Anyone who has read KSiteTV on a regular basis or knows me personally surely knows that I am a fan of classic TV — especially the TV that I grew up with. Mama’s Family was a regular thing around my house, as it surely was for any child growing up in the 1980’s. My own personal enjoyment of the series even saw me finding the house that was used as the exterior for the syndicated years, which stood as my default Facebook photo for a time. The show was insane fun, with hilarious characters like “Mama” Thelma Harper, her dim son Vinton, his “floozy” wife Naomi, the delinquent grandson Bubba, and the busybody neighbor Iola coming in with the actors giving each performance 110%. (Clearly, I jumped on in the syndicated years, and the greatness that awaited with Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, and at least two Golden Girls was to be seen in my future!)
Now, it is 30 years later, and Time-Life/StarVista Entertainment have put out all of Mama’s Family in a huge DVD collection. For many fans, this is the first time to see the early episodes as they originally aired — with special introductions by Alistair Quince (Harvey Korman), and even a different house than what was seen in the familiar opening titles of the show. Not content to just throw it all at us, like some classic TV series might be, the producers of this set are giving us a whole lot of extras – including some Family sketches from The Carol Burnett Show and the made for TV movie Eunice that preceded Mama’s Family.
The set is exclusively available from Time-Life at MamasFamilyDVDs.com, and we should have a review posted of the set shortly. That is, however, not the biggest treat… for me, at least.
Vicki Lawrence did some press to promote the set, and we were able to do an interview by phone. To have the chance to interview a TV legend was so much fun. Since this was a one-on-one interview, the interview is presented in a question-and-answer format. Enjoy:
KSITETV’S CRAIG BYRNE: How does it feel to you that everyone can now have all of Mama’s Family at their fingertips on DVD?
VICKI LAWRENCE: Oh, I think it’s great! I’m so happy! Finally, there’s a beautifully packaged homage to that dysfunctional family. I am so pleased.
Everyone has told me forever, “No, it’s not gonna happen. Tell your fans to pirate off the Internet, because it’s not gonna happen. I’ve gotten ‘no’ everywhere I’ve turned, and I’ve turned a lot of places trying to make this happen.’
Is it true that they were able to get the uncut masters for the first two seasons?
Yes, they did. The first season was released by Warners a few years ago, and I was reading the reviews on Amazon. It just got panned, because they used all the shortened [versions]. They shortened ’em when they went into syndication. The network version was actually a minute longer than the syndicated version. So, those original NBC episodes got cut down by Warners when we went into first-run syndication.
The fans know all of that! They’re like “okay, all of Harvey [Korman]’s intros are missing. Half of this joke is missing. A piece of this music is missing.” It’s like they know more about the show than I do! So they will love [it]. Time-Life went to Joe Hamilton’s estate, and went into the vault, and got the original broadcast masters.
What kind of special features did you record for the set?
Oh, Gosh. So many! Of course, we did a family reunion, so we’ve got the cast together. It was kind of great. It was great to deconstruct the show this many years later, and really analyze it. I feel like I learned a lot of stuff that I never even really thought about in the moment.
I did a new interview with Carol [Burnett], which I thought was going to be like a bedtime story. I thought “well, she’ll sit down with me this morning and explain to me exactly what happened. How did Mama’s Family actually happen? Well, I told a story she had never heard; she told stories I had never heard. It was like the Legend of Mama!” Who knows for sure, really. I don’t know.
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