Eunice & Mama

What can I tell you. I was watching a lot of episodes of the Carol Burnett Show, fast forwarding, trying to see just the Eunice & Mama skits. There were fewer than I thought. There was one I don't think I ever saw where Ed and Eunice are called down to the school. The teacher (Maggie Smith) tells them that their son is seriously disturbed, which made sense. Ed revealed himself to be a more abusive father than you'd imagine in a comedy-variety show.

    

I remember sitting in the living room watching the last of those skits back in the '70's. Eunice appears on The Gong Show. In the end, she's humiliated and the stage goes dark and it all goes quiet. Her image shrinks. Her dreams of success ruined.

"That was weird," my sister said.

I read that Carol Burnett's mother told her to become a writer, not an actress, because it didn't matter how writers looked.  So some of this may have hit close to home for her. Which makes it seem less cruel, a successful star playing a pitiful woman who desperately wishes she were one, too.

If Eunice were a real person and had been born in a different time, she might have been a YouTube star. Maybe she should have tried to perform locally. She might have had a pretty good novelty act.

Vicki Lawrence went on to star in the syndicated spin-off, Mama's Family. Maybe they could do another spin-off about Eunice's son, Bubba. He'd be in his 50's now, still dangerously disturbed, perhaps an alcoholic. Harvey Korman is gone, but Carol Burnett is still with us.