Carol Burnett is being interviewed by a newscaster Harvey Korman about a phone call she received from her husband’s kidnappers, to be featured on the 6 o’clock news. The interview goes from somberly sublime to sublimely fantastic! That’s some GREAT comedy right there!
I love that this sketch takes its time picking up steam, and really lands that one big punchline neatly in your lap. It’s so simple… so deliciously simple. It gives you plenty of time to wonder, “Where are they going with this?” And then right when you think it’s nowhere…BOOM!
What’s brilliant about this sketch is how touching she actually is the first time she recounts the story and how brilliantly she hams it up later, when she gets the chance. Carol Burnett can be touching and incredibly hysterical in the same five minutes span. Just watch the “Family” sketches, and you see how she can do both.
This script is pure comedy BRILLIANCE, and the acting is beyond perfect. This piece is a hundred-times better anything Saturday Night Live ever came up with. You can’t find comedy like this anywhere today, so relish every hilarious minute of it.
We will always love Carol and her show. Such great chemistry with her cast, and I can’t tell you how many times Carol & crew have kept me laughing! She certainly deserved her recent lifetime achievement award at the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards.
The slow build to fall-down funny!! Thank you, Carol, for making so many laughs for so many years!
