Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians (16 page)

Tim: Yeah, I started talking about it. I thought it was amusing that these two elephants would be joined at the trunk and Carol, she just went south right away. Especially on the air show. She knew they said, ‘Just do this thing and get off.’ So when I started then that these two elephants were buried together—and I think they had a thing going with the trainer.

Corey: I’ve heard you referred to as a comedian’s comedian. What does that mean?

Tim: I made that up. I have no idea, but everybody says that’s wonderful, and I say, ‘It sure is.’ I don’t know. I don’t know what that means. It’s like you’re a mechanic’s mechanic—same thing.

Years after first donning the Mama attire and even longer after scoring a No. 1 single with “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” Vicki Lawrence continues to tour the country with a one-woman show of comedy.

Make that a two-woman show if you count Mama aka Thelma Harper, the character she first played in the “Family” sketches on “The Carol Burnett Show” and later on the long-running, syndicated sitcom “Mama’s Family.”

Corey: I think it is neat this trend of one-woman shows. Bea Arthur had her show and Elaine Stritch, and here you are. But you’re only playing someone who’s elderly and looking back.

Vicki Lawrence: Yes, Mama is still a character I can grow into—for a while yet, I hope.

Corey: One thing people like is when you guys would crack each other up on ‘The Carol Burnett Show.’ Do you ever find yourself laughing during your one-woman show?

Vicki: Yeah, once in a while. I call on the audience in one portion of the show. For instance, the other night, I was looking for a guy in the audience to answer why men are so fascinated with two women at the same time—this was Mama. And I pointed at this guy and said, ‘What is your name?’ and he said, ‘Dick.’ I cracked myself up. I said, ‘Leave it to me to call on a Dick.’ The audience and I were all gone together. Mama lost it.

Corey: Why do you think the character is so enduring?

Vicki: I have always said she’s like Archie Bunker in that everybody knows her, but nobody will fess up to being her. Everybody knows her and has one of her in their family. She’s like the grandmother or the aunt who comes to Thanksgiving and says the most outrageous thing, and you are in the bathroom laughing with your sister going, ‘Do you believe she said that?’ She has no edit button on her brain. When you turn on sitcoms nowadays, most of them are incredibly sexual or dark and cynical. And you don’t get to sit and laugh at just nonsense like you did with ‘I Love Lucy’ and I really put Mama in there.

Corey: What’s it like being on the road with her?

Vicki: We did a little seniors tour. We went to the Mohegan Sun, the biggest casino in Connecticut. Two days before I went on there, they have this seniors group that books Monday and Tuesday matinees, and they do a concert series. The promoter was standing backstage during the first show with my husband and he was pacing and he was sweating and said, ‘This is raciest show I have ever booked.’

Mama does a rap song. I said to Blair, my piano player and writing partner, ‘I want her to rap. I want her to be very cutting edge and fun and into this century.’ You know there’s nothing she doesn’t know about. She knows who the hell Puff Daddy is and Eminem and 50 Cent. She knows what’s going on. They said, ‘What the hell is she gonna rap about?’ I said, ‘Her life, her kids that she hates—Mama’s rap.’ We put this rap together, and at the end she says, ‘Kids should come out of your butt because they’re a pain in the ass.’ And the promoter looked at Al and said, ‘Mama is the only person in the world who could say that and get away with it.’

Corey: Do you refer to each other onstage as two different people?

Vicki: Oh yeah. Mama is bored to death with Vicki. If she has to hear the story one more time about how she met Carol Burnett, she’s gonna upchuck. Sick to death of it.

Corey: That is one of the most-famous show business stories.

Vicki: Kind of. People know there was a letter involved or a contest. Sometimes they’ll know Miss Fireball, but they don’t know what that’s about. They thought it was a lookalike contest. People never have the details right.

(As Hollywood legend has it, as a high school senior, Vicki wrote a letter to Carol, comparing their resemblance, with hopes that Vicki could play her kid sister. She invited Carol to the Miss Fireball talent contest and the rest, as they say, is history.)

When I was doing my talk show, I would go out every day and warm up the audience and do questions and answers, much like Carol did. Every day, somebody would want to hear that story—every day. That story became very fine-tuned over years of telling and retelling it and retelling it. It is kind of hard to believe, and it’s every bit as good as Lana Turner and Schwab’s.

Carol and I used to get cross-examined when the show first started because people thought we made it up, was a publicity stunt. I would tell my side of the story, and she would tell hers, and they would try to find holes. One day we were having an interview, and Carol said, ‘I’ll tell you a little interesting story. I had had a baby.’ She was sitting at home recuperating, and my manager was in New York and watching TV and he was watching ‘The Andy Williams Show,’ and I used to sing with a group called the Young Americans. We did a guest spot on ‘The Andy Williams Show.’

Tommy sees me in the middle of this group—I had like a 10-second solo of my own—and he sees me and calls Carol in California, and says ‘“The Andy Williams Show” is on tonight and I have found the girl to play your sister.’ She says, ‘You have? Who is she?’ He said, ‘I don’t know who she is but she sings with the Young Americans and she looks exactly like you,’ and Carol said, ‘I’ve already met her.’

I heard that story, and I was like, ‘My God, we were meant to be together one way or another.’ They would have found me. It’s bizarre.

Corey: Do you remember how the idea for Mama came about?

Vicki: She was written for Carol. She was written by two of the writers for the Burnett show, both of whom hated their mothers. And that was their impetus for this one sketch they were gonna write called ‘The Family.’ They wrote Mama for Carol. She didn’t like it. She liked Eunice better.

They were gonna find a guest star to play Eunice. It was Carol who said, ‘I want to play Eunice’ and said, ‘Let’s let Vicki play Mama.’ It was yet another gift from Carol, and at the time it was just another old lady to play on the show. That’s what I did, I played all the spinster aunts, the old crazy witches, and all the grandmas. I was the second leading lady; that’s what I did.

I thought, ‘Yeah, this is fun.’ We didn’t realize until it was so well-received and we had such a good time doing it, that it would run and run and run.

Corey: One of the most amazing things to me was that you were able to create this person without old-age make up.

Vicki: Back in those days we would put on two sets of upper lashes and a set of lower lashes. You do your showgirl make up, you’d change your costumes, but that was basically it for the show. And when Mama happened, literally if you look back at the early ones, you have the wig and pearls and the glasses and there’s these showgirl eyes behind them. It’s pretty goddamn funny. I look at those early ones and think, ‘How hysterical!’

One freezing New Year’s Eve, before we could legally partake in typical NYE revelry, my best pal, Jason Anderson, and I attended an evening of comedy.

The most remarkable thing I can recall about the opener is that he was a bulbous man who from time to time removed a 12-ounce bottle of Bud from his front pants pocket for sips.

Then Ron White came on and killed—literally. Before he could deliver his “Tater Salad” routine, a guy doubled over in full-blown heart attack mode.

Years later, when I finally got to chat with Ron, he seemed to be near a coronary himself.

I called at the arranged time for the interview and before I could even get out any pleasantries, Ron blurted, “Is there’s any way I can reschedule this interview? I’m moving into a house today. I’ve been building this house for a year and a half. I’ve got movers and pool table companies. I’m harried. I tried to do one interview. I said something to the guy on the radio, and then, ‘Hey, don’t scratch that wall!’”

So we re-scheduled. Ron was a little more relaxed this time around.

Corey: Hi, is this Ron?

Ron White: Hey, man, you did it.

Corey: How’s it going?

Ron: It’s a mad house, but it’s going fine, going great. It’s a beautiful, beautiful house, but it’s complicated. We have pool people over here, fireplace people over here. Nothing works right. It’s all got to be tweaked.

Corey: Did all your stuff get moved in all right? Nothing got broken?

Ron: We had a couple of causalities, but nothing big. One of the things that got dropped was a box that had all the SEC football team’s logos on a scotch glass, so my wife was broken-hearted about that. Yeah, she may never stop crying—in celebration that those ugly-ass glasses are broken.

Corey: That’s a shame. The first time I saw you perform—about 10 years ago in a comedy club—somebody in the audience had a heart attack. Was that a regular occurrence at your shows?

Ron: We stage that every week. It’s always best to have a death. You can’t always pull that off, but you can always get a good heart attack. I only remember one show that I had a heart attack; maybe there was two. Where were you?

Corey: This was in St. Louis.

Ron: South County, that’s the one I remember. Wasn’t it on a New Year’s or something?

Corey: I think so. I mainly remember the heart attack.

Ron: And you just went to the comedy club that week, because nobody knew who I was.

Corey: Actually, me and a friend went because of you.

Ron: Early supporters then. Great, I was wondering where you 12 people were.

Corey: A handful of us are still around. I’m nursing a bit of a cold today. Do you have any good home remedies?

Ron: I get into the scotch. That’s a cure-all. I ripped a toenail off the other day and got into the scotch and it felt better within three or four hours.

Corey: With the stress of the move, you hitting the scotch pretty hard this weekend?

Ron: I was over-served, let’s put it that way. I’m not taking any responsibility, but somebody that was pouring the liquor got out of hand. And it’s hard for me to monitor, because I don’t count ’em.

Corey: It seems that even back in the early days, you always had some good stories from when you were out and about drinking. Are there any from the new year yet, that you can recall?

Ron: That’s getting to be the problem there, the recall. I’m sure the drinking stories abound, but actually the best place to hear them is from other people, because it seems like everyone’s got a Ron White story, and some of them I didn’t even do, I know for a fact. If you just attach my name to it, it seems more believable, no matter how bizarre the story is. If I hear one that I know I didn’t do, I don’t ever deny it. I just add a goat to it and send it on down the line. Every story’s better if it has a goat in it. I don’t care where it is, put a goat in there. Boy, the laughter will ensue.