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| Carol Burnett. Comedic badass |
Carol Burnett was one of the most influential comedians of the 60's and 70's. Her hit self-titled Variety show, "The Carol Burnett Show" ran for 11 seasons and stacked awards like firewood. This is a great run for anyone but it's especially notable because of both who Ms. Burnett was and when she was making the show. In order to talk about that though, we have to talk a bit about comedy first.
Even now, Comedy is still in many ways considered a mans game! To verify you only need to take a look at the sheer number of male comics you can name vs the number of women. Similarly right now, we're arguably living in a golden age of late night laughs but late night comedy shows tend to be a sausage fest. From Stephen Colbert on the Late Show to the Daily and Nightly Shows, Last Week Tonight and even @midnight you'll be hard pressed to find estrogen in the lead spot in late night comedy. Right now, the only woman with her own late night talkshow/comedy show I can think of is Sammantha Bee.
It was similar in the 60's and 70's and then Carol Burnett basically said F that noise. Born on April 26, 1933 the young Carol Burnett demonstrated a level of unapologetic boldness and a fascination with movies early. After her parents divorced she went to live with her grandmother in Hollywood California and by her own estimation would go to see something on the order of 6-8 movies a week in the various theatres around town and then would come home and act out what she'd seen with her friends. She studied to become a playwright in college in Los Angeles but left before her studies were finished to go with her boyfriend to New York to pursue acting.
Now that's a pretty bold thing to do for a young person. But that was just her style it seems. You never hear about the missteps, set backs or failures when someone who got successful is doing these things and I'm sure they were there but one way or another she worked her way into the comedy acting biz starting with a children's show called the Winschel-Mahoney show in the early 50's. She was a popular performer for years before the Carol Burnett show launched in 1967 and that's when things get interesting.
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| She's probably doing her Tarzan yell. If you don't get that... links are at the bottom. |
See, at the time Carol was getting close to the 5th year of a 10 year contract with CBS. One of the stipulations according to her was that at any point during that first 5 year period she could "push the button" and get herself a variety show. I have NO IDEA how her agent negotiated this but with about a week left on the time for this she called an exec and pitched the idea. The execs tried to talk her out of it pointing out that the variety show world was a lot like the late night world now. They wanted her to be in a sit com they were making called Dear Agnes. Once again Ms. Burnett said "F that noise!" See, Carol Burnett had an ability we see from many successful women throughout history. She refused to fit herself to the narrow vision of what men around her thought was possible and shot for what she knew she could do.
And by all accounts she kicked ass at it! The woman ran a massive sketch comedy show that would probably have been something like Saturday Night Live... but with a live orchestra on top of it. It was big, over the top and hilarious. It even allowed her to work with other great comics. For example, you might recognize the other red head in this image.
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| Yes, that's Lucy and no she doesn't have any 'Splaining to do |
Even after the show was cancelled, her legacy lives on and she still works even making an appearance on Glee relatively recently. She also received a Kennedy Center Honor to go along with her numerous other awards as recognition of a life spent making people laugh.
Alright, that's a rap for today. Doing a profile on Ms. Burnett was wonderful and I hope that it brought a name to y our mind you may not have already known. Not sure who we'll peel back the curtain on tomorrow but it'll be a blast when we do.
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