Carol Burnett

Was there ever a better friend to the television variety show than Carol Burnett? Her show's expert blend of music and comedy; its pitch-perfect parodies of classic films and commercials, stellar ensemble, and sense of spontaneity; and the warmth and intimacy provided by the star herself – who else took questions from the audience every week? – kept America tuning in for a remarkable 11 seasons and racked up 67 Emmy nominations and won two dozen Emmys. Now, the San Antonio native is returning to Central Texas for two evenings at the Paramount Theatre during which she will share reminiscences of that series and, you guessed it, entertain questions from the audience. As Burnett was quoted in a New York Times story about Rosie O'Donnell's attempt at resuscitating the old-school TV variety show – an attempt that rather spectacularly went down in flames – the Chronicle asked her about the difficulties involved in reviving variety.

Austin Chronicle: Why is it so hard to get a good variety show on TV these days?

Carol Burnett: I think maybe there are too many cooks. You've got your network, and you have the producing entity and the this and the that, without the creative people having their say. When we were on, there were something like nine variety shows: Sonny and Cher and the Smothers [Brothers] and us and Laugh-In. Glen Campbell. Flip Wilson. Dean Martin. Now, a lot of the suits, they want edgy, and they think that's what the public wants. I think they're afraid it's going to look too old-fashioned.

Also, they couldn't do what we did because of the money factor. We had a 28-piece orchestra. We had 12 dancers. We had guest stars. And we had a rep company, where we did a musical-comedy revue every week.

AC: You had such a legendary ensemble. How do you know when you have the right people that you can play off of?

CB: Immediately you know if you have that. You just never know if the audience is going to go for it, and I feel we were very fortunate. Having seen Harvey Korman as Danny Kaye's second banana – this was like Carl Reiner to Sid Caesar and Art Carney to Jackie Gleason – I said, "We've got to get somebody like him." And when Danny's show went off the air, we said: "Duh. Why don't we get him?" When I do the Q&As, I talk about Harvey and pay tribute to him. He approached everything from an acting standpoint, and having the comedy chops to go with it, that's a jewel. When you play tennis, it's important to play with a better player because it makes your game better. Well, Harvey made my game better. I miss him dreadfully.

And Tim [Conway], God bless him, is just a genius when it comes to improvising, coming up with stuff that we never rehearsed.

AC: One thing that seems to be missing on these recent attempts at variety shows is a strong writing staff.

CB: People were asking me about recent shows, and I said: "First, they've got to have the host that the audience can zoom in on. Then, equally important is the writing." No question about it. I think the hardest thing to do in the world, show-business-wise, is write comedy. We had a great staff of writers, and if we had a sketch we were rehearsing and it wasn't working, we'd call the writers down and show them what we had come up with. And there were no egos. In 11 years, we never had a writer get angry because we made it a little bit more of our own and maybe a little improved. They would jump in and say, "Oh okay, how about this then, while you're doing that?" We were all in the sandbox together.

AC: Say you have the hypothetical opportunity to school the producers of the next variety-show comeback, and you have access to any TV show, radio program, or film ever produced. What great variety shows of the past do you make sure they study before they put their show on the air?

CB: Well, there are so many different types of variety. Our show was one type, where we would do long form, like the family sketches with Eunice and Mama, those could run 12, 13 minutes. Then you had Laugh-In, where it was a blackout. There were jokes, and, boom, they'd go to the next thing. Perry Como was a musical variety show. Dean [Martin] was comedic and musical. I'd say watch Dean, watch us, watch Laugh-In, watch Flip Wilson. ... There are just so many. I think they should look at all of them in that era, especially if they've got a star that wants to do a variety show, and the network is going to trust that person. Then that star should look at all of these different shows and see which shoe would fit them better and still not be imitating any of us. They have to bring their own personality to it and say, "What would I have more fun doing?"

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Laughter and Reflection With Carol Burnett will be presented Friday & Saturday, Jan. 9 & 10, 8pm, at the Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress. For more information, call 866/443-8849 or visit www.austintheatre.org.