The BEST episodes of The Carol Burnett Show
Every episode of The Carol Burnett Show ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Carol Burnett Show!
A variety / sketch comedy show starring Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway. It originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967 to March 29, 1978 for 278 episodes, and originated from CBS Television City's Studio 33 (known today as the Bob Barker Studio). The series won 25 prime time Emmy Awards, and in 2007 was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All Time."
#1 - with Steve Lawrence
Season 8 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/21/1974
Steve Lawrence is back to honor songwriter Frank Loesser. In a Las Vegas setting, the cast sings Loesser tunes led by that old favorite "Lucky in Love". Harvey Korman has fun intoning "Moon of Mankura"; Carol, Steve and company make the most of such oldies as "Slow Boat to China", "When I Fall in Love" and "Luck Be a Lady Tonight". Also stay around for Carol as Nora Desmond, silent screen star being roasted by Hollywood cronies Lawrence and Korman.
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#2 - with Ross Martin, John Davidson
Season 2 - Episode 21 - Aired 3/10/1969
"The Helen Feibelbaum Story" spoofs celebrity biopics chronicling the rise and fall of a singing star; Harvey plays a go-go bachelor whose romance is ruined by a moppet (Carol); and musical performances by guests John Davidson ("Both Sides Now" and "I Will Wait for You") and Ross Martin ("The Man in the Looking Glass"), as well as by Carol ("Look at That Face", "Nine Cents a Dance") and a number by Vicki and the dancers ("'Tain't No Sin").
Watch Now:Amazon#4 - with Ken Berry, Tim Conway, Kay Medford
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/20/1969
In a vaudeville segment, Tim Conway plays a bumbling acrobat. Carol is a dance hall Mom to daughter Vicki Lawrence in a tearful melodrama. Ken Berry dances to "Down By the Winegar Woiks". Also, Carol and Ken Berry play a computer-matched couple singing love songs. Tim and Harvey do a skit about a homesick truck driver. Kay Medford pops up as a sister-in-law in the weekly "Carol and Sis" routine.
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#5 - with Carl Reiner
Season 7 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/19/1974
A musical version of "Little Red Riding Hood" performed in the manner of a Mexican folk story for children. In another skit, an accident-prone woman (Carol) and her husband (Carl) attempt to buy insurance before her next accident. Also, Burnett as a spoiled child star, and a supermarket checkout sketch. Miss Burnett performs "I Wonder What Became of Me" and "Send in the Clowns".
Watch Now:Amazon#6 - with Tim Conway
Season 8 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/11/1975
Tim Conway plays a bumbling waiter in a Japanese restaurant; in a boxing sketch, Conway is in a match with first woman boxer Carol; Bert tries to convince Molly to see an X-rated movie in "The Old Folks"; a spoof of "The Pirates of Penzance". Carol sings "All of Me", and the whole cast performs "Mack the Black".
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#7 - with Tim Conway, Bernadette Peters
Season 7 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/16/1974
In "As the Stomach Turns" Marian's possessed niece (Bernadette) is exorcised by priest Tim Conway; two Japanese soldiers (Tim and Harvey) argue underwater; and a salute to musicals of the 1930's. Bernadette performs "I Can't Get Started with You" and "Blame It on My Youth".
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#8 - with Alan Alda
Season 8 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/21/1974
Alda plays "Morton of the Movies", who courts his girl with movie lines. In "The Family" sketch, long-lost son Alan Alda is home for Christmas. Carol and Alan duet on "Nobody Does It Like Me" in the midst of a department store Christmas rush. For the close the entire cast performs a salute to New York City.
Watch Now:Amazon#9 - Family Show
Season 9 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/8/1975
Guest Helen Reddy sings "Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady", joins the cast in a series of musical blackouts, and participates in a sketch about an extramarital affair endangered by a surprise call on a futuristic TV phone. Also: a woman struggles with so-called "easy openers" on household appliances; fortune cookie messages start a battle between friends; and a French marine explorer sends his assistant out on a hunt for a deadly white squid.
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#10 - with Lana Turner, Frank Gorshin
Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/8/1968
Carol's guest Lana Turner sings "Heavenly Music" while dancing with the Lester Flatt troop. Frank Gorshin does impressions then becomes Bluebeard with Carol his 13th wife. Carol and Harvey are a bickering couple on a game show.
Watch Now:Amazon#11 - with Telly Savalas and The Smothers Brothers
Season 8 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/12/1974
In a spoof of "Algiers", Savalas plays a great lover at the Casbah, facing Carol, the world’s most beautiful woman. In "The Family" skit, Eunice, Ed and Mama visit brother Jack (Tom Smothers) in the hospital. Also, Savalas and Korman play two men discussing a business merger as if it were a love affair. Savalas croons "Rubber Bands and Bits of String" and the Smothers Brothers perform "Love Me with All Your Heart".
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#12 - with Vincent Price and Joan Rivers
Season 8 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/4/1975
Carol plays Alice Portnoy, who blackmails people into giving money to the Fireside Girls; ham actors Funt and Mundane are sabotaged by ambitious understudies; a spoof of TV show "The Waltons". For the finale, the cast and dancers do a young people's concert, "Sarah and the Moose".
Watch Now:Amazon#13 - with Ruth Buzzi, Richard Crenna
Season 7 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/15/1973
A salute to movie bad girls with spoofs of such films as "Mrs. Robinson", "All About Eve", and "Born to Be Bad". Other sketches include Burnett and Crenna as a husband-and-wife cop team; a game show parody called "Celebrities and Peasants"; a production number about the mimeograph machine and women's voting rights. Ruth Buzzi performs "Oh, You Beautiful Doll".
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#14 - with Pat Carroll, Karen Wyman, and Tim Conway
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/1/1971
Conway accidentally gets his dog's inoculations and takes on canine characteristics; Miss Wyman solos "Close to Me"; Carol, as the charwoman, offers "Easy Come, Easy Go" and "MacArthur Park". Pat Carroll is back as Roger's protective sister in the Carol and Sis segment, pushing Carol and Chris around.
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#16 - with Eileen Farrell, Marilyn Horne
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/16/1968
Harvey Korman delivers a presidential fireside chat with his family; Eileen Farrell sings "Kiss Him Now"; Carol plays an awkward newswoman interviewing her matinee idol; Marilyn Horne performs the page's song from the opera "Les Huguenots"; an operatic version of "The Three Little Pigs"; a musical production of "Big Spender"; and for the finale, a Christmas carol medley.
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#17 - with Tim Conway, Perry Como, Sydney Omarr
Season 2 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/20/1969
Carol plays a lovesick patient who tries the patience of a handsome doctor (Lyle Waggoner). Tim plays a drunken prison warden on New Year's Eve, and courts rich spinster Burnett, undergoing tests arranged by a careful father. Perry Como sings "Sunshine Wine" and "Here's That Rainy Day." With Miss Burnett, he offers a love-song medley. Astrologer Sydney Omarr makes some predictions for the year 1969. Omarr joins the entire company in a "What's in the Stars?" segment, focusing on the astrological sign of Aquarius. Miss Burnett and Como sing "Aquarius".
#18 - with Bing Crosby, Paul Lynde
Season 5 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/3/1971
The main sketch is an old-fashioned melodrama spoof, in which Crosby plays Carol's booze-soaked father, with Lynde and Harvey Korman portraying twin mustache-twirling bankers. In "As the Stomach Turns", Paul Lynde plays the town masochist and Harvey is Mother Marcus. Crosby solos "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" and "Love Thy Neighbor", and teams with Miss Burnett on "Get Happy" and "Sing". This episode is noted as Show #510 in the Lost Episodes DVD set.
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#19 - with Cass Elliot, Bernadette Peters
Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/10/1971
In a spoof on soap operas, Cass plays a high-fashion model and Bernadette a tap-dancing nun. Cass performs "The Look of Love". Miss Peters sings "Cherish" and "It Had to Be You". This episode is noted as Show #503 in the Lost Episodes DVD set.
Watch Now:Amazon#20 - with Andy Griffith, Helen Reddy
Season 6 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/27/1972
Griffith plays a warden who welcomes a nervous wife coming to visit her imprisoned husband; Miss Reddy teaches Carol to sing "Australian"; the cast spoofs the movie "Rebecky"; Griffith and the Ernie Flatt dancers do "Turn Your Radio On"; Miss Reddy sings "I Am Woman".
Watch Now:Amazon#21 - with Ray Charles, Vincent Price
Season 6 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/22/1972
A salute to horror movies, with Harvey Korman as Frankenstein's monster and Lyle Waggoner as Count Dracula. In "Carol and Sis", Carol thinks Chrissy is pregnant; in "George and Zelda", George dreams he's a riverboat gambler. Ray Charles and the Raelettes sing "Every Saturday Night" and Ray plays piano in a cocktail lounge, singing tunes for a sentimental customer (Carol). Price plays Fagin in a bit from "Oliver" and the cast concludes with a production number, "The Transylvania Trot".
#22 - with Tim Conway, Steve Lawrence
Season 7 - Episode 18 - Aired 2/2/1974
The oldest living wardrobe man (Tim) has problems helping an actor (Harvey Korman) perform a quick change between acts of a play; the night before his wedding, a bachelor (Steve) asks his fiancee's sister (Carol) on a date. Steve performs "Here's That Rainy Day" and "Rainy Days and Mondays". And a salute to George and Ira Gershwin.
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#23 - with Vincent Price, Joel Grey
Season 7 - Episode 19 - Aired 2/9/1974
In "Carol and Sis", Chrissy's new boyfriend isn't as wild as he appears to be; a hotel operator (Carol) listens in on guests' calls; Carol, as a spoiled child star tangles with a tyrannical German film director; guest Vincent Price recalls the humorous side of Abraham Lincoln; Grey emcees a musical, "Comedia Del Arte".
Watch Now:Amazon#24 - with Tim Conway, Valerie Harper
Season 6 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/17/1973
Skits include: a blind date sketch with Korman and Harper as swingers and Burnett and Conway as wallflowers; Conway as the world's oldest fireman; and another installment of "As the Stomach Turns". Valerie Harper solos "The Last Blues Song". Carol, Valerie and Vicki sing "The Ladies Who Lunch". The whole cast performs "The Good Old, Bad Old Days".
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#25 - with Ethel Merman, Tim Conway
Season 2 - Episode 20 - Aired 3/3/1969
Guest Tim Conway introduces his onetime comic partner (and future series announcer) Ernie Anderson in the audience during the opening question-and-answer segment; Tim plays a rookie dentist who gets into a series of misadventures while attempting to treat a patient (Harvey); Carol, Vicki and guest Ethel Merman do a backstage sketch about an understudy attempting to sabotage the star before a performance; Tim, Carol, Vicki and Lyle are among relatives gathered at a haunted house for the reading of a will, and dead bodies show up everywhere; Vicki performs with the dancers; and Ethel sings "Elusive Butterfly", and for the close duets with Carol on a medley which includes "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and "I Get a Kick Out of You".
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