Frank Fontaine

            On Sunday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed and a couple of bedbugs turned up. I was out of carpet tape and so I couldn’t put any down on the edge of my mattress. I went to bed at around 1:30 and slept fitfully as I could feel bedbugs on me all night. After yoga I killed quite a few on the wall and the floor at the head of my bed.

            I worked out some chords for more than half of the first verse of “Venez donc voir” (“Come Then See”) by Boris Vian. The song is not sung but I hear notes in the tonality of the speaker. 

            I worked out the chords for the instrumental part of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are just one and a half verses left and I already know the chords so I’ll be done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune all the time as usual. 

            Around midday I walked over to Home Hardware to buy two rolls of carpet tape. The really nice cashier who I hardly ever see there anymore and who looks like Liv Ullman greeted me brightly. I removed all the old carpet tape from my mattress and it took several minutes. I only had time before lunch to put some fresh tape on the southwest corner. 

            I weighed 92.95 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon in a week. I had Black Forest ham slices on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I didn’t have a lot of energy today and rode slowly. But maybe it just felt that way since I didn’t get home any later than usual. 

            I weighed 92.05 at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:08. 

            I digitized a cassette recording of a Christian and the Lions concert at Lee’s Palace on October 6, 1995. It surprises me that a venue like Lee’s Palace couldn’t record it in stereo while a little open stage like Fat Albert’s could. The band consisted of Tom Smarda on Stratocaster, Steve Lowe on acoustic guitar, Arjan on bass, and Barzin Husseini on drums. We did “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” for which I fumbled some of my own words, Megaphor”, “Hungry Hippunk Goes to Work”, “Me and Gravity”, “The Next State of Grace”, “Tropic of Ulcer”, “Thin Red Line” and “Angeline”. On “The Next State of Grace” I tried to do a low harmonization with Tom’s voice but it didn’t work out very well. 

            I made pizza on a slice of seven grain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, wedge fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 4, episode 3 of The Garry Moore Show. This show was chopped in half, only keeping the comedy bits. 

            Garry opens the show in top hat, tuxedo and tails and explains that he’s been studying sex appeal from Tony Martin and tonight is his final exam. He apparently does a lip synch routine of Tony Martin’s voice but that’s not on the video I have. 

            Garry says when he first came to New York he had a little trouble understanding the natives. He says there’s a small volume called Almanac for New Yorkers, which is sort of a dictionary of New Yorkese. For instance, when inquiring whether someone has had their dinner a New Yorker says, “Jeet?” And if you urge a New Yorker to complain to the government about their high taxes they will say, “Wahgoozidoo?” At the Empire State building the elevator operator will say, “Oppkargoynop” or “”Donkargoyndon” and when you enter the elevator they will say, “Ollowayback-Fayzagate”. You might overhear a man saying goodnight to his date and asking for a kiss, so this is what you’ll hear: “Sowaddyasaybabe?” If she slams the door in his face he’ll say, “Assawayigoze”. And on your way in here tonight you would have heard the usher say, “Doneblokadoorplennyaseatsnabalkny”. And when asked what you watch on Tuesday nights you will say, “Degarrmooshow”. 

            Garry says the hallmark of a true clown is that they don’t just say funny things but have an intrinsically funny quality of their own and that describes his next guest, Frank Fontaine. I remember seeing him on Ed Sullivan and other shows when I was a kid and his humour is certainly child accessible. 

            Frank tells the story of two guys on a motorcycle and one of them is cold from the onrushing wind and so the other guy tells him to put his coat on backwards. Everything is fine then but they have an accident. When the ambulance arrives a bystander says one guy’s all right but we had a problem when we tried to turn the other guy’s head the right way around. 

            Columbus Day is approaching and so Frank has his goofy voiced and faced character John L. C. Sivony tell the story of Christopher Columbus. “Once upon a time there was a country shaped like a boot (goofy giggling). One afternoon this guy was just hangin around the house doin nothin cause he didn’t feel like doin nothin. His mother said “Christopher Columbus! What are you doin?” “Nothin” (goofy giggling). And he wasn’t. His mother said, “Why don’t ya go out and get yourself a job?” He said, “I think I’ll discover America” cause he’d heard about a buildin boom in Philadelphia (goofy giggles). He was up every night thinkin that he needed to discover America and that’s how they got The Nights of Columbus (goofy giggles). He’d heard about Queen Isabella who was kind and fat (she wasn’t obese). When Columbus knocked on the palace gate he was told Isabella was busy. Who do ya think was with her? Winston Churchill. She gave Columbus three ships and after 19 months (It only took 2 months and 9 days) they spotted land and Indians hoppin all over the place. Columbus stuck a flag in the ground and said, “I name this land America. It’ll be the greatest country in the world! (That’s fucked up, since Columbus never landed on the continental United States on any of his voyages but on his second voyage he did land on what became the US territory of Puerto Rico).” 

            They do a sketch that got repeated years later on The Carol Burnett Show when Garry Moore and Durward Kirby guest starred. Garry plays a TV producer recording tributes to a certain internationally renowned person. Carol plays the Princess of Morovia and she’s been asked to be recorded drinking a toast to that person. But in the first shot her glass is in front of her face. The next toast goes fine but she hiccups. After that she keeps doing retakes and gets increasingly more drunk so that more things go wrong to require more retakes until she finally collapses backwards with her feet up in the air, to Garry’s apparently real surprise. 

            Garry does a salute to 1921. It was the year that Einstein came up with E = MC2 . Garry interviews a scientist further developing Einstein’s theory of relativity. Dr. Cornhouse is played by Marion Lorne. He tells her that the atom has been split and she thinks that’s too bad. He asks her to explain the theory of Relativity. She says everything is relative. If I’m tall it’s because you’re short and if I’m short it’s because you’re tall. But it doesn’t matter unless you’re dancing. 

            The cast and guests sing Garry’s goodbye song. 

            Frank Fontaine’s grandfather and his mother were circus performers. His grandfather was a strongman and his mother was a trapeze artist. His mother was also a dancer who performed on vaudeville with his father who was a French Canadian singer popular in Canada. Frank quit school and married his high school sweetheart two days before his 17th birthday and immediately started performing as a singer, dancer and comedian in Boston supper clubs. He made his film debut in Nancy Goes to Rio in 1950. He co-starred in Hit Parade of 1951. He became a frequent guest on Jack Benny’s radio show starting in 1950 and The Bob Hope Show. He made his TV debut on the first three episodes of Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town in 1948. He had his own radio show in 1952, which featured four other members of his family. Starting in 1962 he became a regular on The Jackie Gleason Show and after a comedy routine he would often sing. He released an album called Songs I Sing on The Jackie Gleason Show that made it to #1 in 1962. In addition to Frank Fontaine’s character of John L. C. Sivony, he had another named Crazy Guggenheim who was the inspiration for The Simpsons’ character of Barney Gumble. Between 1939 and 1959 Frank had 11 children. Tom Lehrer joked that Jerry Lewis and Frank Fontaine are in charge of National Make Fun of the Handicapped Week. He changed the name of his character Crazy Guggenheim to Happy Guggenheim after he started performing in children’s hospitals because children were uncomfortable with addressing him as “Crazy”.

September 14, 1996: I posed for Artists 25

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I posed at Artists 25 from 10:00 to 16:00 for the first of two sessions. I think they had moved to the Tower Building at 110 Spadina by this time, so they were right around the corner from where I was living.

Jackie Mason

            On Saturday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed and a couple of bedbugs turned up. I added some more carpet tape to the southeast corner of my mattress. I don’t know why that part tends to get less sticky sooner. I went to bed a little after 1:30 and woke up at around 3:15 to pee. After that I felt some bedbugs but went back to sleep until 4:45 having to pee really bad but forced myself to stay in bed until 5:00. After yoga I checked and saw quite a few bedbugs stuck to the tape but a few more crawling freely on the wall. 

            I finished memorizing “Venez donc voir” (“Come Then See”) by Boris Vian and worked out the chords for the instrumental intro. The song is not sung but I started working out chords for the speech according to the tonality so it can be sung. 

            I worked out the chords for the first three verses of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. All that’s left is the instrumental and then one and a half verses so I should have it done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 91.45 kilos before breakfast.

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

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where all the grapes were too soft. I bought two Canadian watermelons, three packs of Canadian and Peruvian blueberries, some bananas, a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread, a loaf of seven grain sandwich bread, mouthwash, dental floss, tomato pesto, spoon sized shredded wheat, a jug of lemonade, a small container of 4% skyr, and a bag of wedge fries. 

            I weighed 92.2 kilos at 15:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since September 1. I had smoked turkey and maple mustard on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            I took a siesta at 15:30 and woke up at 16:55. After brushing my teeth it was too late for a bike ride. I went over to the liquor store and bought a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I weighed 92.25 kilos at 17:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:38. 

            I digitized a cassette recording of a Christian and the Lions rehearsal in a rented space with Tom Smarda on Stratocaster and backup vocals, Steve Lowe on acoustic guitar, me on vocals, and either Jim Bravo, Barzin, or Jeremy Finkelstein on drums. We did my songs "Megaphor", "Calendar Girl", "Hungry Hippunk Goes to Work", and "Me and Gravity". 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, potato wedge fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 3, episode 32 of The Garry Moore Show. But these Moore shows I’ve been watching are only 25 minutes long because the musical numbers have been edited out. 

            During the opening segment Durward Kirby comes out to tell Garry that his Aunt Mary has formed a Garry Moore Fan Club and asks if he’ll let them come out on stage to meet him. Mary comes out with three other elderly and eccentric individuals. Mary is president of the fan club and she introduces him to Vice President Patterson. Garry reaches out to shake his hand but he backs away. Mary introduces Miss Crane the secretary and Mr. Simmons the treasurer. Garry asks Mary how many members there are in the club and she says “Four”. Mr. Patterson scowls and asks Mary, “When do we go to Radio City?” Mary tells Garry that Mr. Simmons loves Garry’s singing voice but he’s nearly deaf and doesn’t know if Garry is singing right now or not. Mary tells Garry they passed a hat to get him a gift but nobody put anything in and so she thought he would at least like to have the hat. She hands him a bowler that’s too small. 

            Garry says his next guest reminds him of the social director for The Twilight Zone. Jackie Mason comes out to do his stand-up routine. Jackie says this is his third time on the show. He tells us there’s one thing in life more important than money, and that’s love. “I’m very fortunate because I love money. There’s only one thing you can get without money and that’s sick. My grandfather told me to never guard my money but guard his health. “So one day I was guarding my health and someone stole my money and it was my grandfather. He was a genius at the stock market. He bought 7-Up when it was only 6 and a Quarter. He told me to invest in copper and I lost. He told me to invest in zinc and I lost. But when he said “steal” I made a fortune. I read a book by a Columbia professor who said that one out of every three women is suffering from a lack of love. Now whenever I see three girls together I wonder which one it is. A psychiatrist told me I need to find the real me to be happy. But what if I look for the real me and find he’s even worse than me? Ten years ago if you told me to look for the real me I would have been happy to look because I couldn’t make a living. But now I’m doing good so let him look for me. The psychiatrist charged me $25 but if this isn’t the real me why should I pay him? Let him look for the real me to get the $25. For all I know the real me might be going to a different psychiatrist or maybe he’s a psychiatrist himself. Wouldn’t it be funny if my psychiatrist was the real me and he owes me $25? I told him I’ll charge him $10 and we’ll call it even. But I kept on studying and I found out that I’m Carol Burnett.” He tells the audience, “If I didn’t make you happy tonight it’s none of my business because it’s not me. Let Carol worry about it. Remember that money is not important because you can’t take it with you. Friends are more important and so that’s why when I go I’m taking my friends.” 

            Mel Tormé introduces a skit that is almost exactly the same as one that was later done on The Carol Burnett Show I assume it was written by the same writers. The main difference is that in this one Carol’s husband is played by Durward Kirby while in the later one he is played by Harvey Korman. The sketch involves an upper class couple on 5th Avenue who are about to have their apartment photographed for Home Beautiful Magazine. They say their home is exquisite because their tastes blend harmoniously but then Durward says the only thing disharmonious is the ashtray that Carol bought in Copenhagen and so he throws it out the window. What follows is them smashing each other’s things until the home is a wreck. Garry later says he doesn’t want to know about this week’s budget because they had to replace everything they smashed during rehearsal just so they could smash it all again for the show. 

            Garry says 1938’s biggest picture was Algiers. It told the story of Pepe La Mocco, a notorious jewel thief and his ill-fated love affair. It all took place in the Casbah, a walled city of mystery and intrigue. The movie introduced one of the most beautiful women in movie history, Hedy Lamarr. Carol plays Hedy playing Gaby the most beautiful woman in Europe. Someone tells her it’s not safe for her to be alone in the Casbah. She says she won’t leave until she meets Pepsi La Cola. Jackie Mason plays Pepsi and approaches her from behind. She turns, sees him, says, “Yeeuck!” and walks away. 

            Garry assembles the cast and the guests to sing the goodbye song while holding hands. Carol Haney was on this show but not in the video that I have. She must have done a dance routine.

            Jackie Mason came from a long line of rabbis. He earned a BA at City College in New York with a double major in English and Sociology. He was a cantor until the age of 25 when he was ordained as a rabbi like his three brothers. His sermons were so funny that gentiles used to come to hear them. He left after three years because somebody in the family had to make a living. He worked as a busboy in the Catskills until he broke all the dishes. They made him a lifeguard even though he couldn’t swim. They told him not to tell the guests. He made his national TV debut on The Steve Allen Show in 1962. The same year he released his first record, I’m the Greatest Comedian in the World Only Nobody Knows It Yet, which was a best seller. When he appeared on Ed Sullivan in 1964, Ed thought Jackie gave him the finger. He says he was gesturing with his index finger but he was banned from the Sullivan Show because of the misunderstanding. He sued Sullivan and later did appear on his show a few times but Mason gained a bad reputation and lost a lot of TV work. He made his Broadway debut in A Teaspoon Every Four Hours in 1969. He won a Tony, an Emmy, and Grammy for his first one man show, The World According to Me, which ran for two years. He became the first guest on The Simpsons to win an Emmy for his performance playing the father of Krusty the Clown, which he would return to do several times. He starred in The Stoolie, Caddyshack II, and One Angry Man. He performed for Queen Elizabeth in 1991. He endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 election. He doesn’t think Israel should be required to follow the world’s understanding of democracy. One of his jokes about aging is, “It’s no longer a question of staying healthy but of finding a sickness you like.”

September 13, 1996: Brian and I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage

            Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I rehearsed with Brian Haddon and in the evening we went to perform on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.

Eileen Farrell

            On Friday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed and no bedbugs turned up. I put some more carpet tape around the southeast corner of my mattress. I went to bed at around 1:40 and didn’t sleep very well although I didn’t feel any bedbugs. After yoga I checked and saw there were quite a few bedbugs caught on the tape and none wandering free. 

            I memorized the first verse of “Venez donc voir” (“Come Then See”) by Boris Vian. There’s only one more shorter verse to learn. 

            I worked out the chords for all but the final line of the first verse of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. The last line of every verse is shorter than the others so it shouldn’t take long to work out. I think all the verses have the same chords and there’s no chorus. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it went out of tune most of the time. 

            I lint rolled the top of my bed and no bedbugs turned up. I put some two-sided carpet tape on the back and side of my desk. 

            I weighed 92.45 kilos before lunch, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since September 1. 

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

            I weighed 92.45 kilos at 17:50. I was caught up in my journal at 20:14. 

            I had a potato with gravy while watching season 4, episode 28 of The Garry Moore Show. 

            It begins with Garry reading next week’s newspaper. 

            Caroline Kennedy had a birthday party and her father gave her an erector set: US Steel. 

            There’s a bill before congress to simplify the 1962 income tax form. You send the government all your money and it gives you bus fare to work. 

            Elizabeth Taylor’s new movie will be Bathsheba. Her leading man has not been chosen and the studio is asking for volunteers. 

            NASA’s first female astronaut is undergoing flight tests. Scientists are not sure how she is reacting because every time they call the space capsule the line is busy. When the first Moon shot takes place Zsa Zsa Gabor will be a passenger because if there’s a man on the Moon she’ll find him. 

            Bob Williams performs with his trained dog Louie. The joke is that Louie the sad eyed spaniel does not perform but rather just sits there. I think it’s possible that he really would have to be trained to be that unresponsive. Williams does a lot of fast talking as he gives Louis his commands. He tells him to jump up onto a table and says, “He’s thinking about it!” He lifts Louie halfway onto the table and his legs are dangling with no effort to try to climb up. Bob puts him all the way on the table and says, “He loves to play!” Gary brings out his own dog Sam for Bob to train and he’s equally effective except that Garry’s dog actually wags his tail. 

            Garry plays newscaster Walter Crankcase and he takes us back to the most poignant moment in the history of romance. The year is 1657. The place, a modest cottage in one of the smaller European kingdoms. The event, the day the Prince found his Cinderella. Last night with the help of her fairy godmother, Cinderella was able to attend the Grand Ball at the palace. The prince is going to arrive soon as he is checking all the homes for the mysterious young woman he danced with at the ball. Walter interviews the stepmother and asks if she’d be happy if the Prince married one of her daughters. She says she’d be hilarious if he married both of them. 

            Cinderella arrives (played by Carol Burnett), hungover from the ball. Walter asks Cinderella if she lost a shoe last night. She says, “I wouldn’t be surprised!” He asks if she’d marry the Prince. She says, “Mister, to get out of this dump I’d marry a moose!” 

            The Prince’s footmen arrive and blow their trumpets to announce the Prince’s arrival and that aggravates Cinderella’s hangover to an extreme degree as she holds her head and doubles over the table. The Prince arrives played by Derward Kirby wearing a bobbed wig and tights. From the start he is straining to keep from laughing. He announces that he thinks his tights just ripped and the stepmother, her daughters, and Cinderella are cracking up. The Prince lowers his jacket from his shoulders to hide his behind. 

            The Prince looks at the daughters’ and the mother’s feet and can tell they won’t fit the shoe. Then he turns to Cinderella who is still laughing. She sits down as he kneels and she puts her leg over his knee to reveal her foot. He asks, “What size is this dainty little foot?” She giggles and answers, “Twelve”. He struggles to put the shoe on and she struggles to get her foot in until finally it fits. He asks her to marry him and she says, “Coax me!” He asks again twice and she repeats “coax me” twice until he’s about to get up to leave and she shouts, “Yes!” They are about to leave together and she says she wants to say goodbye to her family, then she sticks out her tongue at them and blows a raspberry. 

            Next is the segment called That Wonderful Year. Garry steps out under a streetlamp and says, “That wonderful year when jazz became the national rage; Edna Ferber, Ring Lardner, Sherwood Anderson, and Sinclair Lewis were the new young writers; 16 year old violin prodigy Yasha Heifitz made his debut at Carnegie Hall; the world’s most famous vamp was Theodosia Goodman, better known as Theda Barra; women mechanics replaced the doughboys on the homefront; ostrich feathers, narrow skirts, and parasols were standard equipment for vamping; the last of the old fashioned Revivalists, Billy Sunday drew crowds from coast to coast; at the movies everyone’s favourite two-gun man of the west was William S. Hart; and for laughs there was nothing like cops and slapstick; We see film footage of a traffic cop gradually being stripped to his underwear as his uniform is snagged by passing vehicles. It was the wonderful year of 1917. 

            Garry approaches an old man (played by Derward) who is whittling a small piece of wood on a bench and addresses him as Casper Penny. Garry asks if he’s been whittling long. Casper says, “When I started, this was a piano.” Garry informs Casper that he and Garry’s father Thomas Garrison Moore went to the same school. Casper says he remembers Tom well. Casper says, “He flunked Arithmetic, spelling, geography and… You’re his son?” “That’s right!” “Tom never could do anything right.” 

            Garry announces that two weeks ago their orchestra leader Irv Kostal earned an Oscar for his scoring on West Side Story. 

            Garry brings out Eileen Farrell (who played the stepmother), Bob Williams, Carol Burnett, and Derward Kirby. They sing Garry’s goodbye song, which is lyrically similar in theme to Carol’s later theme song: “We just said hello and right away we have to say so long for a while. Before we go we’d like to say you had a little laugh or a smile. We hope to see you soon (at this point Carol pulls her ear). Thanks for comin by. But just for now we’ll say goodbye.” Garry says, “Until next week, be very kind to each other and goodbye out there!” Garry’s dog is with them and barking for a treat which Garry throws for him. 

            Eileen Farrell began her career in 1940 as a member of the CBS Chorus on CBS radio. From 1941 to 1946 she had her own program called Eileen Farrell Sings. In 1947 she launched her career as a concert soprano and in 1956 began performing in operas starting with Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. In 1952 Toscanini hired her to sing on his recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In the movie Interrupted Melody she dubbed the singing of Eleanor Parker who was playing Marjorie Lawrence. In 1960 she released the first successful crossover album: I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Blues, which reached #15 in the charts. She starred at the Metropolitan opera from 1960 to 1966 starting with Gluck’s Alceste. In 1979 she did a duet with Frank Sinatra of the song “For the Good Times”. She was a voice professor at Indiana University School of Music. Her 1999 autobiography was called Can’t Help Singing.

September 12, 1996: I did some writing

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I worked on my writing and might have received a few calls about work.

Amy Poehler

            On Thursday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed and no bedbugs got picked up. I laid down more carpet tape along the edges of my mattress. I went to bed at around 1:30 and don’t remember lying awake for very long but when I got up at 5:00 it felt like I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I was groggy through yoga. When I checked for bedbugs there were quite a few stuck to the tape and only a couple wandering free. 

            I searched for the next Boris Vian song on my list for which I could find audio or even just text. The next on the list was “Une quarante chevaux De Dion-Bouton” (A 40 Horsepower De Dion-Bouton). De Dion-Bouton was the first automobile manufacturer to mass produce a successful V-8 engine in 1910. The song is another one from the musical that Vian wrote about Jules Bonnot the Anarchist Robin Hood. A De Dion-Bouton is one of the cars he stole and used for his criminal operations. But unfortunately there is no text or audio of this song available online. 

            The next song is “Venez donc voir” (Literally “Come Then See” but more like an equivalent to the English phrase, “Step Right Up”. There is audio and text for this song though the lyrics are shouted and not sung while music plays in the background. I think the song could be sung to the music though and so that’s how I’ll learn it.

            I worked out the chords for the instrumental intro and half of the first line of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.55 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time. 

            I weighed 92.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back where I bought five bags of green grapes, some bananas, a pack of Full City Dark coffee, and some shaving gel. I did a price match on the grapes with the Food Basics price of $3.26 a kilo. 

            I weighed 91.5 kilos at 18:35, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening in a week. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching a video tribute to Harvey Korman and a short video of zany outtakes from The Carol Burnett Show. 

            Amy Poehler says what she loved most about The Carol Burnett Show was the ensemble. Carol let everybody be just as funny as she was. 

            Bernadette Peters says comedy has to be open, trusting, giving, and encouraging, and that’s how Carol wanted her show to be. 

            Lyle Waggoner says Carol was there for the good of the show and not for Carol Burnett. 

            Betty White says Harvey had intelligence on top of talent. 

            I say Tim Conway was really master of the comedic pause. 

            Lyle says that Harvey was always dissatisfied so Lyle and Vickie started writing him anonymous fan letters to tell him how great he was and he enjoyed them. Carol says Harvey was very moody. One time when Petula Clark and Tim were guests on the show Harvey was rude to them both. Carol didn’t mind him being nasty with the regulars because they were used to it but she drew the line at making the guests uncomfortable. She asked him to stay after the show. He was great on that show while Carol was a nervous wreck. Carol confronted him in her Joan Crawford boss lady persona and gave him an ultimatum. He argued that he had a contract but Carol said she would find a way to break the contract if he didn’t shape up. She told him that whenever she saw him in the hall she wanted to hear him whistling happily. The next Monday she saw him come out of the elevator whistling and skipping down the hall.

            Vicki says Harvey taught her most everything she came to know about comedy. Once she developed her high voiced bimbo character she asked him why when she does it she becomes stupid for the whole week. He told her that any character she does well will become a part of her. She says Harvey was so good in drag. 

            Harvey was a wreck the day Laurence Olivier came to the taping. 

            Carl Reiner says he heard Harvey played Hamlet once and was brilliant and he’s sure he was.

            Jane Lynch says when Harvey died Carol was destroyed. 

            The zany outtakes video was just some slightly funny mistakes and recoveries from mistakes.

            Amy Poehler joined the sketch comedy group My Mother’s Fleabag when she was attending Boston College. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Media and Communications she went to Chicago where she studied at Second City and Improv Olympics. She joined the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, which later moved to New York to become a Comedy Central show for three seasons but the group stayed together and turned The Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre into a prominent sketch comedy venue. A second theatre was founded in LA and they teach 8000 students a year. She joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player in 2001 and was promoted to a full cast member that same season. The only other SNL alumnus to rise that quickly in the ranks was Eddie Murphy. When Jimmy Fallon left the show in 2004 she joined Tina Fey on Weekend Update. She co-wrote a sketch with Seth Meyers featuring Tina Fey and herself as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton that became the biggest viral video of the year. She co-starred in Mean Girls, Blades of Glory, Mr. Woodcock, Hamlet 2, Baby Mama, Horton Hears a Who, A.C.O.D., They Came Together, The House, Hoodwinked Too, and Free Birds. She starred in Spring Breakdown, Sisters, Inside Out, and Inside Out 2. She starred in the sitcom Parks and Recreation from 2009 to 2015. She co-wrote, made her directorial debut, and co-starred in Wine Country. She directed and co-produced Moxie, and Lucy and Desi. She co-hosted and co-produced the reality competition series Making It. She co-created, co-produced and starred in Duncanville. She co-created and co-starred in The Mighty B. She co-hosted the Golden Globe Awards with Tina Fey in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2021. She co-produced Welcome to Sweden, Broad City, Difficult People, Three Busy Debras, and Russian Doll. She wrote the book Yes Please in 2014. She hosts the podcast Good Hang (which won the first Golden Globe Award for a podcast). She co-founded the girl empowerment group Smart Girls at the Party. She says, “When your children arrive your heart becomes a room with wide open windows”.

September 11, 1996: I lined up some more model bookings

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday I called around for work and got some model bookings. In the evening I went to the Art Bar reading series and performed on the open stage.

Joanna Lumley

            On Wednesday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed but didn’t pick up any bedbugs. I went to bed at 1:35 and slept fitfully until 4:15 when I got up to pee. I could feel bedbugs whenever I was awake. I slept again until 5:00. After yoga I checked and found a few bedbugs stuck to the carpet tape but there were a lot more crawling freely on the old exit door at the head of my bed. I must have killed about 40. 

            I posted on my Boris Vian Facebook page and my personal Facebook page the lyrics for “Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anyone”, my translation of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll start learning the next Vian song on my list. 

            I finished translating “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords but no one has posted them so I worked out part of the intro. 

            I weighed 91.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the third of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time. 

            Around midday I vacuumed my Targus backpack, which had been in the freezer until yesterday evening. So far I haven’t found any live bedbugs on or in it but I have found some dead ones inside the foam back-cushion. I’m not going to keep it in the living room anymore but instead in the entryway. 

            I weighed 92.9 kilos before lunch. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I headed out for a bike ride but it was raining so I just went around the block and stopped at Queen Fresh where I bought two packs of raspberries. A customer asked if I was Danish. When I left there the rain had let up and there was still time to take a bit of a bike ride. The rain picked up around Havelock and Bloor so I went south and headed home. 

            I weighed 92.45 kilos at 17:40, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since August 26.

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:55. 

            I digitized a homemade tape recording of a rehearsal I did with Brian Haddon of my songs “Calendar Girl” and “Sleep in the Snow”. Now that I have the proper cables for recording in stereo the two tracks are visible in Audacity. There is a track for my vocals and guitar together and another track for Brian’s synthesizer. The keyboard was dominant in these sessions but now that I can see two tracks I was able to turn down the audio interface gain on Brian’s keyboard to bring up my voice. The other side of the cassette has a recording of a rehearsal of the original Christian and the Lions band in a rehearsal space we rented. I’ll digitize that on Thursday. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with cream cheese, marinara, tomato pesto, wedge fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 2, episode 4 of Wednesday on Discord with my daughter. 

            Marilyn Thornhill is brought to Willow Hill by Dr. Fairburn to use her bond with Tyler to help treat him. For some reason she lets her see Tyler. He becomes the Hyde monster and attacks Marilyn, throwing her against a wall but she doesn’t mind. 

            Wednesday breaks into the mausoleum where Patricia Redcar’s urn is kept. Grandmama shows up and Wednesday shows her evidence that every Outcast that died at Willow Hill is buried in this cemetery. Grandmama encourages Wednesday to sniff the urn and she discovers that the ashes are from animals and not human. The red eyed raven steals the evidence and Wednesday chases it to a cloaked figure who escapes on a motorcycle. Wednesday asks Grandmama to buy the cemetery so she can investigate who authorized the cremations. 

            Wednesday asks Uncle Fester to infiltrate Willow Hill by becoming a patient. He trashes a hotel room and after being arrested behaves like himself and so he is committed to Willow Hill. The last time he went there was to check on Morticia’s sister Ophelia but by that time she’d escaped. Ophelia has been missing for twenty years. Wednesday asks her mother why Ophelia was committed and she says it was because she pushed her psychic powers too far and it was Grandmama who had her put away. Grandmama gives Wednesday the deed to the cemetery and tells her it was Augustus Stonehurst who signed off on the cremations. Grandmama asks Morticia to give Wednesday Goody Addams’s book but she throws it in the fire. 

            Fester’s brain scan shows various sharp objects inside his head such as a pair of scissors, safety pins and nails. They give him electro convulsive therapy and he enjoys it. Fester’s task for Wednesday is to look for Lois. He thinks the lunch lady is Lois because of her name tag and seduces her but her name is Louise and the “U” and “I” are covered in food spills but they make out in a closet anyway.

            Agnes learns for Wednesday that Stonehurst used to be a psychiatrist at Willow Hill but became a patient. Wednesday is talking with Enid when several crows attack and Wednesday protects her friend. Fester meets Stonehurst who has a foul mouthed parrot on his shoulder. The bird repeats a four digit number. 

           Thornhill recognizes Fester and rats him out to Fairburn. He is captured and chained in a room with Pugsley’s pet zombie Slurp. Thing goes to Wednesday to tell her about Fester’s predicament. Louise helps Wednesday get inside and she frees Fester. Slurp pulls his chains from the wall and attacks some guards who are escorting Marilyn back to prison but now she escapes and heads for Tyler. 

           Fester uses the number he got from the parrot on a maintenance door keyboard. He and Wednesday get in and discover a secret door that reveals a facility called L.O.I.S. where she discovers that several Outcast patients reported dead and cremated are in fact alive and being used for experiments. 

           Wednesday discovers that the cloaked avian is in fact Fairburn’s assistant Judi, who is also Stonehurst’s daughter. Stonehurst started L.O.I.S. to extract Outcast powers and give them to Normies and that’s how Judi got her powers. Fester uses his electrical powers to cause a blackout. The Outcasts are freed and attack Judi. Thornhill frees Tyler but he turns into the Hyde and kills her. Fairburn and Stonehurst are hiding in her office but Slurp turns out to be there as well and he eats her brains. Then he speaks, calling Stonehurst “Old friend” and eats his brains as well. Wednesday fearlessly confronts the Hyde and he throws her through the window and to the ground below where her bloodied form loses consciousness. Tyler escapes. 

           Grandmama is played by Joanna Lumley who was a supermodel during the swinging 60s. Despite having had no theatrical training she transitioned seamlessly into acting from modelling. She made her film debut in Some Girls Do in 1969. She played the female lead Purdey on The New Avengers and her hairstyle “the Purdey bob” became very popular in the 1970s. Her character also became a popular pin-up model. She co-starred in the series Sapphire and Steel from 1979 to 1982. She co-starred as Patsy on Absolutely Fabulous from 1992 until 2012 and her role is considered to be one of the greatest comic performances of all time. She starred in the series Class Act from 1994 to 1995, Dr. Willoughby in 1999, The Foxbusters from 1999 to 2000, Up in Town from 2002 and Sensitive Skin from 2007 to 2009. She co-starred in Jam and Jerusalem, and Amandaland, She co-starred in The Breaking of Bumbo, Innocent Lies, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, Don’t Just Lie There Say Something, James and the Giant Peach, Prince Valiant, Parting Shots, Maybe Baby, Whispers: an Elephant’s Tale, The Cat’s Meow, The Magic Roundabout, Boogie Woogie, Late Bloomers, Absolutely Anything, and Finding Your Feet. She starred in Games That Lovers Play, Dolls, and Falling for Figaro.

         Her father was a major in the Gurkha Rifles in Nepal. Joanna has become a representative for the Gurkhas in the UK and is treated like a goddess in Nepal. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1995 by Queen Elizabeth and she was made a Dame by the queen in 2022 (She says she cried like a baby). She is the voice of AOL in Great Britain. Her 2005 autobiography is called No Room for Secrets. She has starred in several exotic travel documentaries. She is an activist for the indigenous rights group Survival International. She is a patron of Born Free Foundation to keep animals in the wild.

September 10, 1996: The featured poet at my reading series was Daren Swanson

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday night I hosted as always my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of The Gladstone Hotel. Our featured poet was Daren Swanson. I recall that his wonderful wife Cecile was pregnant at the time. Daren was a pretty good singer, songwriter and performer and he also had two daily journals in which he would write in one with his left hand and in the other with his right for the same amount of time every day.

Robert Preston

            On Tuesday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed but only picked up one bedbug. I put down some more carpet tape along the edges of my mattress where it had gotten less sticky. I went to bed around 1:30 and it took a while to get to sleep because it felt like there were bedbugs on me though I didn’t crush any. I woke up at four and by touch I did find one beside me. After yoga I found a couple of fat ones stuck to the tape.

            I published on my Christian’s Translations blog “Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anyone”, my translation of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” by Boris Vian. I searched for and found some more pictures of Boris Vian. 

            I finished memorizing “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. I translated the third verse. On Wednesday I’ll translate the last verse and then start working out the chords. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the second of four sessions and it went out of tune constantly. 

            Around midday I steamed the curtains that hang between the bedroom and the living room. I also steamed parts of the bedroom floor. I put down some more carpet tape on the floor around my bed.

            I weighed 92.85 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I took my Targus backpack out of the freezer after four days. So far I’ve only found one dead bedbug on it. 

            I weighed 92.1 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:28. 

            I digitized a cassette of some home recordings of rehearsals with Donna Bartkiw and Brian Haddon. I had to use the noise reduction app in Audacity to get rid of a hiss. 

            I grilled four chicken legs and had one with a potato and gravy while watching three Carol Burnett related videos. 

            The first appearance of Carol’s character The Charwoman was before The Carol Burnett Show during her 1963 TV special An Evening with Carol Burnett (Also known as Carol and Company). She says her only co-star was Robert Preston. The Charwoman comes out to clean an empty stage and then an invisible orchestra starts responding to her body movements. She begins to pretend to do a striptease while stripper music is playing. 

            The second video features some of the TV commercial parodies that were done on The Carol Burnett Show. They didn’t show any that I haven’t seen and written about previously. 

            The last was a Zany Outtakes video. 

            In the first, Carol is wearing the undersuit that goes under the dress of one of her characters. It has pendulous dangling breasts and Carol begins to dance like a stripper while swinging them around. One crewmember walks by and squeezes one of the fake tits.

            In a promo for the episode featuring guest stars Betty Grable and Martha Raye, Carol says “My poison Martha Raye” when she’d meant to say “My paysan Martha Raye”. 

           In a greeting to Australian fans Carol plays Marian from As The Stomach Turns. She wishes Channel 9 a happy 15th anniversary. She sends a special greeting to the town of Bellbird, the sister city of the fictional Canoga Falls. I assume Bellbird is also fictional but Carol cracks up every time she says it. The bellbird or bell miner has a bell-like call and there is a village in Australia named after it called Bellbrook. 

            Robert Preston was a trained musician who played several instruments. He began acting in high school. He studied acting and gave his first professional performances at The Pasadena Playhouse. During one of those plays he was observed by a Paramount scout and was signed to the company. He made his Broadway debut in The Male Animal in 1952. In 1957 he won a Tony Award for his iconic performance as Harold Hill in The Music Man. When the musical was made into a movie in 1962 he reprised his role. He won another Tony for I Do I Do. He originated the role of Henry II in The Lion in Winter on Broadway. He made his film debut in King of Alcatraz in 1938. He starred in Parachute Battalion, The Night of January 6, Pacific Blackout, Night Plane from Chungking, The Sundowners, Cloudburst, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. He co-starred in Illegal Traffic, Disbarred, Beau Geste, Union Pacific, Typhoon, Moon Over Burma, The Lady from Cheyenne, New York Town, Reap the Wild Wind, This Gun For Hire, Wings Up, All the Way Home, Junior Bonner, The Macomber Affair, Wild Harvest, Big City, Blood on the Moon, Whispering Smith, Tulsa, The Lady Gambles, When I Grow Up, Best of the Badmen, My Outlaw Brother, Face to Face, The Last Frontier, Island of Love, Victor Victoria (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), Wake Island, Mame, S.O.B., Child’s Play, Semi-Tough, and The Last Starfighter. He starred in the mini-series The Chisholms in 1979.

September 9, 1996: I moved Simon's parents

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I met Simon Orpana at his parents’ place at 5795 Yonge Street at 9:00 to help to move them to a new place. I don’t recall there being a truck that we loaded and so maybe we just packed their things in boxes to prepare them for the actual move. Simon took me for lunch nearby either in the middle or after we were done. I don’t recall if I got paid but I might have worked for free.

Musical Comedy

            On Monday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed but only caught one bedbug probably because I vacuumed on Sunday. I added some more carpet tape to the edge of the head of my bed. I went to bed at around 1:30 and slept fairly well until the alarm went off at 5:00. After yoga I killed a few bedbugs that were stuck to the carpet tape on my bed and on the floor. I killed one that was wandering free on the floor at the foot of my bed. 

            I uploaded “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anyone) by Boris Vian to my Christian’s Translations blog and began preparing it for publication. 

            I almost memorized the last verse of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. I should have it nailed down on Tuesday. 

            I weighed 91.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the first of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time. It’s usually just the high E, the B, and sometimes the G string that are slightly off. It doesn’t take long to get them back in tune but it’s annoying because if the guitar is properly set up it’ll stay in tune for almost the whole session. 

            I weighed 92.7 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I saw a plain clothes cop giving somebody a ticket. He was wearing a backwards baseball cap but also a vest on top of his civilian clothes saying “Police”. 

            I weighed 91.65 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:32. 

            I digitized an interview with me on CIUT radio about the launch of my first chapbook, Vomit of the Star Eater. I performed the title poem, then “The Princess and the Pea Happy Song” and “Sleep in the Snow”. Tomorrow I’ll digitize the other side, which has home recordings of rehearsals with Brian Haddon and Donna Bartkiw.

            I worked on digitally enhancing one of my old photos. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a heated up T-bone steak while watching two more videos about The Carol Burnett Show. One was a tribute to the writers and the other was about the mini musicals.

            Ken Solms and Gail Parent were signed as the first writers on the show fresh out of college. Tim Conway says nobody is funnier than Kenny Solms and Tim doesn’t know why he doesn’t perform.

            There were usually around 9 writers at a time. 

            Carl Reiner says when there’s a flame like Carol Burnett the moths gather. The same thing happened with Sid Caesar. Every good writer wanted to work on the Sid Caesar show and it was the same with Carol Burnett. 

            Carol says sometimes Laugh-In writers would get tired of quick jokes and wanted to write longer ones so they came to her show while some of her writers would go to Laugh-In. 

            Ken Solms says they got away with murder on The Carol Burnett Show because The Smothers Brothers down the hall were distracting the censors. 

            Carol says every Wednesday the writers would get together for lunch and they would show old kinescopes of variety shows like Jackie Gleason. Carol would usually come in at that time to talk to the head writer Arnie Rosen about script changes. One week she came in and they were watching a porno film. They’d set her up, knowing she’d be dropping by. Carol had never seen porn before and exclaimed, “That’s awful!” Arnie told her, “He’s doing the best he can.” 

            Ken and Mitzi Welch invented the mini musical. 

            Carol says Harvey had a good voice and Vicki adds, “Once he got the note”. 

            Kyra Thompson says they did what Broadway couldn’t do. They put together a Broadway musical comedy review in five days when on Broadway you’d rehearse that for six weeks. 

            Bob Mackie says a lot of Carol’s writers were Broadway calibre but they wanted to live in LA and have a weekly paycheque, and a nice home. 

            Ken Berry says Carol could fill a house with that voice. “It just sails!” 

            Musical Comedy can be traced back to ancient Greece as is evidenced by 6th Century pottery that depicts actors dressed as horses, satyrs, and dancers in exaggerated costumes. 

            In the 16th Century there were parody masses such as by Josquin des Prez and Palestrina, which were banned by the church. Comic opera developed in 17th Century Italy. 

           It spread to France where it became opera comique, then in the 19th Century French operetta, the master of which was Jacques Offenbach. 

           Victorian Burlesque came out of English Pantomime, which came out of Commedia dell’arte which has its roots in Greek Theatre. 

            Pantomime was musical theatre that depicted fairy and folk tales with cross dressing actors. Victorian Burlesque would turn popular operas into broad comic plays. The first was Olympic Revels by J.R. Planché in 1831. Music Halls started in England in the 18th Century. Again, these spread to France in the 19th Century and developed into the Folies Bergere and then The Moulin Rouge. 

            In North America the English Music Hall became the Concert Saloon. A North American form of Burlesque developed into Vaudeville.

September 8, 1996: My daughter and I played until her mother picked her up

Thirty years ago today 

            On Sunday my daughter and I played on the back roof of my place until her mother picked her up.

Jane Lynch

            On Sunday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed as usual and picked up several bedbugs. I put some more carpet tape on the less sticky edges of my mattress. I went to bed around 1:30 and didn’t sleep very well. I could feel bedbugs throughout the night. After yoga I checked and didn’t find any bedbugs stuck to the tape or really many crawling free except for one on the floor under the foot of my bed. 

            I ran through singing and playing “Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anyone”, my translation of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” by Boris Vian. On Monday I’ll upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog to begin the process of preparing it for publication. 

            I memorized the third verse of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg, which is really just half a verse. There’s only one verse left to learn. 

            I weighed 91.35 kilos before breakfast. I played my Kramer during song practice and it went out of tune quite a bit during the first half, then settled into tune for the rest. 

            I vacuumed my keyboard, the area around my desk, my bed, and the bedroom floor. 

            I weighed 93.05 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since August 24. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

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

            I weighed 91.75 kilos at 18:10.

            I was caught up in my journal for the first time this summer at 19:13. 

            For the first time in a long time I returned to my cassette recording project. I digitized the cassette containing my first gig with Brian Haddon. It was our first and I think only feature together as Christian and the Lions at Fat Albert’s. It was also the only gig we did with Brian playing the recorder as opposed to the keyboard. We did “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” and “Megaphor” and then I had Brian entertain people with his recorder while I took a long time to repair a string. Then we did “The Next State of Grace”, “Me and Gravity” and only the last part of “Seven Shades of Blues” made it onto the cassette because it was on the other side and maybe the sound guy forgot to turn the tape right away. Tomorrow I’ll digitize a tape that contains one of my radio interviews and some home rehearsals with Brian Haddon and Donna Bartkiw. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with cream cheese, marinara, tomato pesto, wedge fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching a video about Mama’s Family and another about the TV parodies on The Carol Burnett Show. 

            The Family was written by Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon who also did some of the movie parodies. They wrote Mama for Carol to play and the plan was for a guest star to play Eunice. Then when Carol said she wanted to play Eunice they thought they’d get a guest star to play Mama because it wasn’t meant to be a continuing sketch. But Bob Mackie suggested they let him dress Vicki as the old lady. 

            Vicki says, “I used to hate run-through day because everybody was seated in front of us in folding chairs in a brightly lit room and we used to call it Judgement at Nuremberg”. Vicki and Carol used to almost always run into each other in the washroom having their last nervous pee before the run-through. So before the Family sketch Vickie went into the washroom and was sitting in the stall when she heard a voice in the next stall say, “Mama…” Vickie responded with “What the hell is it Eunice?” “Just wonderin if you got any toilet paper over there.” “I’m busy right now Eunice!” “Well I just need some paper!” “Well when I’m done doing what I’m doin, if I got any paper left I’ll give you yer damn paper!” “Okay, fine!” They came out of their stalls and high fived each other because they knew now it was gonna be great. 

            There’s an excerpt from a skit I never saw when Mama is going to the cemetery to visit her late husband and she doesn’t want Eunice to come because she doesn’t want her father to see how ungrateful Eunice turned out. Eunice says her father never did anything for her because he was too busy doting on her sister Ellen. Kyra Thompson says there were a lot of layers to the Family sketch. 

            Carol became less dependent on her ability to do prat falls and started exploring characters with more depth. Carol understood Eunice because there was a little bit of her mother in her. Jane Lynch thinks Eunice was cathartic for Carol because she got to be the pain in the ass she didn’t allow herself to be in real life. 

            Vicki says at the time Mama was just another old lady that they got her to play because she was the supporting female. When Carol was Little Orphan Annie Vickie was the mean old school marm; Carol was the leading lady and Vickie was the housekeeper; and so on. Carol says Joanne Woodward had a ball guesting in the Family sketch. 

            Vickie says at the end of the 9th season Joe Hamilton came to her and said they were going to do a spin-off and do Mama’s Family. Vickie said, “No”. Joe said, “Whaddaya mean no? We got a commitment!” Vickie had just had her baby and wasn’t sure she wanted to play an old lady every week. Vicki asked, “What about Carol and Harvey?” he said, “You don’t need them.” Vicki said no and Joe was pissed but Carol was happy because it meant they could still do it on the show. It was after the Burnett show ended that they did the Eunice special for CBS. Then they asked Vicki again to do the series so she gave in. 

            Carol was upset when ABC canceled All My Children. Gail Parent one of Carol’s writers was addicted to soap operas and she wondered what would happen if a soap opera wrapped up everything in every episode. After the first one Carol wanted to do it as a regular feature. 

            Jane Lynch used to secretly cross dress as a child. She earned a Bachelors degree in Theatre from Illinois State University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Cornell University. She spent 15 years with The Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago and then was picked to join Second City. She made her film debut in Vice Versa in 1988. She co-starred on Glee from 2009 to 2015 for which she won an Emmy Award. She co-starred in Dropping the Soap for which she was also an executive producer. She had a recurring role on The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel. On Tv she co-starred in Final Space and Harriet the Spy. She co-starred in Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, Role Models, Another Cinderella Story, Wreck it Ralph, and Escape from Planet Earth. She made her Broadway debut in Annie in 2013. She hosted Hollywood Game Night from 2013 to 2020. Since 2020 she has been the host and executive producer of the US version of The Weakest Link. She wrote and starred in the play Oh Sister My Sister. She hosted the 2011 Emmy Awards. She hosted Saturday Night Live in 2010. She knew she was gay at 12 but didn’t tell her parents until she was 31. She published the autobiography Happy Accidents in 2011.