I'm sure glad Burnett and her co-stars crack one another up (and, inexplicably, the audience too) because for most modern audiences looking for a good laugh they'd probably be more likely to find something amusing in footage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina than they ever would this show.
Most "modern" audiences are devoid of wit, and usually laugh at tasteless, over-sexed garbage.
Burnett and co. were geniuses. A lot of her work carried great pathos. Apparently, you've never seen the family
sketches, in which Burnett infused tremendous layers of emotion. "Eunice" was a tormented character.
Certainly there were occasional sketches that didn't work, but for the most part, the writing is very sharp.
Tim Conway and Harvey Korman were also terrific.
Stick to your Adam Sandler comedies, please. Or better yet, stick to the "clique" on TZ
where you clearly belong.
Or maybe this show just didn't age well.
Harvey Korman was hysterical -- but elsewhere ("Blazing Saddles" and "High Anxiety" come to mind). The rest of the cast I've seen elsewhere and found them lacking as well. Obviously, our tastes in comedy differ. I meant no offense. I do find "Monty Python" funny, which is from this era. Perhaps that's owing to me being somewhat of an Anglo-phile -- anything with a comedic bent spoken in that accent often leaves me in stitches. "Carol Burnett" just leaves me perplexed. Maybe you're right: maybe my sense of humor isn't refined enough to appreciate whatever nuances Burnett and Co. mined. I do think though we could find something that amuses us both. I find episodes of "I Love Lucy" still funny. I'm not an authority on Ball's magnum opus but even with my low-brow preferences it's clear Lucille Ball was one of media's great comediennes -- and I imagine always will be.
Well i should be honest and admit i havent seen this show in 30+ years...but i remember my whole family laughing their asses of every week...And i was very small but i remember there was smthg about Carol...i liked her a lot...she seemed funny and cool
PLUS, there was nothing on TV back then so...
The show was certainly ground-breaking. I heard so many good things about it that I was determined to like it ... sadly, it just wasn't for me.
shareThats fair AT!
It was OF its time and probably now sort of dated...
Carol B was one of the first female comedians that gained any traction...it was the 'sexual revolution' era and she was sort of awkwardly cute and pretty clever...i liked her!
I can only imagine how cringe-inducing modern SNL will be to audiences 40 years from now.
To be fair a lot of "Monty Python" doesn't work. One person once described "Monty" as "wheat in a barrelful of chaff." Maybe if I persist long enough I'll unearth the wheat in "Carol." I do find myself consistently revisiting the wheat in Monty Python at the expense of the chaff. But I do this when it comes to all shows I adore --"Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Columbo," "Arrested Development," "The Twilight Zone." We all do this when it comes to our favorite shows. Because let's be honest: it's not just "Monty Python" -- all shows are full of chaff. It's just that truly great shows produce wheat you want to savor forever and ever.
At least I do.
The reality is that topical humor, e.g., Lenny Bruce, not only does not age well, it does not live to be any kind of age at all. A fruit fly will outlive a topical joke. Broadcast network TV comedy/variety shows (a defunct category) were sweetened by recorded audience laugh tracks and inhibited by censorship. Compared with the comedy series we can see on pay TV today--Shameless, Veep (in its prime)--it is impossible for Burnett to compete.
shareSome fair points there
shareI still LOVE Monty...
At least agree to Seinfeld!!!
C'mon AT...Seinfeld was oldie original comic perfection...
As was mentioned above: "A fruit fry will outlive a topical joke." Since "Seinfeld" made a point to be about nothing and only nothing -- ignoring politics and everything else without a shelf life -- it still amuses (though this genius approach is not enough to salvage some episodes, particularly early ones, which are just awful).
shareYeah...even Jerry admits they didnt hit their stride in the first season...it started pretty badly but went on to be one of the top comedies ever!
HM:All in the Family...
But Seinfeld singles back, in its good seasons, to Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm), who eschews topical humor. The same is true of Cheers, e.g., its classic Thanksgiving "Birdzilla" episode.
Friends, not so much.
"Cheers" also still works because it wrings humor and pathos out of characters and not ripped-from-the-headlines bullshit.
I imagine "Cheers," like "I Love Lucy," will always be with us.
I have enjoyed this discussion, and the company of AT and SoY very much. Let me share this with you: I will always remember that the head writer for Cheers said something (well, he probably said many things that were) very interesting: He said, and this is a paraphrase, "We write the scripts as if we were writing for radio." Amazing! This was verbal, cerebral humor, in the vein of Grouch Marx, W. C. Fields and S. J. Perelman. It is the antipodal opposite of topical humor. It is the humor of the human condition.
shareI enjoyed it too.
"It is the humor of the human condition."
Well put.
SNL from 45 years ago is still very funny. Don't think much of the new SNL skits though. The cast of SNL is recent years has been much better than the material.
Schindlers List is a laugh riot compared to anything. Nothing's funnier than a holocaust movie in which the hero was a German guy who saved a small handful of Jews.
shareI know many people who still think of this as classic comedy and enjoy it. Even a few who weren't born when this show was on the air.
shareAs do I. Comedy is very subjective. Many of the list have expressed their love of Monty Python. Personally, I've never seen a single instance of humor in Monty Python. That doesn't make me right and those who like it wrong; it means we have different tastes.
The OP doesn't like Carol Burnett. Fine. I think he is deliberately (over)exaggerating the comparison to Schindler's List, which I find unfortunate. That sort of comparison only serves to diminish his opinion so many dismiss it as the opinion of a child or immature adult.
It would have more advantageous to simply say he did not find the program funny and list the reasons why.
Ridiculous comparison, I agree.
share