November 9, 2002.

"- Do you use Viagra?"

"- The idea of my using Viagra would be like putting a brand new flagpole on a condemned building!"

Starring Carol Burnett, Vicky Lawrence, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway.  Special created in 2001, show originally broadcast from 1967 to 1978 on CBS (DVD released by Paramount).

The Carol Burnett Show.  For eleven years, this was one of the best variety shows ever broadcasted on the air.  Even if the show was meticulously prepared during rehearsal, some incidents occurred during recording that simply brought the entire house down.  For the most part, Tim Conway was the most proficient instigator of these "breakdowns in protocol", catching the other actors off guard with his antics and making them break up in laughter right in front of the camera.  But occasionally, someone else would do something that would even catch Tim off guard!  And some of these guests weren't necessarily human either!

Regrettably, this particular special is way too short.  Coming in at 42 minutes, this is the second shortest DVD in my collection, the shortest being the anime series "Blue Submarine".  With only 42 minutes of maneuvering space, you'd think the Carol Burnett disc would be loaded with clips from the show.  Unfortunately, there's so much fluff added to the special that the total running time for the clips alone probably doesn't even feel like it exceed a full hour!  This is way too short for a single DVD.

My opinion of this DVD was formed by the length of another Carol Burnett special.  The Comedy network had broadcast the two hour 25th Anniversary Carol Burnett special just a few weeks ago, and it was so much more enjoyable.  Even without the commercials and the fluff pieces, you could still count on viewing at least an hour of decent material making for a very fun evening.  In fact, even the fluff pieces were slightly more entertaining, offering us funny stories of what was actually happening behind the scenes.

The duration of this particular disc is way too short and doesn't give you the opportunity to really get into the show.  There are some sketches included on the Show Stoppers disc that weren't included in the 25th anniversary special, but this is simply not enough to make someone actually go out and buy a whole disc just to have a few extra sketches.

Picture

1.33:1 full frame.  This was originally a TV show from the sixties and seventies.  As expected, the images from the special look okay, but the show clips look horrendous.  Out of focus, lack of resolution, poor black level and shadow detail...  The image is still viewable; just don't expect any miracles from old videotape technology.

Sound/Subtitles

Dolby Digital stereo.  That's just for the benefit of the sequences from the special.  All the original clips are in mono, and they sound terrible.  Again, the technology of the times was too archaic to produce any decent quality soundtrack.  All you could get is a severely bandwidth-limited release.

No subtitles, no alternate soundtracks.

Features

None.  You do have chapter stops although they're not listed on the box or in the DVD menus.

Final verdict

The clips included on this DVD are very funny, there's no doubt about that.  But take away the fluff pieces and you're left with less than half an hour of real material.  It would have been so much better if this were a two hour special (an hour and a half without the commercials).  Even as a rental I couldn't recommend this title.

Picture		Video	1.33:1, OAR
Sound		Audio	ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 2.0 (stereo)
Story		Subtitles	None
Features		Features	None
Value		Final word	Too short.  Way too short.