I also completed my memorization of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo) by Serge Gainsbourg. I finished translating the second verse and tomorrow I’ll try to finish my translation.
I weighed 90.15 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since March 4.
I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune almost the whole time.
I opened the can of Blue Bliss and painted the screws that I’d used on Wednesday to mount the wire rack in the bathroom. I touched up a few areas on and around the rack. Since there was still time and I had the paint open I started painting the frame for what’s going to be my bathroom mirror. I didn’t get too close to the floral relief that occurs four times around the frame because I didn’t have time for careful work. On Sunday I’ll do that. The blue is going to need at least two coats. The roses in relief will be in the same pink shade called Crazy in Love that I used for the ceiling.
I weighed 90.8 kilos before lunch. That’s the least I’ve pushed the scale in the early afternoon since last Friday.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 89.9 kilos at 17:50.
I was still a day behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up but was still behind at suppertime.
I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 7, episode 21 of The Carol Burnett Show.
During the audience warmup a set of 15 year old twins ask Carol if it’s true that she pretended to have a twin sister when she was a child. She says it’s true because she thought it would be fun to have a twin. The girls confirm that it is.
Someone asks which are her favourite characters. In the past she’s answered Zelda but this time she says Nora Desmond and Charo.
Carol plays a housewife about to do her ironing and she turns on the radio. She listens to a talk show on which a caller (played by Vicki) says she’s having an affair with the husband of her best friend, who lives next door. She says she’s disguising her voice in case her friend is listening but then starts talking in her real voice and Carol recognizes it. Vicki says she meets with her friend’s husband every day because he’s secretly quit his job as a dynamite salesman. She says he pretends to go to work every day but just comes over to her house to spend the day. He’s in the other room mixing martinis right now. Suddenly Carol’s husband (played by Lyle) comes in to get some olives. He says he was driving to work and had a sudden craving. Vicki says they’re going to drink the martinis, he’s going to play mood music and then they’re going to (censored on the radio). Lyle comes back home and starts to leave with a record player and some albums. Carol asks what he’s doing. He explains that the radio in his car is broken and he needs to listen to music on the way to work. Carol hears Vicki tell Lyle to get some candles, so Carol gets a candle in a candle holder ready for him when he returns but replaces the candle with a stick of dynamite. Soon there is an explosion next door and Carol tears up the shirt she was ironing while singing “I Did It My Way” by Paul Anka.
Eydie Gormet comes home to a lonely apartment while her own voice is singing in the background the 1928 song “How About Me?” by Irving Berlin. Then she sings the 1973 song “The Way We Were” by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch.
There is a series of very short Laugh-In style skits beginning with Tim Conway singing “First the tide rushes in” just before a bunch of water falls on his head.
Lyle and Vickie are standing on a threshold as he sings “Goodnight Irene”. She says “I’m Helen!” and punches him in the gut. He punches her in the jaw.
Tim Conway sings “First the tide rushes in” again but this time holds an umbrella over his head. However the water is thrown from his left.
Harvey, in an extremely masculine voice and stance sings Bob Dylan’s lyric: “How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man”, then he does a very effeminate walk down the road.
Tim is now holding two umbrellas, one above and another on his left side but the water comes from his right side.
Eydie is on the couch when there is a knock. She asks who it is and a voice says “The boy next door”. She sings, “How can I ignore the boy next door?” and opens it. It’s Harvey in a beard and hat with flowers. He’s portraying a much shorter man while on his knees on a pair of shoes. In answer to her question she says, “Simple” just before he gives her an uppercut in the jaw.
Tim is now holding an umbrella above and on each side of him but the water comes from the front.
Carol is sitting on a bench when Harvey comes up with a gun to mug her and says, “Gimme all your dough!” She looks in her purse and finds it empty so she starts singing and dancing towards him, “I can’t give you anything but love baby”. He shouts for the police, then hands her $20 to leave him alone, but she punches him in the face.
Vicki answers the door and Tim is her date. She sings “Getting to know you” by Rodgers and Hammerstein from the 1951 musical The King and I. He proceeds to clumsily break things in her apartment while she continues to sing. She guides him back to the door then punches him in the jaw. He comes back and returns the favour.
Harvey sings, “I Talk to the Trees” by Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe from the 1951 musical Paint Your Wagon. But two men in white coats come up to grab him and assure him he’s going to a place where he can talk to the trees all he wants.
Tim is wearing a rain hat and a full raincoat as he sings, “First the tide comes in” but he gets a cream pie in the face.
Harvey plays a German officer with an Allied prisoner (played by Lyle). Harvey says he’s going to bring in Wolfgang Schweinhund the most feared interrogator in the German army. Tim arrives as Wolfgang and they talk fake German to each other. He introduces himself to Lyle as “The most feared interrogator in all the world and part of Canada”. Since Lyle still won’t talk Wolfgang says he’s making the Fuhrer very angry as he pulls out a Hitler hand puppet. Hitler is holding a pencil in both hands and Wolfgang tells Lyle that Hitler is gonna hit him with that club. Lyle starts laughing. Hitler tries to make Lyle feel at home by singing “I’ve Been Working On the Railroad” and Lyle cracks up again. Wolfgang takes a wine bottle and tries to break it so he can cut Lyle’s face but everything he hits the bottle on breaks while the bottle remains intact. Finally Harvey takes it from him and hits him over the head, breaking the bottle. Wolfgang asks how many airplanes the Allies have in North Africa. Lyle says “A lot more than you have in Berlin”. Wolfgang and Harvey start laughing. They show Lyle a paper to prove how many planes they have in Berlin. Lyle says, “You don’t have enough men to man that many planes”. They laugh again and show them a paper documenting how many men they have. Lyle says, “What good are all those men with inferior weapons?” Wolfgang hands Lyle his Lugar to prove what good weapons they have and Lyle turns it on him and escapes with the information.
Carol is at a carnival and enters the tent of the fortune teller played by Vicki. Vicki goes into a trance and knows Carol’s name is Miss Wotacheck. She says she will meet a tall dark stranger. Suddenly Lyle comes in. Vicki says he’ll fall madly in love with you. He kisses Carol. Vicki says he’ll take her to the Mediterranean where they’ll live happily ever after. But suddenly Eydie comes in, calls him a two timing gigolo and shoots him. Eydie hands Carol the gun, tells her it will get her through enemy lines but advises her to save one bullet for herself. A detective comes in and arrests Carol for the murder of the Marquis de Rothman, the richest man alive. Then a man in dark glasses and a trenchcoat knocks out the cop. He pulls a gun on Carol and demands to know where’s the microfilm. They put her in a chair and call for Thor. A big torturer approaches. Then some rebel guerillas arrive and say that since she didn’t tell anyone the location of the microfilm she’s saved Tetsalovia. The president arrives to say she is their greatest citizen. She says she’s from Akron. Since she’s an Akronian she is sentenced to the firing squad. She is shot and the men leave. She drags herself to the fortune teller and pays her $2 before dying.
Two detectives played by Lyle and Vickie enter a dinner party and say “Nobody leave the room”. They reveal their conclusions based on all the clues, the main one being the six-fingered glove. Lyle demands to see Mr. Sedgwick’s hand. They struggle until Harvey informs him he’s not Sedgwick and this is the Mermelstein bar mitzva.
Harvey with a James Mason accent arrives at the home of the high Lama (played by Tim) in Shangri-La. He finds him asleep in his chair. Harvey says he’s looking for a high Lama. The Lama says he was high on Thursday. He says in Shangri-La one no longer needs to conform to the ridiculous dictates of society. Harvey asks if he can join and the Lama says yes but gives him a necktie to wear.
Carol and Eydie sing the 1911 song “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” by Irving Berlin. Then the 1924 song “Doodle Doo Doo” by Art Kassel and Mel Stitzel. The dancers tap dance. They intermix it with “The Beat Goes On” by Sonny Bono.
One of the writers for the Carol Burnett Show was Dick Clair, who was part of a writing and comedy team with Jenna McMahon with whom he performed skits on Ed Sullivan and The Dean Martin Show. He also wrote episodes of Soap, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show. He co-created with Jenna the sitcoms It’s a Living, The Facts of Life, and Mama’s Family. He had AIDS and fought a long and well publicized legal battle with the state of California to win the right to have his body cryogenically frozen when he died.
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