Customer Reviews

The Carol Burnett Show - Show Stoppers [VHS]

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

Let me start first by admitting my bias: I'm a HUGE Carol Burnett fan. I grew up watching the show, and loved it because it was so funny, and it made my folks laugh, too.

However, this DVD is simply a lot of promise and no delivery. Imagine someone tells you about this great wine. You are shown the bottle, it's poured in the glass, you're allowed to smell its bouquet, and then... it's taken away. That's just how you'll feel watching this DVD. First off, the DVD is only 40 minutes long - the original hour special, minus all the commercials. There are hours of material that could have been put into a proper DVD, so why wasn't it? The material that is here is very funny, but 10-15 second clips just only go so far with true fans of this very funny show. The show was so great, with such a great cast - why no one bothered to dig in and add some content to the DVD version of the TV special is way beyond me.

Save your money, and send a letter to the companies that hold the rights to the Carol Burnett Show, and ask them to produce a proper DVD special!

I wish I had paid attention to the numerous reviews that stated that this was not a good buy... I was very disappointed to get a DVD that showed a couple of minutes of a scene. It included language that was, of course, censored on the live broadcast. And the funniest scenes (e.g., Tim as "The Dentist") were not even included. Bottom line, if I can't have entire episodes, I'll just live on my good memories of the show... and the 2 or 3 episodes I recorded on videocassette.

I wonder if they're waiting for our generation to die off so that it can be presented to kids who never saw it before. WE are the ones who would really appreciate it.

I agree with other reviewers - the Carol Burnett show should be put on DVD in its complete, total, absolute, full and whatever else synonym you can find entirety, this little tiny excuse for entertainment doesn't begin to satisfy. Please, please, please - whoever owns the rights to the show, please, please, please - release it in total. I'll pay lots of money for it. Please, please, please!

This was quite a let-down. Minimal snippets from the original show. (Though there are a few bawdy moments that are good for a laugh.) Most of it was question/answer with the audience and some tribute song/dance routines. If you are a hard-core fan you might enjoy this walk down memory lane. I would have preferred to see more of the original show.

It seems that Carol Burnett's producers can't give fans what we really want: a compilation of whole skits or entire shows. Instead we get brief clips, cast reunions, superfluous intros, and new songs. I was really looking forward to re-seeing some classic show-stopping skits in their entirety (maybe even some of my personal favorites). No such luck. Most of this tape is the four lead cast members reunited for sometimes awkward banter with each other and the audience (who magically ask questions that lead directly into the next clip). The clips are so whittled down that there's no context and no buildup. Some are so short that they just show the cast members breaking into laughter without any indication of what they're laughing at. Are Carol and the other leads so desperate for work that they insist on being taped for what should be archival compilation videos? Do the producers really think we would rather have a tiresome new song paying homage to Bob Mackie than more of the old shows? Is there some legal reason why the Carol Burnett shows (or at least whole skits) can't be issued for sale? And why is Lyle Wagner so glaringly absent from this tape -- does HE own the rights to the old shows? Perhaps someday those old favorite episodes will be reissued in their entirety on home video (as the Muppet Show producers are doing), but this ain't it. What a shame.

I am a long-time Carol Burnett fan. Her show has made me laugh so hard I cried. Unfortunately, this collection was just little tid-bits of her shows -- no full skits. I was hoping for more that what was on this one.

There are two groups of people for which this DVD is not recommended: those who are fans of the Carol Burnett Show and those who are not. Too much of the 40-something minutes are compiled of new material that's weak: questions from the audience, two songs, a tribute to the show's costume designer, and patter among the stars. The rest of the disc is outtakes, which are funny for about five minutes. I don't recall there being enough time devoted to a single sketch to allow you to appreciate the humor of the sketch itself. So if you're a fan, you already know that it's easy to get Harvey to crack up. If you're not famililar with the show, you'll wonder what all the fuss is about.

I was looking for the Carol Burnett Shows - I thought that they would be available by "Season 1, Season 2, etc". I was very dissapointed to find that they are not available in season format. I loved this show and would like to buy the ENTIRE series. Who is responsible for this god-awful offering for one of the most wonderful comedic shows of all? SUCH A SHAME!!

I have to go with the other reviews - not worth your time or money!

Not knowing what to expect was part of the problem, but the main problem is that the entire DVD is less than 45 minute long. Quite a waste if you ask me.
Most of the time is spent either talking to the audience or to eachother from the four stars of the show. It doesn't really have any skit excerpts longer than 30 seconds.
Definitely not worth the price.

Carol Burnett and team are hilarious in what little we get to see, but it is precious little. The DVD consists of nothing more than the CBS special aired a few years back. My wife and I watched the special at the time and roared, but we thought a DVD could contain a lot more than just the bare 42 minutes of that show. CBS has really missed the potential of DVD with this one, and sad to say, this entree turned out to be a big waste of money. There were enough Carol Burnett episodes over the years to fill a 4-disc pack just with bloopers, let alone representative sketches shown in full! Why are they being so stingy?