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BURLESQUE IS ALIVE AND LIVING IN BURBANK

Air Date/Released Thursday, March 12, 1970
Station/Studio NBC / George Schlatter Prod.
Featuring Joe Besser (Solo)

Carl Reiner, Bobby Darin and Goldie Hawn headline a tribute to burlesque, from the NBC "Boibank Boileskie." Joe Besser appears throughout the show, between sketches, as the excitable stage manager attempting to watch the show from the wingsl and barely tolerating his pin-striped suit-wearing boss (Sheldon Leonard). In a striptease sketch with Hawn, Besser unsuccessfully attempts to retrieve the pieces of Goldie's costume.

Joe Besser's leatherbound script is on file at The Stoogeum. In the script, the stagehands are Besser and Johnny Puleo (sans Sheldon Leonard), arguing between themselves about who will do the work while the other watches the showgirls. Puleo does not appear in the program.

Did it air? Produced as a showcase for Goldie Hawn, break-out star of ROWAN & MARTIN'S LAUGH-IN and new box office attraction for her Oscar winning role in CACTUS FLOWER. Reportedly, NBC censors felt that a "suggestive" striptease dance performed by Goldie Hawn was too risque, and the special was pulled from the November 24 schedule before airtime. George Schlatter Prods. reports that it aired March 12, 1970. Yet, a June 1970 issue of "Life" magazine did a feature story on Goldie Hawn, and mentioned that the special had a TBA airdate for that summer.

Skits include a sketch headed by Carl Reiner as a doctor ordered to induct 15,000 draftees in order to fill a Bob Hope USO Show audience; Henny Youngman as a joke-machine husband who never goes anywhere without his rim-shot drummer, to the regret of his annoyed wife; a radio announcer audition with a room of loons who can barely command English as a skill; Bobby Darin attempting to sing Mack the Knife as a parade of lunatics cross the stage doing schtick; Reiner & Darin in a musical number, teaching Hawn the art of a comedy doubletake; filming a TV commercial with a Bette Davis-type actress who can't get the script right; Jack Burns hawking candy with the help of audience shills; Goldie Hawn as Queen Guinevere in a medieval musical number, singing "I Love Lance... a Lot;" a jealous husband arrives home to find his wife hiding the Good Fairy in the closet; the Great White Hunter is captured by natives, and must make the chief's daughter love him before he becomes a dinner entree; Goldie Hawn as a striptease dancer whose gyrations drive a group of elderly men to whiplash, and special guest star Dave O'Brien (MGM's "Pete Smith" shorts) as a man gone cockeyed trying to keep up with the spinning of Goldie's pastie tassels.


Videotaped at NBC Studios Burbank on July 29 - 30, 1969.

Cast: Jack Burns (Announcer), Carl Reiner, Goldie Hawn, Bobby Darin, Sheldon Leonard, Henny Youngman, Sid Gould, Joe Besser, Dave O'Brien, Eric Christmas, Tommy 'Moe' Raft, Bettina Brenner, David Harris, Jerry Collins, Pepper Davis, Breck Wall, Barbara Heller, George Carl, Nancy Austin, Hal Collins

Crew: Grey Lockwood (Director), George Schlatter (Producer), Sheldon Keller, Jay Burton, Hal Collins, Howard Albrecht (Writers), Bob Mackie (Costume Designer), Billy Barnes (Special Musical Material), Harper McKay (Musical Director), Dee Dee Wood (Choreographer)
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