June 28, 1996: I was depressed about my eviction

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I was depressed about the court decision to evict me from 111 Sheridan Avenue. Now I had to find a new place to live and started checking out the available apartment rentals within my limited budget in the downtown area. In the evening I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.

Beverly Sills

            On Friday morning I finished working out the chords for the “Que je t’aime” (That I Love You) parody” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing it in French and English and then upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication. 

            I weighed 90 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice and it continues to go out of tune for every song.

            Around midday I painted with the “crazy in love” pink hue the outside half of the last of four floral reliefs on my future bathroom mirror. On Sunday I’ll start painting the inside halves. 

            I weighed 90.75 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco because yesterday I forgot to buy Sponge Towels. So this time I got a pack of three, plus some shaving gel. 

            I weighed 90.7 kilos at 17:55. 

            I worked on getting caught up on my journal at was still a bit behind at suppertime. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 9, episode 16 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup Carol announces that in March of 1976 she will be doing a special called Sills and Burnett at the Met. She introduces Beverly Sills and her husband Peter Greenough, who are in the audience. 

            Someone asks Carol if she’s ever had electrolysis. Carol says just on her chest.

            Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are playing rock paper scissors when their daughter rushes in to announce that she’s met the one she wants to marry. Her mother reminds her that she engaged to marry the Earl of Shikawar. Vicki says she doesn’t want to marry him because he’s “a yutz like daddy”. Elizabeth and Philip decide that the best strategy is to give in. She brings in a soldier played by Tim and it’s the same one they encountered before who wouldn’t let them into Buckingham Palace when he was standing guard. Elizabeth tells the princess that this man once swallowed a live hand grenade and as a result he has no internal organs. The princess says she doesn’t care. Elizabeth gives her permission and the princess says they must prepare the palace for the royal wedding. Tim says he doesn’t want to get married in a palace but in the middle of the ocean. She gives in and says they can get a boat from the Royal Navy but Tim says he doesn’t want a boat. He wants them to be swimming when they tie the knot. Around this time the princess realizes he’s looney. Elizabeth asks him that when he’s out in the middle of the ocean doing the back stroke at night what will he see. He says he’ll see stars. Vicki hits him over the head with a vase and knocks him out, then they all leave. 

            Rita Morino does a dance with some of the male dancers while singing the 1968 song “Some Cats Know” by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. 

            Harvey plays a disgraced officer and Tim plays his commander at a cashiering ceremony. They start laughing from the start and find it hard to keep a straight face throughout the gag. He strips the stripes from Harvey’s right sleeve but can’t seem to get the left ones off. He can’t get his epaulettes but only threads off his shoulders. The medals won’t come off or the buttons on his coat. But during the whole process Tim’s uniform falls apart and his pants fall down until he final drops the charges against Harvey. 

            In a bank, Vicki is a new teller trainee being supervised by Carol. Tim is a novice bank robber being supervised by Harvey. Tim fumbles everything he’s supposed to say or do. Vicki and Carol are laughing because Tim hasn’t given them a note yet. Harvey is mad and tells him to give them the note. Tim is nervous and hands Vicki his gun instead of the note. Harvey takes it back from her. The note reads, “Put $300,000 in this bag, Love, Killer”. Tim forgot to give her the bag. He gives her one but it’s too small for that amount. Carol pulls out the $300,000 bag from behind the counter. Vicki starts to count out the money as she puts it in the bag: “$1, $2, $3…” Carol takes over as the teller and Harvey takes over as the robber, so now it is pro dealing with pro. She puts three $100,000 bundles in the bag, plus the bank calendar, “and a piggy bank for your little friend”. Carol and Harvey are very impressed with each other’s professionalism and are feeling mutual attraction. But she reluctantly says it wouldn’t work because she’s 9:00 to 5:00 and he’s ten to twenty. She says, “You’d better go because I pressed the silent alarm”. Two cops come in. One is a trainee and one is his supervisor. Tim mistakenly hands them his gun and they are arrested. 

            Harvey and Carol are a married couple and Harvey is going away for two days. Carol has been accident prone in the past but feels she is cured. However, just to be sure, Harvey has hired a nurse to watch over Carol for the time Harvey will be gone. Nurse Hawkins (played by Rita) arrives and refers to Carol as a “proney”. Hawkins begins to remove all potentially dangerous items from the apartment and put them in a bag. She picks up a cigarette lighter and says that it’s extremely dangerous, She lights it and burns Carol’s nose. Carol says, “You did it!” but Hawkins says Pronies are always looking for someone to blame. Hawkins takes a knife from the counter and drops it into a bag on the floor but she’s already put the bag on top of Carol’s foot so the knife goes through the bag and stabs Carol’s toe. Hawkins hits Carol in the head when she opens a door. Hawkins sits Carol down in the chair where she left her needlepoint. Carol gives up and admits that she’s accident prone and begins to direct the accidents towards Hawkins just as Hawkins did to Carol. Hawkins gets knocked around, accidentally stabbed, and has her fingers broken until she’s willing to leave. 

            Carol, Vicki and Rita play dishwashers in a fancy restaurant. Their positions are so low that their dreams aren’t much higher. Rita fantasizes about being a secretary while Carol dreams of being a hatcheck girl. They sing “Much More” by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones from the 1960 musical The Fantasticks. They then sing “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” by Cy Coleman and Dorothy fields from the 1966 musical Sweet Charity. 

            Beverly Sills was considered the queen of US opera. She made her debut at the age of 3 won a Brooklyn Beautiful Baby contest in which she sang “The Wedding of Jack and Jill”. She made her professional debut at the age of 4 on Uncle Bob’s Rainbow House radio show. She began to study singing at the age of 7. At the age of 8 she made her film debut, singing in the short film Uncle Sol Solves It. At 16 she made her stage debut with a Gilbert and Sullivan company touring 12 cities in the US and Canada. She sang on the radio in her teens and made her opera debut in Carmen at the age of 18. She was the first US opera star to rise to the top without European training. Her voice type was characterized as lyric coloratura. She sang with the New York City Opera from 1955 to 1980. She became an international star after playing Cleopatra in Handel’s Julias Caesar in 1966. She appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1971. She was largely associated with the operas of Donizetti. She made her Met debut in 1975 in in The Siege of Corinth and received an 18 minutes standing ovation. She recorded 18 full length operas. She won one Grammy Award. Gian Carlo Menotti’s La Loca was written for her to sing. In the late 1970s she won four Emmy Awards for her interview show Lifestyles with Beverly Sills. In later years she became the first woman to direct the New York City Opera Company. In 1994 she became the first female chairman for the Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts. She was the Chair of the Metropolitan Opera from 2002 to 2005.

June 27, 1996: The court melted when they saw my 8 months pregnant landlady and I knew I was screwed

Thirty years ago today

            Thursday was the day of my court appearance to fight my eviction from my apartment 111 Sheridan Avenue. Raven was kind enough to appear in court with me as a witness to dispute the complaints made by my landlords Helga Schlatter and Peter Bird, with whom I shared the kitchen. Raven and I were there early and so I saw the effect on the court when Helga walked in, eight months pregnant. She and Peter looked like Little House on the Prairie and the whole court melted when they saw her. I noticed the judge and all the other court officials smiling when they saw her and I knew right then that I was screwed. It didn’t matter to the judge that Helga had snuck into my apartment to take photos of my space heater, which I’d left on in the winter because Helga and Peter refused to turn on the furnace. When I was writing I often crumpled up discarded drafts into balls and threw them on the floor. Helga showed pictures she’d taken at floor level to make it look like the balls of paper were very close to the heater. She also presented pictures of some food that I’d let go bad in the fridge. Who the hell doesn’t have something that’s going bad in the fridge? She claimed that I’d damaged a baking pan of hers by playing with it in the yard with my daughter but I had an identical pan to hers and it was my pan that I’d dented, and I still have it. She claimed my daughter was poorly behaved (which is ironic considering that the child she gave birth to grew up to be a murderer). She presented a letter from someone who spent the night with her and Peter confirming that my friends and I were loud. Helga gave a dramatic performance to express how much stress I had caused her and while she was emoting I could see the court stenographer giving me the evil eye. I was shocked when Judge B. Wright wouldn’t even let me present Raven as a witness. He just said, “I’ve heard enough. You are a very bad tenant!” He ruled that I had to vacate the premises by the end of July. I was very upset but was grateful to have had Raven’s support. 

            It probably would have been a different result if I’d been able to get legal aid but 1996 was the worst year for Legal Aid in Ontario history. Ontario Premier Mike Harris had slaughtered the budgets for a lot of social programs but especially Legal Aid.

Randy Doney

            On Thursday morning I memorized the second verse of “La complainte de Bonnot”. 

            I worked out the chords for lines three to five of the chorus of the “Que je t’aime” (That I Love You) parody” by Serge Gainsbourg. There are twelve lines in the chorus and I think maybe the sixth line completes the pattern but I’ll find out tomorrow. 

            I weighed 90.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice and as usual it went out of tune for every song. 

            I worked on getting caught up in my journal. 

            I weighed 91.55 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since June 15. 

            In the afternoon I headed out for my bike ride and for the second day in a row there was a bicycle at the bottom of the stairs blocking the exit. 

            I rode downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco where the cherries were very cheap. I also bought bananas, a pack of Oktoberfest sausages, and a pack of Full City Dark coffee. 

            When I came back the bike was still there and it was even more difficult to get past it coming from outside to inside. I ended up knocking it over and had to come back down to set it upright. I wonder which inconsiderate neighbour of mine is the owner. I suspect it’s Delmar in unit 5.

            I weighed 91.3 kilos at 18:20. June 11 was the last evening when I was so unkind to the scale.

            I was behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up. I was still behind at suppertime but starting to catch up. 

            I grilled eight chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching season 9, episode 13 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup a young woman asks Carol how she would change the world if she had three wishes. She says no wars, no disease, and being stranded on a desert island with Paul Newman. 

            Someone asks Carol how is your love life? She answers “G rated”. 

            Eydie Gormé plays a snooty TV star named Marla Nelson who is pretending to be sick in the hospital until she gets more money from the network. Carol (as her old woman character Miss Toddler) is wheeled in by Harvey to the bed next to Marla’s. Harvey tells her they’re just putting her here for a few minutes until they have the results of her X-rays so they know whether to operate or not. He starts helping her into bed until he recognizes Marla and drops Toddler to the floor, forgetting all about her. Marla is annoyed that she no longer has a private room. Toddler is trying to climb from the floor to the bed and has her hand on the bed trying to pull herself up when Harvey sits on her hand as he’s talking to Marla. Toddler makes it into bed but she is moaning in pain. Marla and Harvey tell her to be quiet. Harvey starts to try to impress Marla with his impressions. He grabs Toddler’s blanket for a prop and knocks her out of bed again. Toddler gets back into bed and Harvey says he’s going to get a sedative to knock her out. Toddler wants the bed propped up so she can write her will. Marla presses a button and the bottom end goes up in the air with her legs. She presses another and the top end goes so now she’s doubled. Harvey comes in and tells her she looks like a taco. He sets the bed right again and gives her a sedative drink then he turns back to Marla to try to impress her. Marla wants a drink of water and Harvey grabs Toddler’s glass from her hand to give it to Marla to fill with water, but Toddler hasn’t drunk the sedative yet. Marla drinks it and falls asleep. Two scrubs come in with a gurney and ask Toddler if she’s the appendectomy. She says she doesn’t know. They see that Marla is knocked out so they figure she’s the one so they take her for the operation. 

            Eydie Gormé is backed up by the Peter Matz Orchestra as she sings the 1931 song “As Time Goes By” by Herman Hupfeld, which was made famous in 1942 when it was sung in the film Casablanca. 

            Tim Conway is returning a large plant to a store run by Carol who treats all her plants like people. He starts to tell her his problem but she interrupts him to listen to the silent complaint of a little plant on the counter. He says, “I want to get rid of this crummy plant” but Carol grabs him and says, “Don’t you ever talk that way in front of a plant! Don’t you know that dry rot is psychosomatic?” He tells her the plant hates him. She goes to the back to fill her water can and while she’s gone his plant grabs him. They engaged in a violent wresting match and are trading blows when Carol returns to pull Tim off. She accuses him of cruelty to plants. He says he just wants to get rid of it. She gives him a fern in exchange and goes to the back to get a box. While she’s gone the plant attacks Tim again and they are fighting when she comes back. She breaks it up again. She says if it hates him it must have a good reason. She makes him tell the plant, “I love you”. The plant affectionately lays one of its big leaves on Tim’s shoulder. Carol now gets him to tell the plant its beautiful and the plant begins to embrace him. Carol starts to cry and goes to get a tissue. Tim says to the plant, “Whadaya say we start over as friends?” The plant gives Tim an affectionate punch in the shoulder and Tim returns it. Then the plant hits Tim harder and Tim hits back and suddenly they are fighting again. Carol catches them and order Tim to leave. Then she says to the plant, “And as for you, you stupid jerk, this is the fifth time this month we’ve tried to get rid of you!” She begins to repeatedly slap and kick the plant. 

            Carol plays a homemaker stepping into her kitchen in the morning. Harvey comes out of the bedroom in a suit and coat with a briefcase, shouts, “I smell clean!” and leaves. Carol is puzzled and says to herself, “I don’t have a husband”. She puts a cigarette into her mouth and Tim comes out with a lighter saying “Flick your Blic?” She shoots a fire extinguisher at him. Carol takes some paper towels to wash the windows of the door when Vicki opens it with another brand of paper towels. She says they’re heavier and drops the roll on Carol’s foot. Eydie comes in and sits down saying, “While I’m in your kitchen I’m cleaning my oven”. Carol throws her out and tells her, “Go clean my oven in your kitchen!” Carol goes to the fridge to get a drink and Carlton Johnson comes from behind the fridge dressed as Punchy the Hawaiian Punch mascot and punches her in the stomach. She goes to the bathroom and hears music from the toilet. It’s the Tidy Bowl guy who she flushes (this is the third time over the years she’s done that). A car comes crashing through her wall and Tim gets out saying he’s Joe Garagiola and that it’s cleanup time at your Dodge dealer. Carol punches him out. 

            Vicki is chained to the wall of a dungeon as the lord of the castle (played by Harvey) once again asks if she’ll marry him. She says she’d rather be attacked by a warthog. Harvey calls for the royal torturer and it’s Tim’s old man character. He shuffles into the room but is too weak to break through a bunch of cobwebs. He plans to torture her with a hot poker but gives her a count of five to say yes. He olds the hot part of the poker under his arm while he counts his fingers. By the time the poker touches her it’s cool. He tries to scare her with the royal mouse but it gets away. He attempts to hit her with a flail but after he swings it around it wraps round his neck and hits himself in the face. Harvey gives Tim one more chance. Tim prepares the iron maiden but falls inside of it himself. Harvey asks her one more time to marry him and she refuses again. Harvey starts crying and Vicki asks, “Don’t you know when a girl’s playing hard to get? Of course I’ll marry you!” 

            This is the end of the episode but it seems to have been shortened by the downloader because there is supposed to be a musical tribute to Richard Rodgers, which is what the cast is dressed for when they say goodnight. 

            The fighting plant was played by Randy Doney who was an assistant choreographer on the show. His first work in that field was for the Mitzi TV specials in 1968 and 1969. He worked on many of Carol Burnett’s TV specials. He was an assistant choreographer for Pennies From Heaven. He appeared as a background dancer in several films, Broadway Shows, and TV shows. He was assistant director for the show Lambchop on Broadway in 1994. He retired to Palm Springs where he joined the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies for which all performers had to be at least 55 years old. The troupe’s last performance was in 2013 when Doney was 73.

June 26, 1996: It was the last night of the Fat Albert's open stage before the summer break

Thirty years ago today

            Wednesday night was the last Fat Albert’s open stage before the summer break and so it was a bit of a party. I think the guys who had been running Fat Albert’s for the last several years were retiring and Mary Milne would be taking over as host in the fall, with someone else handling the sound. When I performed I said that I would miss them.

Catherine Zeta Jones

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the first verse of “La complainte de Bonnot”. 

            I worked out the chords for the first verse and two lines of the chorus of the “Que je t’aime” (That I Love You) parody” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 89.45 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since June 5. 

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time.

            I left at 13:30 to ride my Raleigh downtown to the U of T School of Dentistry to get a CT scan. I thought it was going to take at least half an hour like last time. But previously the radiology student scanned all my teeth while this time it was just the area where I’d gotten the bone graft so it was over a lot quicker. An attractive doctor came in to check the student’s work, told me, “It looks good!” and I was out of there five minutes after the appointment started. 

            I weighed 90.05 kilos at 15:15. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade.

            I took a siesta and slept for an extra half an hour. 

            I weighed 90.45 kilos at 18:35. 

            I had intended to make bread pizza for supper but I wanted to have french fries on it and by the time I remembered it was too late. So instead I heated some frozen boneless chicken wings and some oven fries. I had them with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 1, episode 5 of Wednesday on Discord with my daughter Astrid. 

            Previously Wednesday had a vision that Eugene was in danger. He had gone into the woods without Wednesday and we saw him meet the monster. We don’t see exactly what happened but at the beginning of this episode we learn that Eugene is in a coma and Wednesday feels guilty. On top of that it’s Parents Weekend and she has to deal with her family visiting. The principal gets Morticia, Gomez, and Pugsley to attend one of Wednesday’s therapy sessions. Pugsley eats Dr. Kinbott’s potpourri. He says he misses being waterboarded by Wednesday. 

            The coroner has committed suicide and left a note. The sheriff finds to evidence to support his decades old suspicion that Gomez murdered Garrett Gates. We see two alternative flashbacks to the death of Gates. Garrett was obsessed with Morticia and tried to kill Gomez. He either accidentally thrust himself onto Gomez’s sword or a sword that Morticia was holding. The sheriff arrests Gomez. Wednesday digs up Garrett’s grave and discovers that he tried to kill everyone at Nevermore with deadly nightshade. He accidentally poisoned himself and was feeling the effects when he attacked Gomez. But Wednesday and Morticia get arrested for grave digging. Wednesday presents the evidence she discovered and Gomez is freed. 

            Wednesday confronts the principal because she has figured out that she is the shape shifter and that Rowan was killed by the monster the night he tried to kill Wednesday. 

            Morticia tells Wednesday that she will need help from the undead to help hone her powers. 

            We meet the parents of two of the main characters as well. 

            Enid’s mother is disappointed in Enid because she has not yet turned into a werewolf. 

            Bianca’s wants her to return home so they can use their Siren powers in criminal activities.

            Morticia is played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, who at the age of 10 co-starred in Annie in the West End. At 15 starred in the British revival of 42nd Street. She made her film debut in 1001 Nights in 1990. In 1991 she co-starred in the British sitcom The Darling Buds of May, which made her a star in Britain. She co-starred in Splitting Heirs, and Blue Juice. By the mid 90s she was becoming too much of a sex symbol in Britain and so she decided to start over by mobbing to Hollywood. She co-starred in The Phantom, The Mask of Zorro, Entrapment, The Terminal, Side Effects, Red 2, Dad’s Army, The Haunting, Traffic, America’s Sweethearts, Chicago (for which she won an Oscar), Sinbad, The Terminal, Ocean’s Twelve, Death Defying Acts, Intolerable Cruelty, Lay the Favourite, Rock of Ages, Playing for Keeps, The Legend of Zorro, The Gallerist, She starred in No Reservations, The Rebound, She starred in the TV series Queen America, National Treasure, She earned $20 million as a spokesperson for T-Mobile. She also became a spokesperson for Elizabeth Arden. She won a Tony Award in 2010 for her performance in A Little Night Music. She was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth in 2010. She married the 25 years older Michael Douglas in 2000. She has bipolar disorder. She says the key to a successful marriage is each spouse having their own bathroom.

Tony Terran

            On Tuesday I posted “The Eel”, my translation of “L'anguille” by Boris Vian on my Boris Vian Facebook page and my personal Facebook page. I looked for the next available Vian song to translate and searched for audio of his songs “Les donneurs”; “Reglèment de comptes”; “Chanson de Judith”; “Ah papa chéri”; “Chanson sur la solitude”; “L'enfance de bonnot”; “Epilogue”; and “Chanson du marchand d'oublies” but there’s nothing of those available online. The next song I’ll learn then is his “La complainte de Bonnot”. 

            I translated the last verse of the “Que je t’aime” (That I Love You) parody” by Serge Gainsbourg. I worked out the chords for the intro and about half of the first verse. 

            I weighed 89.65 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since June 9. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune about half the time. 

            Around midday, with the “crazy in love” pink hue I painted the outside half of the third floral relief on my future bathroom mirror frame and some of the fourth. I’ll try to get a little more done on Friday. 

            I weighed 91 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 90.2 kilos at 18:10. 

            I worked on getting caught up in my journal but was still behind at suppertime.

            I had a potato with gravy and my last slice of roast pork while watching season 9, episode 12 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup an apparent regular, an elderly woman named Mrs. Miller complains she couldn’t get a front seat. A woman named Roxanne in the third row offers to switch with her. 

            Someone asks Carol if she thinks she’s making more money on TV than she could in the profession that her character had in the movie Front Page. She played a sex worker in Front Page but Carol doesn’t answer the question. 

            Someone asks Carol if she knows how to Hustle. She simple nods. 

            A boy asks to see Carol’s hip go out of joint so she invites him onstage to feel it. It turns out he’s Ruth Pointer’s son. 

            They parody several of the year’s TV commercials. 

            Carol plays a housewife standing over the dishes in the sink. Harvey walks in with a microphone and a container of Jay dish detergent. He asks how after 26 years as a housewife she’s managed to keep her hands so soft. She says she owes in all to Jay. He looks at the camera and says, “Yes Jay! The household detergent that’s milder than mild!” She says, “No, not that Jay”. Then she calls for Jay and he comes out (played by Tim) to do the dishes. 

            Vicki is working in her garden. She says, “Who would think I had a headache last night? Thanks to Bufferson, the pain reliever that works while you sleep, I feel terrific!” Harvey comes and takes her in his arms, suggesting they take a walk in the woods. She says, “Not now I have a headache!” 

            Carol is sitting at a table where there is a big stuffed turkey and several other prepared food items filling the table. She says “In order to get your daily requirement of vitamins you would have to eat all of the food on this table. Or you could take One A Way Vitamins. One A Way has all your daily requirements in just one pill”. She shows the pill and it’s almost as big as the table. 

            Tim is outside in the snow. He says, “You may find this hard to believe but I’m going to start six cars with dead batteries with just one Dear’s Sigh Hard battery (a play on Sears Die Hard batteries). He electrocutes himself. 

            Tim plays Hitler sitting in a restaurant in full uniform. He says he used to be a big deal in Europe but now not everybody recognizes him. That’s why he carries an American Depressed credit card. “It’s all the identification I need!” The waiter still asks for more ID. 

            Tim does the battery commercial again. This time the cars start up and take off with the battery.

            The Pointer Sisters sing the 1947 song “Save the Bones for Henry Jones” by Daniel Barker, Michael H. Goldsen, and Henry McCoy Jones. 

            At a political dinner Tim stands at the podium and introduces his running mate for office of Counselman of Alban County, John Dean Hartman (played by Harvey). John begins a speech but Tim starts loudly eating potato chips. John gets him to stop. Tim begins to crack nuts. He eats one and begins to choke. He eats some chocolate and gets it all over his face causing everyone to laugh. At first John thinks they are laughing at a joke he made. Tim gets a bloody Mary with a celery stock in it and begins to crunch the celery. John takes it away from him. Tim smokes a cigar and has a coughing fit. John finishes his speech and wants to swing the microphone over to Tim so he can speak but it knocks Tim out the window. 

            Carol as Harriet and Vicki as Felicia are in a fancy restaurant. Harriet is someone who nobody ever notices. She calls to the waiters but they ignore her while Felicia can get their attention with no effort. Even Felicia pays little mind to Harriet. They both order the shrimp cocktail but only Felicia gets hers and doesn’t remember Harriet ordering one. Even when she trips and falls across the bus boy’s cart he doesn’t notice her and piles dirty plates on her back. 

            They do a soulful version of Cinderella with Carol as the titular character. Vicki plays the jive talking stepmother and The Pointer Sisters play Cindy’s step sisters. The scene opens with Vicki and her daughters singing about how life is a super gig when you got soul. Vicki impressively holds her own as a singer while jamming with the Pointer Sisters. Cinderella stands apart from the others because she’s a square. They nag her to help them get ready for the big rock concert that night. They turn their demands and judgements of Cinderella into a funky song. They leave for the concert and Cinderella is alone. She sings a very non-funky song about wishing she was a foxy superchick. As a result of her wishing her fairy godmother appears (played by Harvey in his big, buxom Jewish mother character). Cindy says, “You’re my Fairy Godmother?” “You were expecting maybe Tinklebell?” She says, “What miracles I’ve wrought today! I got a doctor to make a house call and I saved New York City from bankrupture”. Cindy asks her to make her into a hip chick. The fairy sings about how anything can be anything that it’s not if you wish it. She puts her in an outfit like Cher might wear, but with long red hair. She warns her that she must leave the dance by 12:00. “Midnight?” The Fairy says no. Parties don’t even start until midnight. You must leave by noon. At the concert Elfin John (played by Tim) is introduced. He’s physically meant to look like Elton John but he speaks in a sort of southern US accent. Cinderella arrives and everyone is awestruck by her. Her stepsisters sing about her being a chick who knows what’s goin down. She lies that she has a new dance called The Schlump. Everybody wants to see it but Cindy says she needs her choreographer. So her Fairy Godmother appears and just tells her to follow her lead as she sings, “Foist ya shake your tuchus, do a little pump, do a little robot, make a little bump. Tuchus, pump, robot, bump. That’s the way ya do it when you’re doin the Schlump”. So everybody does it. As the clock strikes noon Cindy has to leave but gives Elvin her glittery silver platform shoe. The next day Vicki and the Pointer step sisters are soaking their feet as Cindy is serving them. Elvin is looking for the hot chick and trying the shoe on everyone. His last stop is their house. Of course the shoe fits Cindy but Elvin rejects her because she’s such a square. So her Fairy Godmother appears and turns Elvin into a square too. 

            The trumpet player for The Carol Burnett Shiow was Tony Terran, who started playing trumpet on the radio when he was still in high school. He started playing for the Desi Arnaz Orchestra in 1946. He was a member of the famous band of session musicians known as The Wrecking Crew. He performed and recorded with Sonny and Cher, The Mamas and Papas, The Monkees, Eric Burdon, Ricky Nelson, Glen Campbell, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Bee Gees, Ray Charles, Chicago, Nat King Cole, Perry Como, Bob Dylan, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Bob Hope, Michael Jackson, Eartha Kitt, Peggy Lee, Madonna, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Tonstadt, Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, Herb Alpert, and Tom Waits. He played in the soundtracks for I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy, The Brady Bunch, I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart, Happy Days, Popeye, Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Cheers, LA Law, The Simpsons, Rocky I, II, II, Karate Kid I, II, III, The Natural, All the President’s Men, Broadcast News, Field of Dreams, Blazing Saddles, Grease, An Officer and a Gentleman, Ghostbusters, Close Encounters, and The Deep.