Daytime fans loved watching Carol Burnett as quirky All My Children character Verla Grubbs, but the comedic actress is known around the world for her hilarious series The Carol Burnett Show, which for the first time ever will be available for streaming in its entirety.
Shout! Factory TV has announced that beginning Monday, June 1, all eleven seasons of the multiple Emmy Award-winning sketch comedy show will be available on streaming platforms. Many of the episodes included in the streaming release haven't been seen since their original broadcast, more than 40 years ago. Burnett, who celebrated her 87th birthday on April 26, worked with Shout! Factory to find the long-lost masters of these episodes.
The series -- which also starred Vicki Lawrence, Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, and Lyle Waggoner -- will be available on Shout! Factory TV's Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, and Android apps, as well as on various Shout! Factory TV branded channels including Tubi, Amazon Prime Channels, and the Roku Channel.
Over eleven inventive seasons, The Carol Burnett Show featured a who's who of stars from film, TV, and music, including Betty White (ex-Ann Douglas, The Bold and the Beautiful), Steve Martin, Carl Reiner, Lucille Ball, George Carlin, Cher, Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Roddy McDowall, The Smothers Brothers, Bernadette Peters, Sammy Davis Jr., Lily Tomlin, Bing Crosby, Ken Berry, Madeline Kahn, Steve Lawrence, Maggie Smith, and Jim Nabors, among others.
Some of the sketches fans will see include season one's first Carol & Sis sketches, with a teenage Vicki Lawrence playing a character based on Carol Burnett's real-life sister; a soap opera parody called As The Stomach Turns, which ran for all eleven seasons; the evolution of Tim Conway's "Oldest Man" character, which he introduced in season two and performed nearly 20 times over the course of the series; the Gone With The Wind parody Went with the Wind; and The Family, in which Vicki Lawrence played "Mama," Burnett played her daughter "Eunice," and Korman played Eunice's husband "Ed."
To kick things off, Shout! Factory TV will be celebrating the release with a weekend-long curated marathon of The Carol Burnett Show on Saturday, May 30, and Sunday, May 31. The marathon can be viewed on ShoutFactoryTV.com; Shout! Factory TV's Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, and Android apps; and the following digital streaming platforms: Twitch, Samsung TV Plus, Comcast Xfinity, Xumo, YouTube, Redbox, Vizio, Pluto TV, IMDb, and STIRR. Viewers will also be able to chat live on Shout! Factory TV's Twitch channel and the Shout! Factory YouTube channel, and answer trivia questions on Twitter @ShoutFactoryTV.
"Hi everyone!" Burnett shared on Instagram. "I have a thrilling announcement: on June 1st, for the very first time, all 11 seasons of The Carol Burnett Show will be streaming on @shoutfactory ! And be sure to tune in May 30th and 31st for a weekend-long marathon! You will not want to miss it"
Carol Burnett has been a lifelong fan of All My Children and realized a dream in 1976 when the soap opera's creator, Agnes Nixon, cast her in the role of Verla Grubbs, the long-lost daughter of Langley Wallingford (Louis Edmonds) who caused lots of trouble for her stepmother, Phoebe Tyler-Wallingford (Ruth Warrick). Burnett made occasional appearances on the soap opera in each decade thereafter and also hosted a 25th anniversary special about the show in 1995. She made a brief cameo appearance as Verla Grubbs on the January 5, 2005, episode, which celebrated the show's 35th anniversary, and she reprised her role as Grubbs in September 2011 as part of the series' finale.
Carol Burnett continues to inspire her fans, and her brilliant comedic work resonates now as much as ever. She is a past recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The Golden Globes created The Carol Burnett Award in 2018, which was presented to the actress in 2019 and to Ellen DeGeneres in 2020. She continues to tour regularly, taking audience questions in a nod to The Carol Burnett Show.
What do you think about all eleven seasons of The Carol Burnett Show being made available for streaming? What do you remember from the show's As the Stomach Turns sketch? What do you remember about Carol Burnett's time on All My Children? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
