Those of us lucky enough to remember the original run of “The Carol Burnett Show” remember when we used to watch the syndicated reruns of the show (“Carol Burnett & Friends”) and wished they’d show the original full hour and not sliced down to a more syndication-worthy half-hour format with just the sketches. That’s how we remember seeing the reruns of the series starting in the early 1980’s on local stations on through to some point into the 90’s and the early 2000’s when they aired on TBS and TV Land. After that brief run on TV Land, Carol Burnett, who owned all the shows, pulled “Carol Burnett & Friends” from TV after nearly twenty years in syndication and subsequently created a vast hole in the rerun TV comedy universe.
Certainly people could have used the huge guffaws reruns of the series were still generating right around the time they were pulled. Other than a few excellent reunion specials in the 90’s and 2000’s featuring Carol, Tim Conway, (the late) Harvey Korman and Vicki Lawrence, the dark beginning of the 21 century didn’t have the pleasure of having one of the funniest variety shows in history anywhere in the vast cable TV universe.
Well, only if you happened to be up late at night and watching infomercials did you realize a few years later that Carol Burnett and most of the original cast reunited and produced an infomercial selling the original series on specially-produced DVD’s as part of a mail-order club.
That’s not exactly how “The Carol Burnett Show” started on DVD, though. “Carol Burnett & Friends” was still in its syndication run when Carol Burnett made a deal with Columbia House to put out some select episodes (this time the full one-hour episodes) on VHS and DVD. Many people hadn’t seen the full one-hour shows in years, but you had to sign up to be a member of Columbia House in order to acquire the DVD’s. Many people have had problems with Columbia House’s mail-order clubs for years, though it didn’t prevent a lot of people from taking a chance acquiring those original Burnett shows since it was likely they’d never be shown on TV again in their original one-hour format.
Selling rare old TV shows through this method caught on during the early 2000’s if you’ve ever happened to catch late-night infomercials. Dean Martin’s extensive catalog of his own variety show and roasts were (and still are) sold through these mail-order club systems. It makes it a bit unfair for those who don’t want to join these organizations (or just don’t have the funds) being unable to see these shows that really should be on TV Land to remind younger generations about how entertaining TV once was in a different era when the variety show format was as diffuse as “Law & Order: SUV” or “CSI: Omaha” is now.
Those original one-hour episodes of “The Carol Burnett Show” (personally selected by Carol herself) did pretty well in sales considering they weren’t for mainstream distribution. Eventually, they were pulled for whatever business reason, even though many of the episodes would end up on the used market on Amazon.com or eBay. Even today, you can still find used copies of that DVD series with reasonable prices. They probably would have been selling for $50 each had Carol Burnett not made a new deal with one infomercial production company known for selling everything from skin care products to the one-time ubiquitous The Juicer…
This infomercial is brought to you by Gunthy-Renker…
Perhaps sensing that people wanted to see even more of those one-hour episodes, Carol Burnett took the episodes already offered earlier, had them re-mastered and added some additional episodes to the collection. This time, they’d only be available on DVD and have slightly better deals for the introductory DVD’s compared to the Columbia House offer that cost a little more. Gunthy-Renker would be the company offering this new deal that would essentially work the same as Columbia House’s club system. The only difference would be a better marketing campaign so people trying to seek them out would know they existed.
That’s when Carol Burnett, Tim Conway and Harvey Korman (but no Vicki Lawrence for whatever reason) were called in to tape an infomercial selling the new batch of DVD’s. In this ad, you had a chance to see the three sitting in director’s chairs on the same stage where they produced the show for 11 years at CBS Television City. It worked the same way as the network reunion specials where the cast would sit and reminisce about the show and then see a rush of classic clips that would have you rolling on the floor laughing within minutes. Yes, next to the fascinating Dean Martin ad, this may be the most entertaining infomercial on TV and will highly entertain you for half an hour rather than sitting there dumbstruck watching someone demonstrate a piece of overpriced exercise equipment or kitchen device.
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Of course, you have to stay up past midnight on weekends to find it on your local stations. I’ve seen the Carol Burnett one several times in the last year around 12:30 a.m. on Sunday nights. It’s a can’t-miss, though obviously overly nostalgic for many now in the event of Harvey Korman’s death at the time of this writing.
While it’s great that Carol Burnett can make money off the original one-hour episodes, a lot of people likely wish she’d make a new syndication deal and syndicate all the original one-hour episodes eventually under a different umbrella title. Either that or the original “Carol Burnett & Friends” syndication package should come back to TV Land so people can be reminded how funny TV once was and be able to actually guffaw at something when that’s fairly rare on TV now in a more ironic humor TV world.
Even if you can’t catch the infomercial, you can go here http://www.carolburnettshowvideos.com/ and order the DVD’s without having to make a phone call to order. It’s not a bad deal, considering you’re able to buy the first DVD for about $10–followed by two more volumes every four to six weeks with the usual price of $20 each.
May TV Land be willing to pay out lots more than that to acquire the rights soon to get them all on cable…
