Carol Burnett & Mr. Spock
- Thread starter Maurice
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That's pretty good quality.
Am I right that Burnett didn't know who was going to come out at the end and she was taken by surprise?
Good physical comedy, yes, but a sketch about a wife being frightened by the behavior of her drunk, abusive husband is harder to laugh at today. And the best punch line by far is the first one (at 0:28), so it's all downhill from there.
Good physical comedy, yes, but a sketch about a wife being frightened by the behavior of her drunk, abusive husband is harder to laugh at today. And the best punch line by far is the first one (at 0:28), so it's all downhill from there.
The preview "freeze frame" is also unfortunate, if (presumably) unintentional.
Oh my gosh! Thank you! I have been dying to see that for years! I see that it doesn't quite live up to my expectations...not the funniest of skits....but great historical find!! And Nimoy looks great! Thanks for sharing!!!
ROFLMFAO.
Carol Burnett was always good at that sort of thing, from her guest appearance on Get Smart, through "Went with the Wind!" on The Carol Burnett Show. (Speaking of physical comedy, she rolls down a staircase in that lengthy sketch. Twice.)
Carol Burnett was always good at that sort of thing, from her guest appearance on Get Smart, through "Went with the Wind!" on The Carol Burnett Show. (Speaking of physical comedy, she rolls down a staircase in that lengthy sketch. Twice.)
I was a little creeped out at times.
That's nothing. Isn't there at least one sketch where Tim Conway rolls up a staircase? I remember teaching myself how to imitate that gag as a kid.
But yeah, Burnett was good at just about everything -- physical comedy, character comedy, singing, etc. Not to mention being a fine dramatic actress too.
I'm sure he was quite capable of that; he's one of the few people who can make toon physics work in real life.
As to "Went with the Wind!", it's kind of too bad that drapery dresses, complete with curtain rods, never caught on.
Great work finding this clip.
I wish I knew how to save it and add it to my Star Trek collection..
I know the abusive husband angle is bad but maybe now that he's visible he'll start acting like the fantastic Vulcan we know and love.
I know the abusive husband angle is bad but maybe now that he's visible he'll start acting like the fantastic Vulcan we know and love.
You mean the same Vulcan who teased Yeoman Rand about the Kirk "impostor" who almost raped her? And who came from a culture where wives were apparently considered the property of their husbands? Maybe it's not so incongruous after all...
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I've been wanting to see that for a long time too, like everybody, due to the one b&w production still that's been floating around for years.
With Carol holding a baby in the photo, I always assumed Nimoy's appearance was a walk-on sight gag meant as a visual "Dr. Spock" pun, meaning the famous baby doctor. And there still might have been a hint of that, as a kind of meta-gag, because Dr. Benjamin Spock was extremely famous at the time as a wise baby expert, and here's this loud lout who turns out to be Spock of all characters.
This kind of walk-on cameo was a bigger deal for Leonard Nimoy to do than other actors. Borrowing a complete costume, including custom-made boots, was pretty standard (Superman, Batman, and western cowboy actors did that much fairly routinely), but Nimoy also had to engage the services of Star Trek's makeup artist for a significant transformation. So significant that I'd bet he was already in makeup for filming Star Trek, scooted over to the "CBS Television City" building for his cameo, and then drove back to Desilu to finish the day. That would solve the mystery of how such a brief walk-on could be worth so much trouble.
If Carol Burnett episodes were filmed shortly before they aired, then this could have happened during "Return to Tomorrow" (late November), or just possibly "Patterns of Force" (early December) at the latest. I would guess "Return to Tomorrow." He has that "Henoch" look about him, in some intangible way. And Nimoy often talked about how his process caused the character he was playing to stay in his head way too long.
With Carol holding a baby in the photo, I always assumed Nimoy's appearance was a walk-on sight gag meant as a visual "Dr. Spock" pun, meaning the famous baby doctor. And there still might have been a hint of that, as a kind of meta-gag, because Dr. Benjamin Spock was extremely famous at the time as a wise baby expert, and here's this loud lout who turns out to be Spock of all characters.
This kind of walk-on cameo was a bigger deal for Leonard Nimoy to do than other actors. Borrowing a complete costume, including custom-made boots, was pretty standard (Superman, Batman, and western cowboy actors did that much fairly routinely), but Nimoy also had to engage the services of Star Trek's makeup artist for a significant transformation. So significant that I'd bet he was already in makeup for filming Star Trek, scooted over to the "CBS Television City" building for his cameo, and then drove back to Desilu to finish the day. That would solve the mystery of how such a brief walk-on could be worth so much trouble.
If Carol Burnett episodes were filmed shortly before they aired, then this could have happened during "Return to Tomorrow" (late November), or just possibly "Patterns of Force" (early December) at the latest. I would guess "Return to Tomorrow." He has that "Henoch" look about him, in some intangible way. And Nimoy often talked about how his process caused the character he was playing to stay in his head way too long.
Uh, it was never made explicit in canon whether "property of the victor" referred to all Vulcan wives being property of their husbands (in which case, why does T'Pau wield so much authority), or merely a consequence of invoking the Kal-if-fee.
And I distinctly recall at least one non-canon source (Diane Duane? Jean Lorrah?) that did make it explicit that this was a direct consequence of T'Pring having invoked the Kal-if-fee (which, because of the nature of Pon Farr, would effectively constitute an act of mariticide; for such an act, becoming "property of the victor" would be potentially a rather light sentence).
This is a thread about a comedy sketch. We're allowed to make jokes.
Although part of the point behind my joke is that the sexist attitudes that shaped the Carol Burnett sketch (with behavior we'd now consider spousal abuse being treated casually as a source of comedy) also shaped the way Spock and other TOS characters were written from time to time. Modern audiences can choose to ignore the underlying sexism, of course, but it's still there in the subtext and sometimes the text. Even the noblest characters in older fiction will generally have at least some attitudes that modern audiences find problematical.
You get no argument from me there, on any point (other than that your delivery was so deadpan [beyond Airplane!, even beyond Steven Wright's stand-up], it wasn't clear that the comment about Vulcan culture was a joke).
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