"The Family" is a series of comedy sketches featured on The Carol Burnett Show, with one installment airing on Carol Burnett & Company. The Carol Burnett Show debuted the skit series during its seventh season in 1973–74. It would air new installments of the skit for the remainder of its 11-season run, through its final season in 1977–78. However, the final installment of "The Family" wouldn't air until September 8, 1979 on a different four-week summer series titled Carol Burnett & Company. This was the only installment of "The Family" that did not air on The Carol Burnett Show. The Carol Burnett Show had completed its run almost a year and a half earlier on March 29, 1978. Altogether, there were 31 installments of "The Family" sketches.
Contents
Not only was "The Family" well received enough to become a recurring skit on The Carol Burnett Show, but it was admired enough to be developed into a 1982 made-for-TV movie, Eunice, and then spun off into a full-fledged comedy series in 1983, titled Mama's Family: a show which first aired on NBC, until it was cancelled in 1984; then revived in 1986 in first-run syndication, lasting until its series finale in 1990. Carol Burnett, whose Eunice Higgins character was central in "The Family" sketches, did not appear in the sitcom's second life, due to her acrimonious 1984 divorce from The Carol Burnett Show and Mama's Family producer Joe Hamilton, who owned all the Mama's Family characters. Burnett also resented Vicki Lawrence for accepting the role of Mama in first-run syndication as she would be working for Hamilton.
Along with featuring Carol Burnett as Eunice Higgins, "The Family" skits featured Vicki Lawrence as Thelma Harper (originally, only known as "Mama" for the most part, although Mickey Hart, Ed's employee, had referred to her as "Thelma"), and Harvey Korman as Ed Higgins. In "The Family" sketches, Mama has five children (in the subsequent series, she has only three): in addition to Ellen Harper (played by Betty White) and Eunice, there were three sons: Larry Harper (Alan Alda), Phillip Harper (Roddy McDowall), and Jack Harper (Tommy Smothers). All three were replaced by Vinton Harper, played by Ken Berry, in the spin-off television series. Berry played Phillip in the made-for-TV movie, Eunice (precursor to Mama's Family). Tim Conway played recurring character Mickey Hart, Ed's employee.
Background
"The Family" sketch was created and written by Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon who hated their mothers. They originally had Burnett in mind to play Mama and have a guest star to play Eunice. However, Burnett decided that she wanted to play Eunice and wanted to give the part of Mama to Lawrence. Burnett also decided to do the sketch southern because of her own Texas background. The writers were so displeased with these decisions that during the first run-through, they threw down their pads and pencils and stormed out of the rehearsal hall. They complained that the sketch was ruined and that it would offend the South. After airing and the enormously favorable viewer response, Clair and McMahon wound up writing the sketches for the rest of the run of the show.
Premise
Among plot techniques, "The Family" uses: (A) satire and observational comedy, as the sketch subtly pokes fun of real life occurrences and real-life human behaviors, inflating them and making fun of them; (B) comedy of manners, as the characters satirize the behaviors of blue-collar, working-class southerners and speak in southern drawls.
Unlike Mama's Family, the central character of "The Family" sketches is Eunice. "The Family" sketches are about the noisy, quarrelsome couple of Eunice and Ed and Eunice's unwelcome house guest who only adds to the drama, that being her catty elderly mama. There was a great deal more squabbling in "The Family" sketches than on Mama's Family. It was stated many times that Eunice and Ed had two young sons, named Bubba Higgins and Billy-Joe Higgins (though in one skit, Eunice calls her children Bubba and Raymond); they are unseen characters in "The Family" sketches. The Bubba Higgins character, however, regularly appears in the first-run syndication version of Mama's Family, being described as Eunice's only son by that point. Mama, Eunice, and Ed often have uproarious verbal wars over petty issues, such as board games (they played Monopoly, Sorry!, and Password), how much butter has been used for the bread, what exactly happened 30 or 40 years ago, etc. The final "Family" sketch to air on The Carol Burnett Show had Eunice talking to a psychiatrist trying to figure out what went wrong with her life.
Characters
Other appearances
Final season
In the final season of The Carol Burnett Show, cast member Tim Conway ad-libbed a story about elephants during both tapings of the show and cracked up his cast mates both times. In the first one he talks about seeing an elephant with a dwarf trainer and mentioning that there was a rumor going around the circus that the elephant and the trainer were lovers, pushing Burnett, Lawrence, and Van Dyke to a breaking point and hiding their faces from the audience. At one point the camera focuses on Burnett and Lawrence staring at him in exasperation. Finally, Burnett started swatting at Conway with the game card to get him to stop. In the second one he talks about seeing a pair of Siamese elephants during a trip to a freak show, describing in detail how they were connected at the trunk and the sounds they made. The audience was in hysterics the entire time while Burnett, Lawrence and Dick Van Dyke desperately struggled to maintain composure, and even Conway is seen trying to stifle his laughter numerous times. At one point Lawrence looked at Burnett, started to look away, then did a quick look back at her and had to turn away, breaking character and laughing. Several times when Conway would stop, the rest of the cast would collect themselves, at which point Conway would continue with his ad libbing, pushing them again to the edge of breaking up. When Burnett managed to gain her composure one last time, she turned to Lawrence to help get the script moving again, to which Lawrence quipped (in character), "You sure that little asshole's through?" At that point chaos ensued with the entire cast breaking up and the audience was screaming with delight. Conway and Van Dyke both fell off the ends of the couch to the floor laughing, with Conway rolling around and Van Dyke lying flat on his back and eventually sitting up. Burnett fell back onto the couch and can be seen muttering to herself while shaking with laughter. Lawrence herself managed to keep it together for only a few seconds after everyone fell apart before cracking up herself. In an interview, Lawrence talks about the famous sketch, recalling that it was her husband's suggestion to "get" Conway when she found out between tapings that the elephant story part of the sketch was being changed but was not given any details. The director's only advice on it was "good luck". She also noted that it was one of the rare occasions when she really cut loose on the show.