When Carroll O'Connor Made the Actors Laugh

I just got seasons 1-5 and it's fun to watch closely and see how some of the actors laugh when they shouldn't and how quickly they cover it up.

I don't think Carroll O'Connor ad libbed any lines. The shwo was too tightly scripted for that. But maybe his live performance was different than in rehearsals and he caught the mostly guest actors off guard.

In the Cousin Oscar episode Archie is frantically trying to find a cheaper way to bury his deadbeat cousin. When he asks the funeral director, Whitehead, if he could "buy used", the actor loses it. I never noticed before how he covers his mouth with his hand and tries to recover from a laugh.

The actor who plays the doctor in the poison mushroom episode has a hard time with one of Archie's comments. He asks if he has any lassitude and Archie replies that Edith doesn't put that in the stew, only mushrooms. The actor struggles in that moment. He starts to smile and struggles to hide it.

So many of those moments go by so quickly. It's a lot of fun to play the moments again.