{"id":2130382,"date":"2025-11-02T13:22:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T13:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2130382"},"modified":"2025-11-02T13:22:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T13:22:03","slug":"the-best-sketch-ever-on-the-carol-burnett-show-according-to-carol-burnett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-best-sketch-ever-on-the-carol-burnett-show-according-to-carol-burnett\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Sketch Ever on \u2018The Carol Burnett Show,\u2019 According to Carol Burnett"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Carol Burnett<\/span><\/a> didn\u2019t hesitate when\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0Santa Barbara News<\/i>, per MeTV, asked<\/span><\/a> if she had an all-time favorite sketch from her long-running variety show. The best was any sketch featuring the Harpers, the maladjusted clan who eventually got their own sitcom as\u00a0Mama\u2019s Family<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt really was a one-act (play),\u201d Burnett said. \u201cThe laughs were character-driven, and we were over the top. If you just did it as a straight play, you wouldn\u2019t get any laughs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the initial conception of the sketch, the show\u2019s writers envisioned Burnett as sassy senior Mama. \u201cBut Eunice reminded me more of my mother, who had a lot of (unfulfilled) dreams,\u201d she said. \u201cI recognized the desperation in Eunice that my mother had.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Mama, Burnett and company considered bringing in an older actress,\u00a0<\/span>according to Burnett\u2019s book\u00a0In Such Good Company<\/i><\/span><\/a>. It was costume designer Bob Mackie who suggested letting Vicki Lawrence give it a try. Since the original sketch was considered a one-off, why not?<\/span><\/p>\n

At the first readthrough, \u201cI tore into Eunice with a kind of \u2018South Texas\u2019 accent,\u201d Burnett wrote. \u201cI just\u00a0saw\u00a0<\/i>those three coming from that part of the country. Harvey (Korman) and Vicki followed suit with the accent and \u2018The Family\u2019 was born.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The one-off became a recurring series of sketches, then a full-length dramatic play,\u00a0Eunice<\/i>, which CBS ran in 1982. \u201cThis is not, clearly, the stuff of standard Carol Burnett sketches,\u201d wrote the\u00a0New York Times<\/i>. \u201cThere are laughs here, to be sure \u2026 but, for the most part,\u00a0Eunice<\/i> is preoccupied with the overwhelming dreariness of their hopelessly narrow little lives. The underlying bitterness of this \u2018comedy-drama\u2019 is startling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The line between comedy and drama was razor-thin, with hilarity found in those over-the-top performances. Once, Burnett said, the cast decided to rehearse a \u201cFamily\u201d scene completely straight, just for the heck of it. No accents, no going overboard with the histrionics. \u201cThe result was \u2026 devastating,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cBecause there were no jokes in the scene, we were able to play these people as the damaged goods they were, without going for laughs. The very same material could be played for comedy or tragedy, and it turned out this was the stuff of high drama.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why \u201cThe Family\u201d sketches were the show\u2019s best, says Burnett. \u201cThis was definitely not the norm for a variety show,\u201d she wrote. \u201cEunice, Mama and Ed were perfect examples of a dysfunctional family, and the mail we got reflected that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy sister is just like Eunice; she drives me nuts!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother is like Mama. I hate the holidays because we always end up fighting!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Family\u201d was one of the most popular sketches in the show\u2019s history, says Burnett, for one main reason: \u201cPeople identified<\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Get more Cracked directly to your inbox. Sign up for Cracked newsletters at Cracked News Letters Signup<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carol Burnett didn\u2019t hesitate when\u00a0the\u00a0Santa Barbara News, per MeTV, asked if she had an all-time favorite sketch from her long-running variety show. The best was any sketch featuring the Harpers, the maladjusted clan who eventually got their own sitcom as\u00a0Mama\u2019s Family.\u00a0 \u201cIt really was a one-act (play),\u201d Burnett said. \u201cThe laughs were character-driven, and we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2130383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[115552,405175,365773],"class_list":["post-2130382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-carol-burnett","tag-mamas-family","tag-vicki-lawrence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/The-Best-Sketch-Ever-on-\u2018The-Carol-Burnett-Show-According.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2130382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2130384,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130382\/revisions\/2130384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2130383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2130382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2130382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2130382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}