DON'T MISS OUT! SIGN UP FOR OUR MAILING LIST

Carol Burnett, Vicki Lawrence and all about ‘The Family’

Melissa Roth: Weirding Way Media Network.  

Amy Englehardt [Sings]: 80s TV Ladies so sexy and so pretty. 80s TV Ladies stepping out into the city. 80s TV Ladies often treated kinda-- Working hard for the money in a man's world. 80s TV Ladies!  

Melissa Roth: Welcome to 80s TV Ladies in the year of our lady 2025. We are wishing you all a very happy new and here are your hosts, Sharon Johnson and Susan Lambert.  

Susan Lambert Hatem: Hello, I'm Susan.

Sharon Johnson: And I'm Sharon.

Susan Lambert Hatem: How are your holidays, Sharon? Are we still standing?

Sharon Johnson: I don't know about that last one. We'll see. But my holidays were great. It's always wonderful to get a chance to spend some time with my family. I'm happy to say that I happen to think that I have the three best siblings in the world and I love spending time with them. And no matter how much time we do or don't get to spend with each other, we're tight. And I'd like to think we'll always be that way. So my holidays were great.

Susan Lambert Hatem: That's so great. That's my favorite thing too. I mean, I am so grateful I get to see my family and we get to spend time with Richard's family. We see my family on Thanksgiving and we go back and on Christmas we see Richard's family. But, I'm really, really grateful for that and all the friends that come to the Christmas Eve party and, we have a wonderful time always. Thank you, Melissa.  

Melissa Roth: It's fantastic. Always fun.  

Always fun. Good food, good friends.  

Melissa Roth: Yeah. Good stuff.  

Susan Lambert Hatem: Kevin, good holidays?  

Kevin Ducey: Yeah.

Melissa Roth: He says not quite sure.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So one of our mottos on this show is to look back in order to leap forward and to hope we become amazing ladies of the 21st century. At the beginning of this new year, I think that's a good time to sort of do that. But it's hard still to know where we stand.

Sharon Johnson: Well, I can always wonder about the value, if you will, of this podcast. I think we're pretty clear about what we're trying to say with it, and maybe it has evolved a little bit, but it's always been about celebrating the women in the 80s on television who made for some great TV that we still look back on and admire. And I think that's what's kept us going over three seasons and over 70 episodes. And there's still so much for us to learn. There's still so many women for us to be able to shine a spotlight on that have not had, in my opinion, enough time in the sun and had the opportunity to be celebrated in the way that they deserve. So, what little we can do to continue to do that, I think is for me anyway, what makes what we do important and frankly a lot of fun.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Super a lot of fun. And I'm constantly going back to the importance and power of women telling their stories and the importance of telling women's stories and that it's not a voice that still is equal in our society. And I think part of the problems we have may be because of that, because we're not hearing the stories of everybody. It's stunning when looking at some of these 40-year-old episodes or now 45-year-old episodes, and we're still talking about the same issues today. From Designing Women to Remington Steele to even Mama's Family, it's been a treasure trove of, ah, very entertaining reminders that as much as things have changed, the pushback against change has not.

Sharon Johnson: That's very true and sadly has been the pattern over the course of human existence. Because for every advancement of human rights, there has been this push to keep it from going forward and even to, to push it back even further from where it was before. And when it comes to true equality, equity, representation and the equal sharing of resources, justice and democracy across sex, orientation, religious beliefs, race, we have not achieved that. We're further down the road than we have been before, but we still have far, far to go. But it's a fight worth fighting and a fight that we obviously have not gone as far down the road as perhaps a lot of us thought we had. So there's still work to do.

Susan Lambert Hatem: There's still work to do. My husband Rich and I have been revisiting Lou Grant, a spinoff of the 70s ladies show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Lou Grant ran from 77 to 82, and the last two episodes we just watched were from season three, episode 14, Brush Fire, and, season three, episode 18, Censored. Brush Fire is literally the paper covers a massive fire outbreak in Malibu complicated by the Santa Ana winds. And we literally watched it the night the Franklin fire tore through Malibu.

Sharon Johnson: Wow.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And I was like, what is happening? That's 45 years ago. These episodes ran January and February 1980. 45 years ago because Censored was about the Tribune investigates a small town censoring books and attacking teachers and librarians for the stuff they're talking and teaching about and checking out to students and young people. And they're burning books. And, it also happens to be at the time that the Tribune is refusing to run a controversial comic strip which accuses local politicians of being in bed with foreign interests. It just felt like, what is going on?

Sharon Johnson: Wouldn't it be nice to have new problems instead of doing the old ones over and over again?

Susan Lambert Hatem: Ripped from the headlines. Lou Grant from 1980. It does feel very weird that sometimes we're still facing the same issues, but I'm glad we're still talking about them. So enough about Lou Grant. Let's get on to this show.

Sharon Johnson: Today we're gonna talk about the Carol Burnett show and how she helped create and then left Mama's Family because without Carol Burnett, there would be no Mama's Family. And we also wanna talk about the very odd Mama's Family metaverse.

Susan Lambert Hatem: You know, this came up, I think with the Eric Brown episode, because I suddenly we were talking about how just very odd the Mama's Family conceit is. Vicki Lawrence started in her twenties playing a fifty, sixty year old Mama, grandmother. and it just gets weird from there. But also the weirdest parts of Mama Vision for me is how many iterations of Mama's Family there actually are. This is a show that took characters and transported them into similar and yet different TV worlds. Not unlike Lou Grant. First there were the sketches known as The Family.

Sharon Johnson: On the Carol Burnett Show.  

Susan Lambert Hatem: On the Carol Burnett Show. Yes. So the family sketches, you know, again, we were seven seasons into the Carol Burnett Show. They did sketch after sketch and this was sort of a new what became a recurring sketch.

Sharon Johnson: The central character in these sketches were Eunice, played by Carol Burnett, the melodramatic, ambitious, brow beaten daughter of Mama, played by Vicki Lawrence. Mama is an exaggeratedly meanspirited and insult-spitting widow and mother of five children. Three sons played by guest stars Roddy McDowell, Alan Alda and Tom Smothers. And two daughters, Eunice, of course, and Ellen, played by Betty White. And Eunice's husband, Ed Higgins was played by Harvey Korman.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Very funny. The last sketch of The Family appeared in a four episode summer miniseries variety show, Carol Burnett and Friends. This was a super popular sketch. Overall, there were 31 sketches that appeared featuring The Family kind of every season. Of the last five seasons had at least one, usually more than one.

Sharon Johnson: In 1982, based on the characters from the sketches starring Carol Burnett came the TV movie special, Eunice. In this Mama-verse, Mama only has three children, Eunice, Ellen and Philip, played by Ken Berry. It looks at four times in Eunice's life over her relationship with her husband and Mama, was super highly rated as probably most things Carol Burnett did were. And Vicki Lawrence was nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal of Mama.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Then came the Mama's Family series. So this was the series that we've been talking about. It ran from January 2, 1983, to April 7, 1984. It's set in the fictional and yet named after a town, Raytown. That was where the writers were from and the creators were from. And widowed Mama is the main character. This is where it sort of shifts to be about Mama. And Eunice is a side character. And Mama in this version has three children, but a new son, Vinton, played by Ken Berry. Ellen, played by Betty White, and of course, Eunice, played by Carol Burnett. And then Mama's sister Fran, played by Rue McClanahan, who lives with her. And then Vinton has moved in with his two children, Buzz and Sonya, played, respectively, by Eric Brown and Karen Argoud. And then we get to also meet in that first season, Naomi Oates, who is played by Dorothy Lyman, who we spoke to. And so they do two seasons with this iteration, and then it is canceled in 1984.

Sharon Johnson: And then Lorimar Syndication decides to revive the show, still called Mama's Family, and it runs from September 27, 1986, until February 24, 1990. The original Mama's Family does well in reruns, which is why Lorimar decided to revive it and order an additional 100 episodes. As we learned in Eric Brown's episode, Vinton's kids are not invited back. It appears they went to live with their mother in Vegas. Bubba Higgins, the not very bright son of Eunice and Ed, now lives with Mama.

Susan Lambert Hatem: But Eunice and Ed are gone. Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman never come back on the show.

Sharon Johnson: Beverly Archer plays a neighborhood friend, Iola Boylen, on the show. She's a new character added to the show.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It's just so interesting that there was these. That sort of fascinates me when a show sort of shifts and chains. It happens a lot in soaps where you bring new characters and whole worlds shift over. But in primetime, it didn't happen that often at this point in television.

Sharon Johnson: But as we've seen from other shows, the television audience was very open to whatever kind of shifts that were made. As we saw in our very first, one of our first shows in, Cagney and Lacey, where we had three Cagneys.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Three Cagneys, yes. So changing out an actress, I think. Yeah. But this is literally sort of reconfiguring the family and the focus of the family, as it were, into Mama's Family, you know, So I don't know. I just. I find that very interesting. Particularly as a sort of a creator and a writer. It's like, okay, we're gonna shift stories this way. And now we're gonna have these characters.

Sharon Johnson: It shifted away from Eunice and the greater Carol Burnett ensemble to Mama and whoever was family--

Susan Lambert Hatem: Was in her house at the time. Right.

Sharon Johnson: So. And wherever it was that they lived, and evolved over time. I also found it really interesting that we had both Betty White and Rue McClanahan in the show for relatively short periods of time, but still. And they were, one of them-- And Rue was playing Betty White's aunt, for goodness sake.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It just gets so crazy. Like, it really does. It still feels like a sketch, definitely that first season. And yet it's also starting to coalesce around this and around, in some ways, Vicki Lawrence. That this apparently was created so that Vicki Lawrence could shine.

Sharon Johnson: Yes.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And that the Carol Burnett team could keep making stuff after the show was sort of over. And I think it was really interesting. And Vicki Lawrence has an interesting story. And she was invited on to the Carol Burnett show in the craziest way.

Sharon Johnson: Unheard of. I don't think it's ever happened before or since.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah. The short story is she wrote a fan letter to Carol Burnett, sent a picture, invited Carol to come and watch her perform at some show she was doing as part of--

Susan Lambert Hatem: She was running for, ah, Ms. Firecracker or something. Like she was running for, ah, Ms. Fireball of Inglewood.

Sharon Johnson: Yes. And a rather heavily pregnant Carol Burnett and her husband decided to go to the show just because, much to the surprise and shock of Vicki Lawrence's family.

Susan Lambert Hatem: ‘Cause she was 18, so she's a senior in high school when this happens. And part of the article that says, oh, there's gonna be this, Miss Fireball contest says, that she looks like a young Carol Burnett.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And so they show up. Vicki Lawrence wins the contest. And they realize Carol Burnett's there, so they bring her on to crown her. And coincidentally, for the show, apparently, they were looking for someone to play Carol Burnett's sister for a sketch. So they hire her. She does some auditions. She has to be approved by everybody, but they basically hire her. Now. It sounds like, okay, this is just out of the blue. Vicki Lawrence was performing at a high level at that point. She was on the Young Americans, which was a group that performed at the Oscars. And so she wasn't like just a gal sitting around. She won the Ms. Fireball contest.

Sharon Johnson: Right. And based on Carol Burnett's history. It's not really that odd that she would do something like that. Because someone gave her a helping hand at some point early in her career to help her get to where she wanted to be. And one of the caveats was, you'll pay me back within five years if you're successful. And you will do things for other people as well. So I think that that's kind of. I mean, not that she wouldn't have anyway, perhaps, but I think it was really top of mind for her that she's like, oh, I see this young girl. This is what we're looking for. Let's give her a try.

Susan Lambert Hatem: She asked.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And then Vicki Lawrence basically starts appearing on the Carol Burnett show in season one. And is on that show for 11, seasons, right. And becomes a huge star. And is basically sort of taught comedy and television by Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman.

Sharon Johnson: What a place to learn, for goodness sake. On one of the best variety shows that has ever existed on network television. You know, from some of the best to ever do it.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It's just so crazy. And I've always liked Vicki Lawrence because of a, little song she sang. Her first husband in 1972, songwriter Bobby Russell, writes this song and sends it out. And no one else really wants to sing it. But Vicki Lawrence is like, no, this is a good song. I'll sing it. And so The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia is sung by none other than Vicki Lawrence, becomes a huge hit. Not because she's Vicki Lawrence on the Carol Burnett show. Just because it's a great song and she sings a great song and it becomes a huge hit. So I thought that was just like this weird offshoot of the Vicki Lawrence career, which is, again, kind of wild.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So she and her first husband break up. She goes on to marry her makeup man, who was also, like a pretty big known makeup guy. The head of makeup for Carol Burnett Show. And then ultimately, around this the time she's breaking up with her husband, he's promoted to the head of West oast makeup at CBS, Al Schultz. And then they fall in love and get married. And so it's Carol Burnett and Joe Hamilton, her husband, producer. And, Vicki Lawrence and her husband, makeup guy, manager Al Schultz. I just imagine their dinner parties.  

Melissa Roth: Big fun and funny.  

Susan Lambert Hatem: Big fun and funny. And, yeah, so that's really fun. But I think I just want to make sure that everybody, our listeners, truly understand the power and comedy and talent of Carol Burnett in the TV universe, 1960s to 1980s, through the 1980s.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. And if you weren't there to see it, it's really hard to explain just how popular and powerful in the zeitgeist the Carol Burnett show was for basically the entirety of its run. It just, it was on Saturday night at 10 o'clock, and granted this was in, the days before time shifting, but people would stay home to watch her show. It was that good and that popular.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. And like I Love Lucy, it was a woman who both, you know, sort of created and produced the show and was the star of the show and was this incredible comedian and was able to build a universe around her and for her to showcase her immense talents. It's pretty unprecedented. She's like the television Beyoncé or something. There's something that is so incredible that she built this sort of world for herself that just really played to every single one of her talents. And one of that was just bringing people on, you know, and having incredible guests on and getting them to break on camera.

Sharon Johnson: And a lot of it obviously was right place, right time. She came along at a time when television was ready for a performer like her, a multitalented performer like her to come along. I'm not sure today there's, I mean, you mentioned Beyoncé, but it's not quite the same still. I mean, not that Beyoncé isn't very talented and can do multiple things, but it's still not quite--  

Susan Lambert Hatem: It’s not quite the same. Yeah, I'm not sure who like or.

Sharon Johnson: Even Taylor Swift, because Taylor Swift. I mean, people have more lanes that they have to stay in these days, mainly because the whole idea of a variety show, a variety performer, there isn't room for that really. There isn't a place for it.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So it's all on TikTok now.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, yeah, perhaps that's where it is. I'm not on ‘TikTack.’

Susan Lambert Hatem: ‘TikTack!’

Sharon Johnson: TikTok. So I don't have a clue. But that was a time when variety performers were very important to the entertainment business. There were tons of variety shows over the years, people of, you know, of differing kinds of talents. But I don't think there was nobody that matched Carol Burnett in terms of the breadth of her talent and what she was able to do,  whether it be as a singer, as a comedian, physical comedy. You name it, she could do it and do it really, really well. Yeah, she's kind of a unicorn.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And like many of our favorite 80s TV ladies, she started in theater. In 1960, Carol Burnett became a star on Broadway with a show called Once Upon a Mattress, which is currently playing somewhere here.

Sharon Johnson: That's right, it's playing here with Sutton Foster. Yes, that's right.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Many brilliant, comedic actress has done Once Upon a Mattress. She earned a Tony nomination for it. And at the same time that she was sort of taking on the Great White Way, she was also in New York, a supporting player in a local television comedy variety show that I think went nationwide, ultimately, the Garry Moore Show. And she won her first Emmy in 1962 on that show. And so CBS gave her sort of a deal, said, oh, okay, you can develop your own variety shows. ‘Cause she was sort of this rising star. And so her first in 1962, she went to, ah, a buddy she had just met that was like their people introduced them and they were like, oh, I'll go take this meeting, but I don't want to. And they ended up hitting it off and becoming great friends. Her new Broadway friend Julie Andrews and her, decide to do a variety special, the Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall. And that is something I would love to take a look at at some point. Even though it's not 80s, it's--

Sharon Johnson: Well, it's historic television.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Historic television.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah. Of two ladies headlining a television show at that time.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And they didn't want to do it. CBS was like, yeah. And they're like, nobody knows who Julie Andrews is, even though she's a big Broadway star from My Fair lady and she'd just done the Rodgers and Hammerstein television musical Cinderella. the first of the television musical Cinderellas, I think. Julie and Carol made for a huge CBS special. She ends up with a 10-year contract to continue to do sort of television specials with CBS. And there was this little clause that they decided to trigger with CBS where they're like, oh, it turns out we can sort of just burn through this contract if I do 30 one-hour variety shows. And I think CBS was like, well, we didn't mean that.

Sharon Johnson: Well, the guy who was in charge at that time was not the one that drew up the contract. He had no idea, had no clue.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And they basically are like, we'll give you a sitcom. But you know, men do variety shows, little lady. So the Carol Burnett show was born. They're like, we have a contract. It's highly successful. It runs for 11 seasons. It's nominated for 70 Emmys, wins 25 of them. It's a juggernaut of talent showcase and it is appointment TV. You had to watch it.

Sharon Johnson: Yep.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And we got to stay up to watch it.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, yeah. Truly an amazing story. I mean, I do want to give some credit to her husband

Susan Lambert Hatem: Joe Hamilton.  

Sharon Johnson: Yes. Because I listened to the Television Academy—

Susan Lambert Hatem: Interview?  

Sharon Johnson: Yeah. In which she talks about how he was instrumental in helping deal with the production side of things. I mean, obviously the things that she had to learn over time, but if not for him helping to help her steer through this. And she also mentioned Lucille Ball was really helpful, too, to her.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh.

Sharon Johnson: In that she had a conversation at one point with Lucille Ball. This was after Lucy and Desi had broken up. And, basically, Lucille was the one that said, yeah, let your husband do like Desi did and deal with all that stuff. And Lucille Ball is also the one that told her that it was okay for her to speak up for herself. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but it was okay for her to say, yeah, no, that's not gonna work, or that's not good enough, or no, I'd rather do--

Susan Lambert Hatem: Here's what I wanna do.  

Sharon Johnson: Yeah. ‘Cause I think that's, I mean, even women today is something we all have to learn. But certainly back then for someone, I mean, she didn't grow up with a father. Her grandmother is really the one that raised her. And I would imagine it, it was definitely a world where, as you said, women got patted on the head and said, just do what we--

Susan Lambert Hatem: We'll take care of it.

Sharon Johnson: We’ll tell you what to do. But she learned lessons over time and she was really the driver of her own destiny, I think, in her own career ultimately.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I know that ultimately she and Joe Hamilton divorced in 1984, but they clearly built a pretty incredible power couple career for the creation of the Carol Burnett Show and all of that. I think that it's an example of men supporting women in a very powerful way and using their ‘man power’ to let women go forward.

Sharon Johnson: Right. Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And that is pretty unusual for the time.

Sharon Johnson: And to many--

Susan Lambert Hatem: And now. You don't see men who are that powerful-- And I'm thinking of Vicki Lawrence's husband too. It's like we're going to use the power that we have as men to make sure that these women get to fly. Get to push forward and be as powerful as they can be. And I'm going to be their support system. And again, I'm sure there's lots of politics and things and personalities and stuff like that, but that's what it looks like from the outside is that these men made it possible for the women to be as powerful as they could be just as so often women just do. Right?

Sharon Johnson: Right.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It's like the woman behind the man is sort of considered an of course even now in our society. But when men take a backseat and let women go forward and they make sure that those women get to succeed, that seems still so incredibly unusual. And that they're the star and they're the ones that get to be out front.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah. And especially in a business like this where somebody like Joe Hamilton to be comfortable behind the scenes and okay with his wife being the one in front. That's great. I don't know anything about their marriage, but obviously they made it work together for a number of years. And there are some examples, but still today when something like that happens where it's the woman that's out front and the husband that's more the support seemingly, or is the one that doesn't have the spotlight on him, there is a degree of backlash or a degree of diminution of him. Like there must be something wrong with him or he's not as whatever because there is this strong woman who is the one maybe leading, seeming to lead. And somehow there's something wrong with that.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. And I feel like we just went through, you know.

Sharon Johnson: Oh, yes. What possible situation could I might be thinking of?

Susan Lambert Hatem: Could that be former Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband?

Sharon Johnson: Oh, yes. Former vice president. Yes.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Douglas Emhoff? ‘Emmahoff?’ How do you pronounce his last name?

Sharon Johnson: Emhoff.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Emhoff. Yes. Emhoff. Douglas Emhoff.  

Sharon Johnson: Yeah. I mean, everybody's marriage is different and who the hell knows what goes on behind closed doors? And I know there are pressures on relationships and all kinds of situations, but that's gotta be, especially then-- Not to diminish whatever talents Carol Burnett has and exhibited, Vicki Lawrence has and exhibited. But the men in their lives were obviously there to support them, to help them shine as brightly as possible and not necessarily do anything to impede that.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. And I'm thinking of Harry Thomason to Linda Bloodworth Thomason.

Sharon Johnson: Exactly.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And you see that in all relationships, but you want to see more of that. It's like, hey, here's where I can shine and here's where I can shine. And we make sure that we are letting the best of you go forth. And everybody wants that in their relationship and everybody wants that in their partnerships. It's true across bosses I had who were, you knew a difference between a boss that wanted you to succeed and a boss that only cared about them succeeding. And that made that boss less successful in my mind because they weren't doing their job, which was to make sure that everybody in their department shines.

Sharon Johnson: I don't know if any of you, any of you guys are watching Matlock on CBS.

Susan Lambert Hatem: The new Matlock?

Sharon Johnson: The new Matlock. No, it's very good.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay.

Sharon Johnson: And I bring it up because there have been a couple of moments in the show where the Madeline Matlock character has conversations with her husband where they're talking about, where the subject of their relationship when it comes to their work lives come up. And there was something really interesting that happened this last week where without going into the detail, they're talking about when their daughter was growing up. He says something about how. Well, you know. Or she brings up how on Mondays and Wednesdays or something he had something to do. And so she, you know, and he's like, well, it was never a problem. And she says it was never a problem because I took care of it. I adjusted my life, my work life to make sure that you could go do that. But that meant. But you didn't do the same for me, which meant I had to give up some things because there was nobody to do that for me.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah.

Sharon Johnson: And it was a revelation for him. They'd never had that conversation before, you know, so it kind of brought that back to me. I definitely recommend it because there have been, several instances of things like that where. ‘Cause her character is basically at the age of Kathy Bates. And so she talks about her a couple times she's talked about what it was like for her. It's fascinating. It's been really interesting. So anyway, well.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And that sort of negotiation for roles like who's gonna take care of what is a constant in our society, a constant for partners, romantic and otherwise. But there's something really unique about clearly that sort of Joe Hamilton-Carol Burnett partnership and I think the Vicki Lawrence and Al Schultz partnership in that they really were men making sure that the women were in front. And that's pretty unusual. And feels like that gave them a lot of power. And you often see the reverse. There's no, it's not like, you know that it's so stunning how often we just don't even pay attention. Right. To how when you go back and look at Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. And from the get go, she's as accomplished and as powerful and as amazing, sometimes more so than him. And she clearly steps back because only one person can run for president at a time. But it's so interesting, the interesting dynamics that have clearly go on in their relationship where it's like, okay, I am going to step back and hurt my career. Which she did in order for you to succeed in this area. And then he had to shift. And those are very, I think, very interesting relationships to look at and what we will see as we go forward, hopefully more of. Of course, there's always a dynamic to a relationship, but you want everyone to be able to have their time in the sun, you know.

Sharon Johnson: And that's not to say that every relationship is the same. What every woman, every man wants is the same. There are a lot of women, a lot of men who are like, please, you go and stand in the spotlight. I'm real happy over here doing something else.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah, I mean we're talking about big show biz people, big political people, but like this happens in everyday marriage. Rich and I are in constant discussion of like. Okay, we hit a point where I was traveling and he was traveling for work and we're like,

how are we going to do this? Because we have kids. And so it was real, it was like, okay, I'm going to compromise this year. And it's a constant negotiation of who's taking what element.

Sharon Johnson: And it's okay. Whatever works for your relationship is. What works for, is what you should do. Everybody is different. And if there's a woman who's like, yeah, I don't need to, you know, I'm good staying at home taking care of the kids, that's what I want to do, or some variation of that, and her husband goes off and you know, is the big shiny person in the relationship or vice versa or something in between. It's whatever works for you, but shouldn't have to be just one way.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, and that's what it feels so weird when there's such a response to binary. Like this is, you know, this is how it should be and this, you know, and that return to tradition or whatever. Like, you know, it feels ridiculous. You're like, there is no one type of family. We live in a very complex world. We have very complex relationships. And so we should be modeling all sorts of healthy relationships that look like a lot of different things. And people should be able to find, you know, it's what we go back to of what defines an 80s lady show.

Sharon Johnson: Right.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It's the lady driving the story. It's like people should be able to drive their own story and make choices that are best for themselves.

Sharon Johnson: Right.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And you do that in partnership with your community and, sometimes with partners. But you. You want to be able to. Everyone should be able to fulfill their story.

Sharon Johnson: Exactly, exactly.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So, clearly, Carol Burnett and Vicki Lawrence did.

Sharon Johnson: They did. And continue to do so.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So I think I wanted to just take some time to sort of honor the Carol Burnett of it all. The weird trajectory of how Mama’s Family became a show that's. That's beloved. I mean, I forget how much these shows were powerful to people in the 80s, in the 70s and 80s, because they were our Internet, they were our engagement with outside world views. But also just comedy and variety. And, I mean, the variety show was important. It's like--

Sharon Johnson: Oh, yeah,  

Susan Lambert Hatem: The first time I heard opera was on the Carol Burnett Show, ‘cause my people weren't opera people. And so, you know. And so I knew technically, I guess, opera existed. But the first time I would have seen opera singers would have been on the Carol Burnett Show. And that introduction to a world bigger than you. And that's so much of what 70s and 80s television was for us. It's like, oh, here's a story about something a little different than what I know. And here's a way to be in the world. It's like I was trying to figure out what did I want to do and what did I want to be? And did I want to be Laura Holt from Remington Steele? Did I want to be, you know, Mrs. King?

Sharon Johnson: Did I want to be Cagney?  

Susan Lambert Hatem: Did I want to be Cagney? Did I want to be Lacey? Exactly. Did I want to be Police Woman? you know, it's like, that's why we have sort of stars and we have stories and we have all of these things and we keep going back to stories is because we're looking for how to navigate our world and how to feel, I think, fully engaged and engaged with sort of our true nature. And that's why the Carol Burnett show and Mama's Family is important.

Sharon Johnson: And just to reiterate, I don't think there's any show that I can recall that went through the number of permutations that Mama's Family went through. I mean, significant permutations in terms of tone, in terms of characters, in terms of. I mean, it was just kind of was all over the place because of the way that its existence changed trajectory. Starting with the Carol Burnett Show, then the situation. I mean, it's just all over the place. And yet it remains successful throughout.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, and such an engagement, like I forgot till we started revisiting these I forgot how much the live audience was a big part of this, that Carol Burnett would start every show just talking to the audience, bringing people up. They would bring her gifts. She would, you know, sometimes let ‘em sing a song. Like it was this crazy, like, live show, variety show experience that was sort of brought to everybody and then really created this perfect sort of character for Carol Burnett to portray that was sort of loving and open and funny. I mean, she just got to be funny. And that is so difficult for women to be. And to be accepted for, to be, you know, talented and all that stuff, but to be allowed to be funny. And then ultimately, you know, down the line in movies, she played really dramatic stuff too. Beautiful actress. She sings, she dances, she acts. But the big thing is she's drop dead funny.

Sharon Johnson: Mm-hmm. Yeah,

Susan Lambert Hatem: People get really weird when women start to be funny sometimes. And somehow she navigated her way so perfectly through that. She broke so much ground for sketch comedians, for women like Tina Fey, who would be both creator and showrunner for their comedy. You know, like Lucille Ball, she impacted television just even in format like the doing sketches before a live audience. Basically the precursor for sharing it live. Like, oh, we're gonna have, we're gonna do sketches in front of a live audience. We're gonna have a musical guest, we're gonna have a guest star, they're gonna join the sketch. I mean, that was all Carol Burnett show. You know, she basically invented Saturday Night Live. I think Lorne Michaels owes her something.

Sharon Johnson: Small percent of the royalties would do.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And what I love is even though I think the humor of the family, particularly starting with the sketch, and even the early Mama's Family television, show had a lot of meanness to it.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, it did.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It really did. It had like, you know-- And Carol Burnett was the child of alcoholics. I imagine that some of that was not far from something. But at the same time, the show itself had so much warmth. It had more warmth, I think, than I Love Lucy and the Lucille Ball shows because she was so welcoming to the audience, to the television audience in between the sketches. She so enthusiastically presented these other musicians and artists and talent and let them shine, like Vicki Lawrence, that it was so gracious, it was so generous. There's a generosity to the Carol Burnett comedy that I think is kind of unique.

Sharon Johnson: And despite the fact that Mama's Family in particular is a comedy, and the Carol Burnett show in general is a comedy, it was in a lot of those episodes about the family where you really began to see just how good a dramatic actress she is.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes.

Sharon Johnson: Because she brought all kinds of subtext and pain and anger and frustration and, you know, wanting and yearning to Eunice.

Susan Lambert Hatem: There are so many layers to Eunice. There really are. She is both trying to break away and so deeply miserable, she could cut everyone down. It is really amazing to watch her and Harvey Korman and Vicki Lawrence go at it. It’s really something. It's really something. And that, like, you know, and I think that Mama character took on some of that in the later seasons of giving her some both pathos, but also the like, I have my crustiest exterior that I can give you, but at the end of the day, I can't chop the goose's head off. The goose that I've been feeding and taking care of. I'm just not gonna chop its head off. It's just, I don't know. So interesting to look back on the Carol Burnett, look back at the Mama's Family and see all these women. And it's also like women being. Here's the funny. The family is so clearly. I realized just as I was watching at this time, it's the female All in the Family. I totally believe that that was part of why it's called the Family. Mama is the Archie Bunker.

Sharon Johnson: Do you think it's--

Susan Lambert Hatem: Or Eunice is the Archie Bunker?

Sharon Johnson: Well, certainly initially Eunice, I could see that ‘cause obviously in the Carol Burnett Show, Eunice was the lead character because it was all about her.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I think there's something there. But hold on, but wait. Was it before All in the Family?

Sharon Johnson: No, it was after, wasn't it? Because All in the Family started in what, 72, 70?

Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh, for sure, yeah, 70. But the sketches. The Mama's Family. The Family started in 70s. Right around that time. I'm telling you. 71. All in the Family. 71. The Family. All in the Family. I have put it together.  

Melissa Roth: I get it. Yeah, it makes sense.

Sharon Johnson: See, you know, there's just so much there.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And we just discovered it. I was like, why is it called the-- Oh, the Family! They should have started with a little piano playing. All right, well, you know what, Our guests have been delightful, but Sharon, it's always delightful to just talk with you.

Sharon Johnson: Same here. Because that's one of the reasons we started this, so we could sit here and talk about TV.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh my god, it's true. I'm always like, god, we haven't had. We have so many guests on. What are Sharon and I are going to talk about? Just us? Clearly that's not a problem. Sorry, Kevin. Sorry, Melissa.  

Melissa Roth: Good stuff.

Sharon Johnson: Oh, good times.

Susan Lambert Hatem: All right, so to wrap up in.

Sharon Johnson: Today's audiography, the Carol Burnett Show is available across a lot of channels, like Pluto and Tubi and the Roku Channel, Peacock, Paramount+ and YouTube. But not every episode is available everywhere, as we found when looking for the Alan Alda Carol Burnett Show episode.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And Mama's Family can be found also on Pluto and Roku. It is available for purchase on Amazon and Apple and all the purchase places. You can also find clips on YouTube as well.

Sharon Johnson: We really are in unprecedented times. Sea changes all around us. What we build for ourselves and our communities matter.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It is not our job to finish the work of humanity and save the world. As often as I think it must be my job. But I believe it is our job to start where we are and do what we can. Here are some more recommended books for reading this year. Handbook for a Post-Roe America by Robin Marty.

Sharon Johnson:, Men in Dark Times by Hannah Arendt.  

Susan Lambert Hatem: And Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson.

Sharon Johnson: I highly recommend her daily newsletter and her podcast as well.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah.

Sharon Johnson: She's great.

Susan Lambert Hatem: She's great. Great writer. Hey, be sure to visit 80s TV ladies for merch. We're sort of dropping new stuff all the time. You can get your Amazing Ladies of the 21st Century T-shirt. Wear that and swag. Wear that about loud and proud. and you can also on our 80sTVladies.com find all the episodes, links to all our socials, transcripts and more.

Sharon Johnson: Be sure to tune in next where we show the 90s TV babies some Mama's Family episodes.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I cannot wait. It's going to be wild. We'll also, in our description, have the episodes we're showing them.

Sharon Johnson: So as always, as we end, we hope 80s TV Ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch. All of which will lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the 21st century.

Amy Englehardt [Sings]: 80s TV Ladies so sexy and so pretty. 80s TV Ladies stepping out into the city. 80s TV Ladies often treated kinda-- Working hard for the money in a man's world. 80s TV Ladies!  

‍

‍