The Best of The Carol Burnett Show

Dynamic young singer and Tony Award-winning actress Melba Moore and comedy legend Carl Reiner bring high energy to the program. Hospital dramas and soap operas were big at the time, and General Hospital combined both. "Terminal Hospital" is overstocked with loonies, from crazed nurse Melba to misunderstood nurse Harvey to flawed surgeon Dr. Goldenstein (Carl), who can't cut it anymore.

Carol learns to speak Australian from Helen Reddy, who also sings I Am Woman, which recently had reentered the charts on its way to No. 1. Andy Griffith returns to his country roots with Turn Your Radio On and to his law enforcement ways in a skit as an officious warden responsible for Carol's first conjugal visit to her frustrated jailed husband, Harvey Korman.

Tim Conway lampoons high-profile defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey as a rabbit named F. Lee Bunny. Another famous Bailey, Pearl, plays a talkative shrink trying to help Carol with her man problem, which triggers A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Carol revives the Norma Desmond role from Sunset Boulevard as "Nora Desmond," looking for career salvation via a Knock 'Em Dead bug spray commercial.

Lily Tomlin plays a recent divorcee and gets Harvey to dance an absurd version of the funky chicken. Steve Lawrence plays a cotton-mouthed mobster who makes Brando's Don Corleone sound like a master of elocution. Carol's iconic charwoman delivers one of her finest performances ever! The full cast does the parody Caged Dames, and Vicki, playing Carol's ditzy cellmate, steals the scene.

Jack Cassidy soars in The Story of a Star, homage to A Star Is Born. He's the dissolute fading star Norman Swain opposite rising star Esther "Vicki" Crotchett, played by Carol. Elsewhere, Carol and Harvey go to an orphanage and choose Leon (Tim), aged 35! Up in heaven, angel Harvey gets a new cloud mate-Tim, a Jew's harp player ill suited for this celestial realm.

Jack Gilford guest stars in a wonderfully touching sketch, showcasing his musical comedy abilities as a very nervous father to Carol's bride. Watch too for Ruth Buzzi's remarkable transformation from one of her typically frumpy characters into a red-hot rock 'n' roller. Carol also sings the theme song to the just-released film Pete 'n' Tillie, in which she had her first big-screen starring role.

Tim Conway's up to his unusual mischief. A wardrobe malfunction on the set of "The Dater's Game" forces him to fill in as Bachelorette No. 3, and Harvey is the gold-chained bachelor. In another tense situation, bank robber Harvey rushes to buy gas from doofus station attendant Tim, who gets trapped under the hood checking the battery. Talk about a grease monkey. Kay Ballard also guest stars

Guest comedian John Byner does "celebrities in other lines of work," from John Wayne as a brain surgeon to Tonto as an interior designer. Byner & Harvey Korman are amazing as they kidnap a bratty Girl Scout (Carol) who foils their plan. Hollywood honcho Harvey must fire Donald Duck (Byner) after 25 years of service. The feathers fly when Donald receives his commemorative watch. Petula Clark guests

Season 6 ends with this Family Show, which features interesting surprises. Vicki Lawrence had recently recorded the hit The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, and is startled when Carol calls her out on stage to present her with her first gold record. And the ending showcases some then state-of-the-art video effects that allow Carol to appear as six characters in the same scene.

Charo guest stars and laughs abound. The show's unexpected highlight comes from the Campbellock Dancers, an influential LA group. Choreographed by Toni Basil, the sextet busts loose to Dennis Coffey's Scorpio. That's Fred "Rerun" Berry, future star of What's Happening!! in the red-patterned shirt, helping to make hip-hop history on Carol's prime-time TV show.

By Season 7 Lyle Waggoner was considered a regular sketch player, and in this episode's As the Stomach Turns he shows off all his charms as a tank top-wearing "Olympic weightlifter and freelance bellhop." And note how much fun Carol and Petula Clark have playing against type as rock 'n' roll bad girls in the "Salute to the '50s and '60s" closing number.

The spry septuagenarian Gloria Swanson guest starred for her new-fangled tango routine, in which the male dancers do a lot of lifting. In one of Burnett's cleverest Charwoman sketches, she and Swanson return to the pre-talkies movie era. Cavorting on-screen as Charlie Chaplin in Silents Is Golden, Swanson beckons Carol to join the story-the adventures of two stars captured in a double fantasy

In a tribute to serial films, Harvey Korman gets to put his comedic and dramatic skills to equal use, undergoing a believable werewolf transformation that doesn't require a bit of special makeup. And Carol gets the unusual chance to work her trademark Tarzan yell into a sketch that actually features Tarzan (she's Jane, while Lyle Waggoner-of course-plays the jungle hunk).

Ken Berry is probably best remembered by TV fans as the accident-prone Captain Parmenter from F Troop, but his song-and-dance versatility made him one of Carol's favorite guest stars (here she introduces him as "one of my very favorite people"). One of Berry's best sketches here is capped by an unusual cameo appearance by Tim Conway, who takes a few crucial tumbles as the world's oldest surgeon

This is one of only two episodes of Carol's show filmed outside of the United States. Carol and the regulars headed Down Under and took over the stage of the Sydney Opera House-now an international landmark, but a brand new venue at the time. This show was shot live in front of a sold-out crowd, and it stands as proof of the powerful, universal appeal of Carol's presence and her comedy.