Vicki Lawrence was a network TV star before the age of 20. In 1967 she became one of the original cast members on the Carol Burnett Show. She also starred in a spin-off series called “Mama’s Family,” playing the title character which was created on “The Carol Burnett Show.“ Since then she has won an Emmy, scored a gold record, had her own talk show, and hosted game shows. Vicki Lawrence will be a guest this weekend at Pensacon.
Bob Barrett: Looking at your career and looking back to the early days, whoever cast “The Carol Burnett Show” was a genius. Was that amazing chemistry from the beginning?
Vicki Lawrence: Well, yeah, it was great chemistry from the beginning, but the casting was pretty funny. Of course, you know, she found me when I wrote her a fan letter, and she came to see a contest that I was in. So that's how she found me. The network wasn't crazy about her hiring me, but she was. Lyle, she found through the audition process. They wanted a handsome announcer, and he was the only guy that showed up that had a sense of humor. So that's how he got the job. They were looking for somebody to be her leading man. And everybody kept saying, you know, what we need is a Harvey Korman type. And Harvey was just finishing up “The Danny Kaye Show,” and Carol said one day, ‘I looked at everybody’ and I said, ‘Has anybody asked him?’ So he still had an office at CBS, and she literally accosted him in the parking lot one day and said, would you do my show? So that's how he got the part. Then, you know, Tim (Conway) and Harvey are just, that was kind of an accident as well. The first few shows that Tim did, he did most of his work with Carol. And he happened to write a sketch where it was two men. It was called The Dentist.And that's how that was born. So casting genius? I don't know, the stars were in alignment, I guess.
Barrett: When did you first get presented with the mama character? Or did you present that yourself?
Lawrence: Uh, no, that was written by two of our writers, and they both came from dysfunctional upbringings, so they wrote this, homage to their dysfunctional families, and they lovingly turned in this sketch. They intended for Carol to play mama. But when Carol read the sketch, she said, Eunice is the part that speaks to me. So they were a little upset. And then she said, I think she went to Bob Mackie and said, don't you think we could make Vicki mama? And he said, sure, because he had made me many crazy old ladies by that time. He said, ‘Sure, we can make her mama.’ So that's how that happened. I consider Mama yet another gift from Carol because it was never meant to be my part. You know, Harvey used to say all the time, you got the part because the mother is the heart and soul of a family, and you got the best part.
Barrett: I was trying to think of sitcoms that got their beginning in variety shows and all I could come up at the top of my head were “The Honeymooners” and “The Simpsons.“
Lawrence: That's all I know of.
Barrett: And your show, which, how many years did that run?
Lawrence: Oh, Mama's Family ran for, I think it was six seasons. Six, seven seasons. We did 135 episodes. And by the time we had finished all those episodes, we had our work week down to four days a week. We were having a blast. We ran like the little Energizer bunny. We all felt like we could have run forever. But 135 seems to be the magic number for syndication. I mean, it took the bulk of the 80s to do it, because we were on NBC for a season and a half. Then we were canceled and we didn't work for like, a year until Lorimar-Telepictures picked us up. And all the young guns at Telepictures were looking for shows to put on the air that were already either in production or, you know, they were kind of ready to roll, but had never gotten a chance. And they looked at all the numbers on Mama's Family and they said, the demographic on this show is incredible. It just never got the right time slot. So they bought us and put us into first-run syndication, which is where I feel like we really hit our stride.
Barrett: And in the middle of all of this, when you were on “The Carol Burnett Show,” all of a sudden you get a number one hit single, and you're an international music star.
Lawrence: Well, yeah, that was kind of an accident. That song was written by a fellow that I was married to for like ten minutes. And it was sort of the only good thing that came out of a totally dysfunctional marriage. He didn't like the song. I said, ‘That song is a smash.’ They tried to give the song away. Nobody wanted to sing it because everybody thought it would offend the South. And finally, his producer said, ‘Let's just do it in the studio. Let's just go in and do it, Vicki.’ So that was an accident as well.
Barrett: And that was Snuff Garrett, wasn't it? The producer?
Lawrence: Yeah, Snuff produced it.
Barrett: Snuff produced it. And the members of The Wrecking Crew, I read were the musicians.
Lawrence: Oh, were they? No, I don't think…
Barrett: OK, Never, never trust the Internet. It will lie to you every time.
Lawrence: Oh, really? The Wrecking Crew? No. Bobby Russell was my first husband. He wrote the song. When I found out I was going to get to do it, I lobbied really long and hard for an arranger that was on the charts at the time. His name was Artie Butler, and I loved his stuff. So much. And he was not Snuff's go-to arranger, but I said, I’ really want him to do this song.’ So that's how Artie became involved. I'm not sure if Artie hired The Wrecking Crew. I don't think he did.
Barrett: Is it true that they offered the song to Cher and Sonny told her no?
Lawrence: Yeah. Sonny said it would just offend everybody. This from the woman who did “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves,” I might add.
Barrett: Yes, and “Half Breed.“ And I will say, you know, had you spoken up a little sooner, they never would have hung your brother.
Lawrence: Haha yeah, maybe not. I love when they said they were going to make a movie, that song, because I said, I can't wait to see how it turns out.
Barrett: Talking about music stars. You were working with Miley Cyrus, weren't you?
Lawrence: I was, yeah. On, uh, Hannah Montana.
Barrett: How'd that come about?
Lawrence: Well, our daughter, who is incredibly brilliant. I don't know how that happened. It had to be the tequila. But she was home visiting. She did her undergrad at Stanford and she did her, Master's in Maryland. She was working on her PhD up at the University of Montana in Missoula. So she had come home to visit for a week and I decided to road trip back with her. And we were somewhere, I think, like in Utah. And my agent called me on the phone and said, there's a new show. It's going to be on the Disney Channel. She's incredibly talented. It's going to be called “Hannah Montana.” They want you to play the grandmother. And I said, ‘Well, I am road-tripping back to Montana, and my favorite dog in the world is at home waiting for me. And her name was Hannah.’ She was a black Labrador retriever. So I said, ‘I think I really must do this show.’
Barrett: It was in the stars.
Lawrence: I think so, yeah.
Barrett: Well, when you come to conventions like Pensacon, what do fans want from you when they meet you?
Lawrence: Lord only knows, Bob, it can be any number of those shows. It can be stuff that they've collected. It can be just to share their know of growing up with the Burnett show or with ‘Mama’s Family.’ The last show I was at, somebody wanted to talk about all the game shows I did and how much fun it was to watch me doing game shows. You never know. I guess if you've been around this long, you never know what your fans are going to remember the most fondly.
Barrett: Well, I will end with this. And I have to ask you about it. Anyone who has YouTube has probably seen the best outtake of any show ever. And you know what I'm talking about. Don't you?
Lawrence: Yes I do. I do. It's pretty famous.
Barrett: How often did Tim Conway go off like that?
Lawrence: How did he go off-script? All the time? He lived to destroy everybody, but I don't think anybody ever destroyed him like I did on that date. You didn't destroy Tim, but he was just a rascal. He lived to wreak havoc on that show. And the deal was, we did two shows. We used to do an afternoon show in front of one audience, change audiences. We'd have, an hour break, and you'd get some dinner. You'd get your makeup touched up. They'd have a production meeting downstairs, and the director would come by your dressing room and give you any notes for the second show. And it could be anything from, we're changing the mark and the dance number, we're changing the running order, we've written a new joke. It could be any number of things. And the deal with Tim was if they got all the shots on the dress rehearsal show, they would usually cut Tim loose and say, you can do what you want on the second show. However, he was a rascal on the first show and went off and destroyed everybody in that sketch.
And Carol, when Tim got written into the Family sketches, Carol pulled us all aside and she said, you know how much I love these characters. She said this is very serious to me. I love these characters, and I do not want us breaking the fourth wall, so let's have some discipline. So, of course, we all know that Carol is the first one that fell apart in that sketch. So we do the first show, everybody breaks up. It's a mess. The director comes to my dressing room in between shows and says, ‘I have only one note for you. On the second show, the elephant story will be different, and good luck.’ And at this point, I'm married to my husband, who was the makeup man on the show, and he's sitting over in the corner reading. I said, ‘How does Tim get away with it?’ And Al looked up from whatever he was reading, and he said, ‘Get him.’ And he went back to his reading, and I thought, me get him? Okay, maybe I will try to get him on the second show. So, you know, I bided my time. And, yes, it's like the most famous outtake from the Carol Burnett show, I believe.
Barrett: You put Tim and Dick Van Dyke on the floor, literally. Yeah, it was great.
Lawrence: And most of the crew, if they'd have been able to shoot the crew out there behind the cameras and everything, the whole place went down.
Barrett: Did any of that make air?
Lawrence: I don't believe it did.
Barrett: Well, I think it's made it in clip shows since then.
Lawrence: Yes. Oh, it was Dick Clark's favorite blooper ever. I used to say I should have started a college fund with the money I got from Dick Clark's Bloopers because every time he did a blooper show, it was his favorite.
Barrett: Well, speaking of shows, we are really looking forward to seeing you here in Pensacola at Pensacon.
Lawrence: I am, too. I will see you soon.
