Carol Burnett

On The Carol Burnett Show, Carol Burnett is the host who treats a curtain as a contract. Q&A first, then sketches that detonate with Korman, Conway, Lawrence, Waggoner. Movie parodies, a charwoman, ad-libs that corpse a partner on purpose. Eleven CBS seasons of variety that felt like a master class without the starch. She plays generosity as timing.

TV Flash keeps her because sketch television still uses this hour as scripture. The ensemble is the weapon; Burnett is the reason it feels like a household. On this desk she is 1960s variety craft — a woman who photographs as a ear-tug and plays as the warmest ringleader American comedy ever put in prime time.

CBS's The Carol Burnett Show (1967–1978) is the room. Carol does not need a borrowed résumé to fill it. s01e01 still introduces the grammar. Jim Nabors on the first night: Burnett's Q&A-then-sketches contract announced, the ensemble still finding the detonator. File her inside The Carol Burnett Show as the host chair — a host, not a guest who arrived for a clip. s01e04 proves the assignment survived the novelty. Lucille Ball and Tim Conway share the hour: movie-parody DNA meeting the corpse-making ad-lib that later became house style.

That is the filing: the host chair as the job, The Carol Burnett Show as the room, a host as the honest label. s01e02 is where the host chair stops being an introduction. Sid Caesar and Liza Minnelli in week two — variety as a guest-star master class, the curtain already working overtime. The catalog will still be there after the theme. The counterpart on the card is s01e04. Lucille Ball and Tim Conway share the hour: movie-parody DNA meeting the corpse-making ad-lib that later became house style.