What was the last thing that made you laugh?
(submitted by: Anonymous)
A Carol Burnett Show clip on YouTube.
The most striking thing I noticed? The room that the writers gave their sketches… this particular Eunice/Mama clip was a full fifteen minutes long, and gave Vicki Lawrence the time to improv a few wonderful lines while Harvey Korman did his thing at the margins and Carol herself slow-burned Eunice’s mounting rage.
In modern terms, Chapelle, Key & Peele, or Schumer would sometimes let their bits go on for a while, too… but that was often tied to their cinematic, single-camera presentation and the sort of rhythms inherent to it. The Carol Burnett Show, meanwhile, put its performers on the spot and then lingered, unblinking, while they marched toward the conclusion.