TV Reviews : Few Highlights From ‘Carol Burnett Show’

Making Carol Burnett and Martin Short dull and monotonous is a steep, uphill climb. But Friday night’s premiere of “The Carol Burnett Show” on CBS somehow got there, affirming that even the funniest performers rarely overcome unfunny material.

Burnett’s is the last of the 1991-92 fall series to debut. And, amazingly, one of the worst. CBS made a fuss over Burnett returning to Stage 33, where her late, great original comedy-variety series began in 1967, as if mere environment would lead to creative replication, or at the very least, inspiration. Yet despite a similar opening, with Burnett taking questions from the studio audience, this new effort doesn’t even faintly echo her grand old CBS show, and isn’t as funny even as her more recent sketch comedy series on NBC.

Backed by a young repertory company, Burnett and Short appeared in a series of short sketches, none of which exploited their skills at physical comedy, all of which were embarrassingly bad. You caught fleeting glimmers of wit in a sketch deploying Burnett as host of a new-age children’s TV series. Otherwise, bleakness prevailed, with the usually inventive Short unable to pull much even from one of his familiar bizarre characters, the insecure chain-smoking neurotic (“I know that!”).

B. B. King sang nicely. There were no other highlights.