your drivin at!” “We care about the here and now so let’s get all those unsaid resentments out of the way. Let’s just say to them OUT OUT OUT! Phooey on youey!” Eunice shouts, “Phooey on youey!” Suddenly Mama stands up and says, “Is this what you’ve been comin down here for? Ta get a little golden light in your head and play these stupid games?” Eunice stands to confront her but Tate insists, “Ladies, sit down!” and they do. “Now we’re gonna play a game. We’re just gonna be up front and say exactly what it is that we want out of life. You go first Eunice.” “I wanna be treated like an adult. I wanna get up in the mornin when I wanna get up. I wanna drive my car the way I want without somebody always sayin turn left, turn right, look out! I wanna walk into my own kitchen without someone tellin me about the greaseballs under my ice box. And I would like some encouragement about havin a career in show business.” “If you wanted a career in show business don’t you think you should’a stayed in Lula Belle’s tap dance class for more than a week?” “If you and Lula Belle had stopped ridiculing me every time I did a time step I would be givin Mitzi Gaynor a run for her money today!” Tate says, “Nobody cares about Lula Belle’s tap dance class or Mitzi Gaynor anymore! Mrs. Harper, it’s your turn.” Mama says, “I’m an old woman with a few short years left. I would like my daughter to accept my household hints with a little good grace and without snappin my head off. I am only tryin to help her make that two-by-four shack we live in fit for human beings. And I would like to watch the wrestling re-runs on TV at 6:30 instead of them damn Tattle Tales. And I would like to have a daughter that treats me with a little bit of respect instead of draggin the family name through the mud by goin crazy!” Eunice stands up and walks across the room. She shouts, “Don’t you care that your daughter is on the verge of a nervous breakdown!” She starts banging her own head against the wall. Tate says, “If you two don’t release each other from this stranglehold, you Eunice are going to keep having destructive fits; and you Mrs. Harper are going to curdle up into a sour little ball! And then you both are just gonna dry up and blow away!” Mama stands up and says to Eunice, “I have taken ingratitude, disrespect, abuse and back talk from you for your entire life! But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna take it from some damned if I’ll take it from some sassy faced quack! Phooey on youey!” and then she storms out of the office. Eunice says to Tate, “Y’see?” “Well, she’s no picnic. But neither are you.” “She’s the reason I keep havin these fits!” “Sit on it! It’s not that old bag you’re having trouble with! It’s Eunice! You are furious with Eunice because she never finished anything that she started! It’s time for you to take charge of your own life!” “I could if she’d just allow me to breathe once in a while but…” “Forget Mama! We don’t care what mama don’t allow! We’re gonna take charge of our own life anyhow! Work on your own self esteem. Say hey, I’m okay! Hey, I like me!” “I can’t because I’m not okay! I never have liked me.” “Just say it. Say I’m okay! Say it and it’ll be true, I promise.” “I’m okay!” “Say I’m okay and you’re okay.” “I’m okay and you’re okay!” “Say I’m okay and you’re okay and Mama’s okay!” “I’m okay and you’re okay and m…what?” “Say it!” She says it. Tate tells Eunice her life will take on a golden hue just as soon as she takes that first little step on the road to independence and go to that employment agency to get herself a job. “I like you, I think you’re okay, and I know that you can do it.” They embrace and Eunice says, “I like me too and I am okay.” mama steps in and asks, “Am I supposed to sit out here all day like a can of trash?” “I’m comin Mama.” “There’s probably a ticket on the car!” “If there is I’ll pay for it.” “With what? Your ex-husband let you with so little you can barely afford a can of beans!” “I’ll get by because I’m okay and you’re okay!” “You sound like yer one step away from the booby hatch!” Eunice starts banging her own head against the wall again. Tate says, “Hey!” and she stops and says, “I am okay. Mama? On the way home we’re gonna stop by the employment agency because I’m gonna get me a job!” “I’ll believe that the day I see it, the day you actually follow through with anything! You’ll never amount ta nothin!” then Mama leaves the office again. Before leaving, Eunice repeats, “When confronted by a foe, bless her, praise her, and let her go.”
Carol wishes she had enough time to show all of her guests over the years. She shows some pictures from one of her scrapbooks of Lucy, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr., the fabulous wonderful Cass Elliot, Gloria Swanson as Charlie Chaplin, Emmett Kelly, and the Ernie Flatt Dancers.
Carol introduces the Ernie Flatt Dancers and they dance to “Magic Bird if Fire” by Igor Stravinsky as played by The Salsoul Orchestra.
Carol says when you tape a show before a live audience mistakes are bound to happen. So the show is taped twice every Friday and the best of both are broadcast. But we have kept all of the outtakes and now we feel you are old enough to see a few of them.
There’s one where carol starts to sing “Put the Blame on Mame” but when she throws her head back her wig flies off.
Harvey Korman and Carl Reiner are playing Nazi officers in a restaurant. Harvey is walking to their table and Carl tells him he forgot his limp, so he starts limping but when he sits down the chair collapses.
They show the first time Harvey Korman ever appeared in drag as Mother Marcus on As The Stomach Turns and it was the first time Carol had ever seen it.
Carol says the most unprofessional thing an actor to do is to start to laugh and so she shows some clips in which they do so.
There’s the one where Carol is a maid spoon feeding Vicki and Vicki cracks up.
There’s another As the Stomach Turns sketch with Mother Marcus in which she says she’s a spiritual medium who communicates with the dearly departed. She says she thinks she’s picking up Lyle Wagonner who had recently departed the show. Carol reaches over and pinches Harvey’s fake breast and they both start laughing.
There’s the spoof of the Mickey Rooney Judy Garland movies in which Carol is singing in front of a horse and the horse takes a shit.
There’s a scene with Harvey and Tim in which has been given a serum that makes him behave like a dog. He becomes very affectionate in a doglike way to Harvey and then he eats a hard boiled egg like a dog causing Harvey to burst into laughter.
They show the Mary Worthless sketch in which Harvey gets a cake in the face and then jumps out the window. Carol says she’s not doing this again.
As with the end of every season we see Carol as the Charwoman and as usual the cast walks by her and say goodnight. But this time after the dancers pass we also see some of her guests stars, such as Bernadette Peters, Jim Nabors, Roddy McDowell, Betty White, and finally Harvey Korman, who stops to give her a kiss.
The Charwoman sits on her bucket, takes off her cap and becomes Carol to say, “This is an evening of mixed emotions.” She wants to clear up some of the rumours that have been going around as to why she decided to end the show. In 11 years they had four time slots with high and low ratings. There were seasons with lower ratings than season 11. She says she thinks it’s classier to leave before being asked. She says CBS enthusiastically picked the show up for a twelfth year. She says it’s time to move on to other things because change is growth. She says their director Dave Powers is going to direct Three’s Company next year. She thanks the producers, the crew and the creative staff.
She says, “No one could feel more grateful than I do for having had the opportunity to work with, and learn from the brilliant talent of Harvey Korman who has no creative limits.
She says Vicki Lawrence has blossomed into one of the finest character actors and comedians in the industry.
Tim Conway defies description. His brain never slows down and those little wheels are constantly churning out original chunks of genius. It’s a credit to Tim that some of the giants in comedy steal from him. He wouldn’t say it but I can. He’s even nicer than he is talented.
As usual for a finale Carol sings the full lyrics to her theme song but while doing so has to wipe tears away.
Dr. Tate the Psychiatrist was played excellently by Craig Richard Nelson, who studied acting at The University of Utah and the Tisch School of the Arts. After graduation he made his Broadway debut in Two Gentlemen of Verona. His performance led to his film debut in The Paper Chase. He played Mason Woodruff on the 1974 sitcom Friend and Lovers. He played Mr. Spacek on the sitcom Square Pegs. He played Krag in the season three episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “A Matter of Perspective”.
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