And I heard you got to interview Mama?
I got to interview Mama. Easier said than done.
What else? There are a lot of outtakes on there. I said to Time-Life, ‘you know, we did a special for CBS after the Burnett show went off the air, called Eunice, and it was sort of pivotal in convincing me to do Mama’s Family, and it would be great if you could throw it on there as a bonus feature. I don’t think anybody’s even seen it since 1982! Well, they got it and licensed it from CBS — I don’t know how they did it, but they did it!
One of my favorite bonus features, they actually got Rhett Turner and Bob Mackie, which is arguably my most favorite. We had some great costumes! Rhett did the series, and just the attention to detail… like, Iola was always pink except in the episode where she freeze dried her cat, and then he had her in a black Gingham dress! It’s hysterical. We had some great costumes. We really did. Just wonderful.
The thing to get your hands on is the whole box set, which is available at TimeLife.com. It’s a big box set with a darling little memory book that they put together, and it’s got all the bonus features.
Now, you had mentioned the Eunice TV movie, and in it, Ken Berry plays a different son. Why didn’t he make the transition? Was there a creative reason why it was Vinton and not this other character?
The Legend of Mama. It’s its own trivia game I think!
When Mama’s Family went to series, it was sold to Grant Tinker who was the CEO of NBC, on the golf course, without a pilot. So, our writers, bless their hearts… and I didn’t really appreciate this way back then… I know we had some problems, but I didn’t appreciate this: They had to figure out who Mama’s family was when we were on the ground running. They had to transition it from being Eunice’s family, which it was on The Carol Burnett Show, to now being Mama’s Family.
Who’s the antagonist? Who’s going to play Eunice’s part? Who is going to be Mama’s ally? Where are the characters? There’s a reason you do a pilot, and you re-tool, and you re-write. The characters had to change a lot from the Burnett show to the series.
Kenny played Phillip in the special, Eunice. Phillip was originally played by Roddy McDowall on the Burnett show. And then, when we did the Eunice movie, Ken Berry played him. Kenny said when we were shooting the bonus features “when I showed up to work the first day on Mama’s Family, I thought I was playing Phillip! I didn’t know there was a new character!” But to have Phillip in the house wouldn’t have worked. You needed this son — this kind of worthless son — you needed the way those characters were set up. You needed those different antagonists for Mama.
Was there ever a temptation to bring back Vinton’s two children, Buzz and Sonja, when the series returned for first-run syndication?
No, and I think in all honesty, those kids were… they were good little actors, they didn’t really get much of a shot on the show. I was actually listening to our Executive Producer in his bonus feature. He was talking about how the network insisted on having two teenagers thrown in, and it’s hard to throw two normal teenagers into a mix of such distinctly dysfunctional characters, where they didn’t have the back story to go with it?
They never got much of a shot, I don’t think, and nobody really embraced those characters, so when we got a year and a half off, and then we got a chance to restart in syndication, we restarted more on our terms.
Was it always the plan to try to bring the show back for syndication after the show was canceled by the network?
No! I think we all thought it was over. We were all looking for other work.
Your show involved a number of huge comedic talents, including yourself. How involved were you in the creative process?
Not so much, I don’t think. I was involved in casting. Not really so much in the creative process. I only had one huge disagreement with the writers in the entire series. They wrote a script where my dead husband’s brother comes back from the Merchant Marines. He shows up at our doorstep, and in the episode, he and Mama wind up in the sack together. And I said “you know, you guys, this is just making the hair on the back of my neck curl. She is nothin’ if not Bible Belt, and I don’t care how dead your husband is, you do not sleep with his brother, and it’s wrong.” And I remember Joe Hamilton saying to the writers, “Listen to her instincts.” They had to rewrite the show, so at the end of the show, what happens now, in the show that we all see, is that the family is not sure whether we slept with each other or not. They just are left to wonder.
Was there a particular episode of the show that still stands out as one of your favorites?
Different shows for different reasons. I think the wedding, in particular “The Wedding, Part 2” which is where Eunice sings at Vint and Naomi’s wedding. If you look at that show, it’s like a television history lesson or something. I mean, my supporting cast is Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, Ken Berry, Dorothy Lyman… it’s like “how much help does one person get?” It’s a pretty amazing supporting cast. You could stop that DVD at any moment, and tell your kids a TV history lesson, you know? It’s just amazing.
But then, for other reasons, I just loved it whenever the family got taken out of our dysfunction and put out in the real world that other people knew, like Family Feud or Jeopardy! I loved it when we got stuck into a real-life situation that people know.
Is it true that for The Carol Burnett Show, Carol was going to play Thelma Harper with you playing Eunice?
I was not in the original [planned “Family” sketch]. There was no place for moi. The sketch was lovingly written for Carol. She was to play Mama, and the writers had planned on a guest star playing Eunice. It was a one-time-only, one shot. They hated their mothers. They wrote this dysfunctional family as a tribute to their dysfunctional lives, and Carol read the sketch before we ever went to a table read, and said “I want to play Eunice. That’s the part that speaks to me.” That was very upsetting to the writers. Then she said “I think Vicki should play Mama.” Very upsetting to the writers. Then we got to rehearsals and said “I want to do it Southern.” She said “It’s Tennessee Williams gone nuts, we’ve got to do it Southern!”
The writers… they got up and walked out the first time they saw it at rehearsal.
You’ve returned to the role of Thelma Harper several times on stage and in several productions, including on this DVD. Is there any chance we could ever see her again on a regular basis, or even better, in a reunion with her Family?
Oh, gosh. I wish. It’s just a matter of getting everybody to get along. There have been a few ideas thrown out there, but there always seems to be a little mess up along the way. But we’ll see. Who knows. Maybe if this is really well received, something wonderful will happen.
What are you waiting for? GET THIS SET, it is worth it! Our huge thanks to Vicki Lawrence for taking the time to speak with us, and stay tuned for our review. If you missed it, here’s a video promoting the set and a look at Vicki’s interview with “Mama:”
