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In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox Hardcover – Sept. 13 2016
by
Carol Burnett
(Author)
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The New York Times Bestseller
Comedy legend Carol Burnett tells the hilarious behind-the-scenes story of her iconic weekly variety series, The Carol Burnett Show.
In In Such Good Company, Carol Burnett pulls back the curtain on the twenty-five-time Emmy-Award winning show that made television history, and she reminisces about the outrageously funny and tender moments that made working on the series as much fun as watching it.
Carol delves into little-known stories of the guests, sketches and improvisations that made The Carol Burnett Show legendary, as well as some favorite tales too good not to relive again. While writing this book, Carol rewatched all 276 episodes and screen-grabbed her favorite video stills from the archives to illustrate the chemistry of the actors and the improvisational magic that made the show so successful.
Putting the spotlight on everyone from her costars to the impressive list of guest stars, Carol crafts a lively portrait of the talent and creativity that went into every episode. With characteristic wit and incomparable comic timing, she details hiring Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway; shares anecdotes about guest stars and close friends, including Lucille Ball, Roddy Mcdowell, Jim Nabors, Bernadette Peters, Betty Grable, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth, and Betty White; and gives her take on her favorite sketches and the unpredictable moments that took both the cast and viewers by surprise.
This book is Carol's love letter to a golden era in television history through the lens of her brilliant show. Get the best seat in the house for "eleven years of laughter, mayhem, and fun in the sandbox."
Comedy legend Carol Burnett tells the hilarious behind-the-scenes story of her iconic weekly variety series, The Carol Burnett Show.
In In Such Good Company, Carol Burnett pulls back the curtain on the twenty-five-time Emmy-Award winning show that made television history, and she reminisces about the outrageously funny and tender moments that made working on the series as much fun as watching it.
Carol delves into little-known stories of the guests, sketches and improvisations that made The Carol Burnett Show legendary, as well as some favorite tales too good not to relive again. While writing this book, Carol rewatched all 276 episodes and screen-grabbed her favorite video stills from the archives to illustrate the chemistry of the actors and the improvisational magic that made the show so successful.
Putting the spotlight on everyone from her costars to the impressive list of guest stars, Carol crafts a lively portrait of the talent and creativity that went into every episode. With characteristic wit and incomparable comic timing, she details hiring Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway; shares anecdotes about guest stars and close friends, including Lucille Ball, Roddy Mcdowell, Jim Nabors, Bernadette Peters, Betty Grable, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth, and Betty White; and gives her take on her favorite sketches and the unpredictable moments that took both the cast and viewers by surprise.
This book is Carol's love letter to a golden era in television history through the lens of her brilliant show. Get the best seat in the house for "eleven years of laughter, mayhem, and fun in the sandbox."
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherCrown Archetype
- Publication dateSept. 13 2016
- Dimensions16.51 x 3.18 x 24.13 cm
- ISBN-101101904658
- ISBN-13978-1101904657
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Review
“In this light, behind-the-scenes memoir, [Burnett] pays tribute to the many talented individuals responsible for the show's enduring success, [sharing] some of the hilarious impromptu moments on the set and sheds light on the many memorable sketches, including the movie parodies that have become classic TV.” —Kirkus Reviews
"The great comedian [Carol Burnett] filled America’s living rooms with pratfalls and Tarzan yells.... Carol Burnett’s new memoir, In Such Good Company, captures this zaniness with relish. Written in Burnett’s laughing voice, the book chronicles how she prepared her weekly dose of mayhem.... Resonating with Burnett’s lively enthusiasm, In Such Good Company captures the excitement of being there once again, and it’s a joyous addition to her earlier memoirs." —The Washington Post
"The great comedian [Carol Burnett] filled America’s living rooms with pratfalls and Tarzan yells.... Carol Burnett’s new memoir, In Such Good Company, captures this zaniness with relish. Written in Burnett’s laughing voice, the book chronicles how she prepared her weekly dose of mayhem.... Resonating with Burnett’s lively enthusiasm, In Such Good Company captures the excitement of being there once again, and it’s a joyous addition to her earlier memoirs." —The Washington Post
About the Author
CAROL BURNETT has been an actor on Broadway, on television, and in the movies. She has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, The Mark Twain Prize for Humor and the Kennedy Center Honors, among other singular achievements of a woman comedian who was nothing less than a pioneer and a role model for stars like Tina Fey, Amy Pohler and Amy Schumer.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION
I recently had the extreme pleasure of receiving the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and in accepting the honor I talked about how much I loved going to the movies with my grandmother, Nanny, as a kid. My favorites were the comedies and the musicals. I think that’s when I fell in love with the idea of, someday, being a musical comedy performer. Since there wasn’t television “back in the covered wagon days,” when I was growing up, I never imagined that my dream would be realized by having my own weekly musical comedy variety show on the small screen. But that’s exactly what happened.
I’ve been thinking about that time a lot, and since my memory is pretty good, I decided to put my thoughts down on paper for anybody who might be interested in what we did and how we did it.
In doing the research for this book, I watched all 276 shows, even though at times I felt like Norma Desmond watching herself on the screen in Sunset Boulevard!
When I was watching the first few episodes, the first thing I noticed was how I looked. I laughed out loud at my various hairdos, with different shades of red, remembering that I (amateurishly) dyed my hair myself every week using Miss Clairol, because I hated to waste my time sitting in a beauty parlor.
What really stand out are the changes that evolved. Of course the hairstyles, makeup, and costumes were constantly changing. Remember, this was the late sixties into the seventies . . . bell-bottoms, miniskirts, etc. The makeup was exaggerated—heavy eyeliner and large Minnie Mouse false eyelashes . . . upper and lower! Even Bob Mackie, our brilliant costume designer, who surprised us every week with his creations, both beautiful and comedic, would admit that he missed the mark on some occasions. But they were rare.
One of the things I noticed was how I evolved over those eleven years. I went from the “zany, kooky, man-hungry, big-mouthed goofball,” which was who I had fashioned myself into during my early years, including my time as a regular on the Garry Moore television show, into a somewhat more “mature kook.”
I always loved doing the physical comedy—falling down, jumping out of windows, getting pies in the face—however, around thirty-seven, thirty-eight years old, three or four years into the show, I found myself enjoying tackling more sophisticated and complex satires and some of the sketches that had a tinge of pathos. “The Family” scenes with Eunice, Mama, and Ed always touched me deeply, because as crazy as they could get, there was always an element of reality—these were people suffering disappointment and regret, raging against fate, doing the best they could.
Naturally, there were a lot of sketches and musical numbers I had completely forgotten. Some of them made me laugh, and some, I admit, made me cringe! But overall, I was transported back to the most wonderful and pleasurable phase of my career.
What follows are many outstanding memories of what occurred during a “regular show week.” I’ll share anecdotes about our cast members, many of our guests, recurring characters, favorite movie parodies, some of the funny and off-the-cuff questions from our audience and my responses—basically how we all played together in the sandbox—hilariously—from 1967 to 1978.
Some of these stories may be familiar to those of you who know me best, but they needed to be retold in order to give you the whole picture of those eleven wonderful years!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start over at the very beginning . . .
IN THE SANDBOX
When I was growing up, theater and music were my first loves, so my original show business goals revolved around being in musical comedies on Broadway, like Ethel Merman and Mary Martin. My stage break came in the spring of 1959, when I was cast as “Winnifred the Woebegone” in the musical comedy Once Upon a Mattress, a takeoff on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea.” It was an Off-Broadway production at the Phoenix Theatre, directed by none other than the iconic George Abbott, “Mr. Broadway” himself!
The show was originally scheduled for a limited run of six weeks, but it was so popular that it was moved to Broadway and ran for over a year. I got my wish; I was on Broadway! Because no one had expected the production to be so successful, there were numerous booking issues that caused our little show to be bounced from theater to theater—from the Phoenix to the Alvin to the Winter Garden to the Cort and, finally, to the St. James. There were a couple of jokes going around the business about the production during this period. I remember Neil Simon quipped, “It’s the most moving musical on Broadway! If you haven’t seen Once Upon a Mattress yet, don’t worry, it’ll soon be at your neighborhood theater.”
My second big break came in the fall of 1959 when I was asked to be a regular performer on The Garry Moore Show, a terrifically popular TV comedy-variety series. For almost a year, until the summer of 1960, I doubled up and did both shows. I would perform in Mattress on Tuesdays through Fridays at 8:30 p.m. and then do two shows a day on Saturdays and Sundays.
I would rehearse for Garry’s show eight to nine hours a day Monday through Friday, and then we would tape his show on Friday, in the early evening, which gave me just enough time to hop the subway and head downtown to arrive at Mattress in time for the 8:30 curtain!
I had no days off. Hey, I was young, I told myself—but evidently not that young, because one Sunday, during a matinee, I fell asleep . . . in front of the audience!
Normally, the scene involved Princess Winnifred trying her best to get a good night’s sleep on top of twenty mattresses, but she couldn’t. The mattresses were highly uncomfortable and lumpy, resulting in a very active pantomime in which I jumped up and down, pounding on the offending lumps, and finally wound up sitting on the edge of the bed wide awake, desperately counting sheep as the scene ended. Not this Sunday. As I lay there on top of twenty mattresses, I simply drifted off to dreamland. Our stage manager, who was in the wings, called, “Carol?” And then louder, “Carol!” I woke up with a start and nearly fell off the very tall bed. The audience howled, but the producers changed the schedule after that and moved the Sunday performance to Monday, so I could have Sundays off.
By that time The Garry Moore Show had switched to tape, like everyone else, but we still performed in front of a live audience as if it were a live show—no retakes, no stops. We wanted the excitement and spontaneity that went with the feeling of live theater—which was exactly what made the show so good, every Tuesday night on CBS.
The musical numbers and the writing were certainly worthy of being on the Great White Way; in fact, our junior writer was Neil Simon, whom we called “Doc.” He had worked for Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows. It’s a little-known fact that Neil wrote Come Blow Your Horn, his first play, while he was working for Garry, who was one of his first investors!
Garry’s show was a great learning experience for me. I remember sitting around the table reading the script the week that the famous vaudeville performer Ed Wynn was the guest. Then in his seventies, he had begun his career in vaudeville in 1903 and had starred in the Ziegfeld Follies beginning in 1914. He told great stories about those days. He got on the subject of “comics vs. comedic actors.”
Garry asked him what the difference was.
“Well,” Ed said, “a comic says ‘funny things,’ like Bob Hope, and a comedic actor says things funny, like Jack Benny.”
That’s what I wanted to be . . . someone who “says things funny.”
I left Mattress in June of 1960, while I was still a regular on Garry’s show, but I really never dreamed television was going to be my “thing,” even though I found myself falling in love more and more with the small screen. Garry’s show allowed me to be different characters every week, as opposed to doing one role over and over again in the theater. In essence we mounted a distinct musical comedy revue every week—week in and week out—in front of a live studio audience, just like in summer stock.
However, I still harbored my dream of starring again on BROADWAY and being the next Ethel Merman.
CBS asked me to sign a contract with them after I had been on Garry’s show for a few seasons. The deal I was offered was for ten years, from 1962 to 1972, paying me a decent amount to do a one-hour TV special each year, as well as two guest appearances on any of their regular series. However, if I wanted to do an hour-long variety show of my own during the first five years of the contract, they would guarantee me thirty one-hour shows!
In other words, it would be my option! CBS would have to say yes, whether they wanted to or not!
They called this “pay or play” because they would have to pay me for thirty shows, even if they didn’t put them on the air. “Just push the button!” was the phrase the programming executives used. This was an unheard-of deal, but I didn’t pay much attention to it, because I had no plans to host my own show—never dreamed I’d ever want to. I was going to focus all of my energy on Broadway.
A MAN’S GAME
By 1966 I had married Joe Hamilton, who had produced Garry’s show, and we had our adorable daughter, Carrie, and another baby on the way. My Broadway career had not panned out, which was why we were in Hollywood to begin with, and I was as in demand as a carton of sour milk. We were sitting on orange crates and packing boxes in the living room of a Beverly Hills home we had somehow managed to scrape together the down payment to buy.
We had to do something to earn some money. It was the week between Christmas and New Year’s; 1967 was a few days away and our five-year deadline on the pay-or-play clause was about to expire. Joe and I looked at each other, looked around the furniture-less living room, and picked up the phone.
Mike Dann, one of the top executives at CBS in New York City, took the call and sounded happy to hear from me. He asked about our holidays and I said they had been lovely, but I was calling to “push the button” on the thirty one-hour comedy-variety shows they had promised me in my contract five years ago.
Mike honestly didn’t remember any of this. He was completely in the dark. Joe took the phone and reminded him in great detail. My guess is that more than a few lawyers were called away from their holiday parties that night to review my contract.
When Mike called the next day, he said, “Well, yes, I can see why you called, but I don’t think the hour is the best way to go. Comedy-variety shows are traditionally hosted by men: Gleason, Caesar, Benny, Berle, and now Dean . . . it’s really not for a gal. Dinah Shore’s show was mostly music.”
“But comedy-variety is what I do best! It’s what I learned doing Garry’s show—comedy sketches. We can have a rep company like Garry’s, and like Caesar’s Hour. We can have guest stars! Music!”
“Honey, we’ve got a great half-hour sitcom script that would fit you like a glove. It’s called Here’s Agnes! It’s a sure thing!”
Here’s Agnes? No thanks . . . we pushed the button.
PLAY!
CBS scheduled our show’s premiere for Monday, September 11, 1967, opposite I Spy and The Big Valley, both of which were among the top-watched shows on TV. It was pretty obvious the network didn’t think we’d last the whole season; otherwise they would have given us a more forgiving slot where we’d have had more of a chance to get some traction. In truth, we weren’t sure we’d last, either. We sighed and decided we’d at least get our thirty shows. We could start unpacking, because, for a year, the bills would get paid.
It was all a gamble, but despite everything, many of the original staff members from Garry’s show, like head writer Arnie Rosen, director Clark Jones, choreographer Ernie Flatt, lead dancer Don Crichton, and many more, took the plunge and followed us to California.
Lyle Waggoner came on board to be my handsome foil—I winced in embarrassment while rewatching the shows when I saw myself going gaga and swooning over him, which was a running gag for the first few seasons. Eventually, much to my relief, we deep-sixed the “swooning over Lyle” bit and he morphed from just being the show’s good-looking announcer to getting laughs as different nuanced characters. He turned into a very good sketch performer.
Vicki Lawrence had no professional experience when we brought her on. It was fascinating to watch her grow out of her awkward, young teenage stage and into a very clever and confident comedienne and singer/dancer.
Harvey Korman was a consummate comedic actor from the get-go, but I also saw him evolve over the years in ways that were astonishing. He never fancied himself a singer or a dancer. If our choreographer, Ernie Flatt, tried to give him a dance step to execute, he would freeze in his tracks, but if you gave Harvey the role of a dancer, he would improvise dance steps that made him look like Gene Kelly . . . well, I won’t go that far, but you’d swear the guy was born to move. It worked the same way with singing; he could sing up a storm if he was playing the part of someone who could sing!
We did a lot of movie takeoffs on the show, and I swear he seemed to channel those famous actors—Ronald Colman in our version of Random Harvest, Zachary Scott in Mildred Pierce, and who could ever forget his Clark Gable in our Gone With the Wind parody?
Tim Conway was a frequent guest in the early years and joined us every week in the ninth season! Much more about him—and the rest of our gang—later . . .
We all played together in our crazy, creative sandbox and delivered a fresh, Broadway-like musical comedy review each week, and boy did we have fun . . . for eleven years!
I recently had the extreme pleasure of receiving the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and in accepting the honor I talked about how much I loved going to the movies with my grandmother, Nanny, as a kid. My favorites were the comedies and the musicals. I think that’s when I fell in love with the idea of, someday, being a musical comedy performer. Since there wasn’t television “back in the covered wagon days,” when I was growing up, I never imagined that my dream would be realized by having my own weekly musical comedy variety show on the small screen. But that’s exactly what happened.
I’ve been thinking about that time a lot, and since my memory is pretty good, I decided to put my thoughts down on paper for anybody who might be interested in what we did and how we did it.
In doing the research for this book, I watched all 276 shows, even though at times I felt like Norma Desmond watching herself on the screen in Sunset Boulevard!
When I was watching the first few episodes, the first thing I noticed was how I looked. I laughed out loud at my various hairdos, with different shades of red, remembering that I (amateurishly) dyed my hair myself every week using Miss Clairol, because I hated to waste my time sitting in a beauty parlor.
What really stand out are the changes that evolved. Of course the hairstyles, makeup, and costumes were constantly changing. Remember, this was the late sixties into the seventies . . . bell-bottoms, miniskirts, etc. The makeup was exaggerated—heavy eyeliner and large Minnie Mouse false eyelashes . . . upper and lower! Even Bob Mackie, our brilliant costume designer, who surprised us every week with his creations, both beautiful and comedic, would admit that he missed the mark on some occasions. But they were rare.
One of the things I noticed was how I evolved over those eleven years. I went from the “zany, kooky, man-hungry, big-mouthed goofball,” which was who I had fashioned myself into during my early years, including my time as a regular on the Garry Moore television show, into a somewhat more “mature kook.”
I always loved doing the physical comedy—falling down, jumping out of windows, getting pies in the face—however, around thirty-seven, thirty-eight years old, three or four years into the show, I found myself enjoying tackling more sophisticated and complex satires and some of the sketches that had a tinge of pathos. “The Family” scenes with Eunice, Mama, and Ed always touched me deeply, because as crazy as they could get, there was always an element of reality—these were people suffering disappointment and regret, raging against fate, doing the best they could.
Naturally, there were a lot of sketches and musical numbers I had completely forgotten. Some of them made me laugh, and some, I admit, made me cringe! But overall, I was transported back to the most wonderful and pleasurable phase of my career.
What follows are many outstanding memories of what occurred during a “regular show week.” I’ll share anecdotes about our cast members, many of our guests, recurring characters, favorite movie parodies, some of the funny and off-the-cuff questions from our audience and my responses—basically how we all played together in the sandbox—hilariously—from 1967 to 1978.
Some of these stories may be familiar to those of you who know me best, but they needed to be retold in order to give you the whole picture of those eleven wonderful years!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start over at the very beginning . . .
IN THE SANDBOX
When I was growing up, theater and music were my first loves, so my original show business goals revolved around being in musical comedies on Broadway, like Ethel Merman and Mary Martin. My stage break came in the spring of 1959, when I was cast as “Winnifred the Woebegone” in the musical comedy Once Upon a Mattress, a takeoff on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea.” It was an Off-Broadway production at the Phoenix Theatre, directed by none other than the iconic George Abbott, “Mr. Broadway” himself!
The show was originally scheduled for a limited run of six weeks, but it was so popular that it was moved to Broadway and ran for over a year. I got my wish; I was on Broadway! Because no one had expected the production to be so successful, there were numerous booking issues that caused our little show to be bounced from theater to theater—from the Phoenix to the Alvin to the Winter Garden to the Cort and, finally, to the St. James. There were a couple of jokes going around the business about the production during this period. I remember Neil Simon quipped, “It’s the most moving musical on Broadway! If you haven’t seen Once Upon a Mattress yet, don’t worry, it’ll soon be at your neighborhood theater.”
My second big break came in the fall of 1959 when I was asked to be a regular performer on The Garry Moore Show, a terrifically popular TV comedy-variety series. For almost a year, until the summer of 1960, I doubled up and did both shows. I would perform in Mattress on Tuesdays through Fridays at 8:30 p.m. and then do two shows a day on Saturdays and Sundays.
I would rehearse for Garry’s show eight to nine hours a day Monday through Friday, and then we would tape his show on Friday, in the early evening, which gave me just enough time to hop the subway and head downtown to arrive at Mattress in time for the 8:30 curtain!
I had no days off. Hey, I was young, I told myself—but evidently not that young, because one Sunday, during a matinee, I fell asleep . . . in front of the audience!
Normally, the scene involved Princess Winnifred trying her best to get a good night’s sleep on top of twenty mattresses, but she couldn’t. The mattresses were highly uncomfortable and lumpy, resulting in a very active pantomime in which I jumped up and down, pounding on the offending lumps, and finally wound up sitting on the edge of the bed wide awake, desperately counting sheep as the scene ended. Not this Sunday. As I lay there on top of twenty mattresses, I simply drifted off to dreamland. Our stage manager, who was in the wings, called, “Carol?” And then louder, “Carol!” I woke up with a start and nearly fell off the very tall bed. The audience howled, but the producers changed the schedule after that and moved the Sunday performance to Monday, so I could have Sundays off.
By that time The Garry Moore Show had switched to tape, like everyone else, but we still performed in front of a live audience as if it were a live show—no retakes, no stops. We wanted the excitement and spontaneity that went with the feeling of live theater—which was exactly what made the show so good, every Tuesday night on CBS.
The musical numbers and the writing were certainly worthy of being on the Great White Way; in fact, our junior writer was Neil Simon, whom we called “Doc.” He had worked for Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows. It’s a little-known fact that Neil wrote Come Blow Your Horn, his first play, while he was working for Garry, who was one of his first investors!
Garry’s show was a great learning experience for me. I remember sitting around the table reading the script the week that the famous vaudeville performer Ed Wynn was the guest. Then in his seventies, he had begun his career in vaudeville in 1903 and had starred in the Ziegfeld Follies beginning in 1914. He told great stories about those days. He got on the subject of “comics vs. comedic actors.”
Garry asked him what the difference was.
“Well,” Ed said, “a comic says ‘funny things,’ like Bob Hope, and a comedic actor says things funny, like Jack Benny.”
That’s what I wanted to be . . . someone who “says things funny.”
I left Mattress in June of 1960, while I was still a regular on Garry’s show, but I really never dreamed television was going to be my “thing,” even though I found myself falling in love more and more with the small screen. Garry’s show allowed me to be different characters every week, as opposed to doing one role over and over again in the theater. In essence we mounted a distinct musical comedy revue every week—week in and week out—in front of a live studio audience, just like in summer stock.
However, I still harbored my dream of starring again on BROADWAY and being the next Ethel Merman.
CBS asked me to sign a contract with them after I had been on Garry’s show for a few seasons. The deal I was offered was for ten years, from 1962 to 1972, paying me a decent amount to do a one-hour TV special each year, as well as two guest appearances on any of their regular series. However, if I wanted to do an hour-long variety show of my own during the first five years of the contract, they would guarantee me thirty one-hour shows!
In other words, it would be my option! CBS would have to say yes, whether they wanted to or not!
They called this “pay or play” because they would have to pay me for thirty shows, even if they didn’t put them on the air. “Just push the button!” was the phrase the programming executives used. This was an unheard-of deal, but I didn’t pay much attention to it, because I had no plans to host my own show—never dreamed I’d ever want to. I was going to focus all of my energy on Broadway.
A MAN’S GAME
By 1966 I had married Joe Hamilton, who had produced Garry’s show, and we had our adorable daughter, Carrie, and another baby on the way. My Broadway career had not panned out, which was why we were in Hollywood to begin with, and I was as in demand as a carton of sour milk. We were sitting on orange crates and packing boxes in the living room of a Beverly Hills home we had somehow managed to scrape together the down payment to buy.
We had to do something to earn some money. It was the week between Christmas and New Year’s; 1967 was a few days away and our five-year deadline on the pay-or-play clause was about to expire. Joe and I looked at each other, looked around the furniture-less living room, and picked up the phone.
Mike Dann, one of the top executives at CBS in New York City, took the call and sounded happy to hear from me. He asked about our holidays and I said they had been lovely, but I was calling to “push the button” on the thirty one-hour comedy-variety shows they had promised me in my contract five years ago.
Mike honestly didn’t remember any of this. He was completely in the dark. Joe took the phone and reminded him in great detail. My guess is that more than a few lawyers were called away from their holiday parties that night to review my contract.
When Mike called the next day, he said, “Well, yes, I can see why you called, but I don’t think the hour is the best way to go. Comedy-variety shows are traditionally hosted by men: Gleason, Caesar, Benny, Berle, and now Dean . . . it’s really not for a gal. Dinah Shore’s show was mostly music.”
“But comedy-variety is what I do best! It’s what I learned doing Garry’s show—comedy sketches. We can have a rep company like Garry’s, and like Caesar’s Hour. We can have guest stars! Music!”
“Honey, we’ve got a great half-hour sitcom script that would fit you like a glove. It’s called Here’s Agnes! It’s a sure thing!”
Here’s Agnes? No thanks . . . we pushed the button.
PLAY!
CBS scheduled our show’s premiere for Monday, September 11, 1967, opposite I Spy and The Big Valley, both of which were among the top-watched shows on TV. It was pretty obvious the network didn’t think we’d last the whole season; otherwise they would have given us a more forgiving slot where we’d have had more of a chance to get some traction. In truth, we weren’t sure we’d last, either. We sighed and decided we’d at least get our thirty shows. We could start unpacking, because, for a year, the bills would get paid.
It was all a gamble, but despite everything, many of the original staff members from Garry’s show, like head writer Arnie Rosen, director Clark Jones, choreographer Ernie Flatt, lead dancer Don Crichton, and many more, took the plunge and followed us to California.
Lyle Waggoner came on board to be my handsome foil—I winced in embarrassment while rewatching the shows when I saw myself going gaga and swooning over him, which was a running gag for the first few seasons. Eventually, much to my relief, we deep-sixed the “swooning over Lyle” bit and he morphed from just being the show’s good-looking announcer to getting laughs as different nuanced characters. He turned into a very good sketch performer.
Vicki Lawrence had no professional experience when we brought her on. It was fascinating to watch her grow out of her awkward, young teenage stage and into a very clever and confident comedienne and singer/dancer.
Harvey Korman was a consummate comedic actor from the get-go, but I also saw him evolve over the years in ways that were astonishing. He never fancied himself a singer or a dancer. If our choreographer, Ernie Flatt, tried to give him a dance step to execute, he would freeze in his tracks, but if you gave Harvey the role of a dancer, he would improvise dance steps that made him look like Gene Kelly . . . well, I won’t go that far, but you’d swear the guy was born to move. It worked the same way with singing; he could sing up a storm if he was playing the part of someone who could sing!
We did a lot of movie takeoffs on the show, and I swear he seemed to channel those famous actors—Ronald Colman in our version of Random Harvest, Zachary Scott in Mildred Pierce, and who could ever forget his Clark Gable in our Gone With the Wind parody?
Tim Conway was a frequent guest in the early years and joined us every week in the ninth season! Much more about him—and the rest of our gang—later . . .
We all played together in our crazy, creative sandbox and delivered a fresh, Broadway-like musical comedy review each week, and boy did we have fun . . . for eleven years!
Product details
- Publisher : Crown Archetype; American First edition (Sept. 13 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1101904658
- ISBN-13 : 978-1101904657
- Item weight : 544 g
- Dimensions : 16.51 x 3.18 x 24.13 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: #393,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,108 in Television (Books)
- #3,747 in Entertainer
- #4,221 in Actor Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
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CAROL BURNETT has been an actor on Broadway, on television, and in the movies. She has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, The Mark Twain Prize for Humor and the Kennedy Center Honors, among other singular achievements of a woman comedian who was nothing less than a pioneer and a role model for stars like Tina Fey, Amy Pohler and Amy Schumer.
Photo credit: John Nowak
Customer reviews
4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
1,990 global ratings
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Top reviews
Top reviews from Canada
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Reviewed in Canada on December 28, 2023
Verified Purchase
Purchased as a gift. They loved it. May have to borrow it to read myself
Reviewed in Canada on July 29, 2023
Verified Purchase
Fascinating book - everybody should read it at least once.
Reviewed in Canada on January 14, 2023
I loved listening to this book on audio, in Carol Burnett’s own words. It was fun listening to the stories of the Carol Burnett Show. It’s like being a fly on the wall.
Reviewed in Canada on January 6, 2017
Verified Purchase
Such a fabulous read! I can't put it down! To hear Ms Burnett share her memories of her show and the calibre of talent who shared the stage with her - it makes you laugh, it makes you cry and makes me regret not going into comedy myself! This is a must have for any fan!
Reviewed in Canada on October 17, 2016
Verified Purchase
I'm very disappointed in this book. Many reviews said it was hilariously with funny true anecdotes from her show but, although the book does have a lot of anecdotes, they are mostly stories about having different stars on the show from the viewpoint of how friendly they were, what they did, what they wore etc. but I found only one or two anecdotes that I would call really funny. The one saving grace is that the book has colour photos of each star with Carol Burnett taken during their appearance on her show. Very disappointing and I feel I wasted my money.
Reviewed in Canada on November 3, 2020
Verified Purchase
Carol transports the reader to another time. Nice to forget what is going for a while.
Reviewed in Canada on October 14, 2016
Verified Purchase
Brings back wonderful memories! I could easily have read this in one sitting it was so interesting. Carol writes in the 1st person and it's very entertaining. Lots of photos of the cast and guest stars. Highly recommend. Very nostalgic.
Reviewed in Canada on September 24, 2016
If you grew up watching The Carol Burnett Show you'll love this walk down memory lane. Carol takes us behind the scenes and talks about the experiences she had doing the show. She tells about the regulars: Vicki, Tim, Harvey and Lyle. She goes on to reminisce about many, many guest stars. She talks about the sketches and musical numbers, the mistakes, the bloopers, and even includes scripts for some of the movie take-offs they did. There is no cohesive narrative but rather the book is a series of vignettes grouped by subject. I saw the show in syndication which only aired the comedy sketches so I found those parts more interesting than the info on the musical numbers. But I just loved all the stories about the guests which included so many stars from the silver screen and golden age of television.
Top reviews from other countries
Karan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Carol Burnett
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2024Verified Purchase
I like Carol Burnett and grew up watching her show. Was very sad when it ended In reading this book I was able to revisit many fond memories . I have read other books about her but this one opens up a lot of behind the scenes stuff. If you liked her show this is a good read for you. Read it and visualize the shows you saw. You will come away with a better understanding of television's infancy and her place in it.
C. Mason
5.0 out of 5 stars
In Such Good Company
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 6, 2021Verified Purchase
is a lovely tribute to a fantastic television show. I felt like Carol Burnett was talking directly to me - I could hear her voice in the narration. I have all the shows on DVD so it was really interesting to hear all the behind the scenes stories.
Monique D
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm so glad we had this time together!
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2018Verified Purchase
IN SUCH GOOD COMPANY: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox by Carol Burnett is not a biography, even though there are some occasional biographical elements when pertaining to the show itself and naturally, how Ms. Burnett came to have her own show. It is a book for those who were fans of the original series – The Carol Burnett Show – or became fans through clips and DVDs. If you don’t know the sketches or the performers, you will find very little of interest in this book. I am a fan, and I loved IN SUCH GOOD COMPANY! I actually never expected to laugh so much!
The book takes us through some of the most memorable sketches and musical moments of the series, with anecdotes and personal insights offered by Ms. Burnett. There were many things I never knew, and I have gained a lot of respect for clothes designer Bob Mackie, whose contribution to the show was largely unsung and unknown from the public. Carol Burnett’s writing is excellent, it flows well, and she is as engaging on the written page as she is on the screen. At the end, there is a complete list of the shows with the guest lists, and it was fun to see all the huge celebrities that starred on The Carol Burnett Show, some of whom have been forgotten. And there are several fabulous colour pictures! Some reviewers mentioned that Ms. Burnett seemed to love everyone; I rather think that she chose to remain quiet about the people she liked less, which is entirely like her.
I highly recommend IN SUCH GOOD COMPANY if you want to relive those amazing sketches, or if you want to know more about the people and how they made The Carol Burnett Show and Ms. Burnett a resounding and unforgettable success, one of the greatest TV shows of all time.
The book takes us through some of the most memorable sketches and musical moments of the series, with anecdotes and personal insights offered by Ms. Burnett. There were many things I never knew, and I have gained a lot of respect for clothes designer Bob Mackie, whose contribution to the show was largely unsung and unknown from the public. Carol Burnett’s writing is excellent, it flows well, and she is as engaging on the written page as she is on the screen. At the end, there is a complete list of the shows with the guest lists, and it was fun to see all the huge celebrities that starred on The Carol Burnett Show, some of whom have been forgotten. And there are several fabulous colour pictures! Some reviewers mentioned that Ms. Burnett seemed to love everyone; I rather think that she chose to remain quiet about the people she liked less, which is entirely like her.
I highly recommend IN SUCH GOOD COMPANY if you want to relive those amazing sketches, or if you want to know more about the people and how they made The Carol Burnett Show and Ms. Burnett a resounding and unforgettable success, one of the greatest TV shows of all time.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking nostalgic read.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 20, 2016Verified Purchase
Carol Burnett has let us in to the running and memories of her quintessential show the Carol Burnett Show which ran for eleven years.
The book though well written with Burnetts wit at times does repeat itself but does entertain in the process. It is television from a dreadfully bygone era that unfortunately is lacking today.
Growing up watching the original series, it was an absolute treat to read. Highly recommended.
The book though well written with Burnetts wit at times does repeat itself but does entertain in the process. It is television from a dreadfully bygone era that unfortunately is lacking today.
Growing up watching the original series, it was an absolute treat to read. Highly recommended.
Robert J. Canning
4.0 out of 5 stars
Carol's best book and a joy to read.
Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2016Verified Purchase
I've read every one of Carol Burnett's book, including her play, "Hollywood Arms." But this is her BEST! Having met her a couple of times (once backstage at the St. James Theatre, Broadway, and the second time at Disney Studios), I can tell you what you see is what you get -- a sweet, caring, funny, witty, charming woman.
There are so many great stories and recollections in this book and a few gossipy tidbits -- like the ONLY guest star on Carol's show that she and her cast didn't like (referred to here at a "pony's ass," as he was very short. He complained about everything and was SO unprofessional he didn't even show up for the taping of the show)! Another is the night Carol had to fire Harvey Korman! Whaaaaaat?!
The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars, is that in Carol's list of and stories about her famous characters (Mrs. Wiggins, the charwoman, etc.), she left off my all-time favorite: Alice Portnoy of the Fireside Girls, the girl scout with a larcenous heart who blackmailed her victims into donating money. I wrote Carol an effusive fan letter about her book, and told her that I missed Alice.
But that is just a minor complaint. Read and enjoy -- and be grateful that someone like Carol Burnett walked the earth and made us all very happy! (9/22/16)
There are so many great stories and recollections in this book and a few gossipy tidbits -- like the ONLY guest star on Carol's show that she and her cast didn't like (referred to here at a "pony's ass," as he was very short. He complained about everything and was SO unprofessional he didn't even show up for the taping of the show)! Another is the night Carol had to fire Harvey Korman! Whaaaaaat?!
The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars, is that in Carol's list of and stories about her famous characters (Mrs. Wiggins, the charwoman, etc.), she left off my all-time favorite: Alice Portnoy of the Fireside Girls, the girl scout with a larcenous heart who blackmailed her victims into donating money. I wrote Carol an effusive fan letter about her book, and told her that I missed Alice.
But that is just a minor complaint. Read and enjoy -- and be grateful that someone like Carol Burnett walked the earth and made us all very happy! (9/22/16)
13 people found this helpful
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