CAROL BURNETT SHOW, THE {BETTY GRABLE, MARTHA RAYE} (TV)
Summary
One in this series of comedy/variety programs starring Carol Burnett. This program features special guests Martha Raye and Betty Grable. The episode begins as Burnett takes the stage and chats with the audience, taking questions and signing a few autographs. She introduces Raye, who answers a few fan questions of her own and jokes with Burnett. The first sketch of the evening is “V.I.P.,” an interview segment with a “very important person;” in this case, the Queen of England, played by Burnett. The cheerful and slightly vain monarch chats about her husband Phillip, who “married well,” her son Charles, her relationship with Charles de Gaulle, her sister Margaret and her upcoming plans to visit America, all while being photographed by “a bit of a ding-a-ling.”
Burnett then introduces Grable, who takes the stage and sings the title song from “Hello, Dolly!” in a barn dance-themed performance, featuring several back-ups dancers. Next is a sketch entitled “As the Stomach Turns,” a soap opera parody. Burnett plays a woman with a number of shocking secrets, the reveals of which are frequently drowned out by the melodramatic music. Her long-lost son, who is really her amnesiac friend Victoria’s child, reappears with his fiancée in tow, a newly-widowed and highly suspicious older woman. Finally, Burnett’s elderly, presumed-dead husband makes a stunning reappearance—from the basement, where he has spent years working on a hit song…and promptly drops dead.
Next Burnett hosts a “beautiful legs contest,” and the famed Grable faces some heavy competition. Burnett and Raye then portrays two aging city ladies who observe the world from their front stoop and sing a duet about the joys of youthful “flings.” Following this is a sketch in which a middle-aged couple welcome their nonagenarian aunt and uncle into their home, but the two elderly lovebirds squabble endlessly and threaten to separate yet again. In the end, however, the man dreams of his younger days with his blushing bride and they reconcile. In the final sketch, Burnett, Raye and Grable portray three gangster gals reminiscing about the good days before all of their criminal friends were sent to prison, and they sing a song about their lost pals before being arrested themselves and sent to join them. Burnett then bids the audience good night. Includes commercials.
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: February 12, 1968 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:52:06
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:59477
- GENRE: Comedy
- SUBJECT HEADING: Comedy
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV series, 1967-1978
- COMMERCIALS:
- TV - Commercials - Ajax cleaning products
- TV - Commercials - Macleans toothpaste
CREDITS
- Joe Hamilton … Producer
- Clark Jones … Producer
- Robert Wright … Associate Producer
- Stan Burns … Writer
- Mike Marmer … Writer
- Don Hinkley … Writer
- Saul Turtletaub … Writer
- Kenny Solms … Writer
- Gail Parent … Writer
- Bill Angelos … Writer
- Buz Kohan … Writer
- Ernest Flatt … Choreographer
- Lyle Waggoner … Announcer
- Carol Burnett … Host, Cast
- Betty Grable … Guest
- Martha Raye … Guest
- Harvey Korman … Cast
- Vicki Lawrence … Cast