Joking matter

Comedienne Carol Burnett. (Rose M. Prouser/CNN/Associated Press)

Every now and then, you come across a bit of entertainment news that makes you go, “Huh?” That was my reaction last week when I read that Carol Burnett is suing Fox TV’s Family Guy for a fairly innocuous — one could even argue affectionate — parody of her classic cleaning-lady character on an episode that aired last April. The copyright-infringement suit, which asks for more than $6 million US in damages, claims that Burnett originally denied Family Guy the rights to use her TV-show theme music, and suggests the resulting parody was done out of spite.

Is Burnett that short of cash, as some comments on the internet have speculated? I doubt it. Is the 73-year-old comedy star that desperate to be remembered? Not likely – after all, she guest-starred on the top-rated Desperate Housewives last season. Or (attention: conspiracy theorists) could it be the suit is just a ruse and Burnett is really in cahoots with Fox to give its opinion-polarizing animated series an extra jolt of publicity?

No, I’m afraid the sad truth may be that Burnett, to paraphrase Hamlet, has somehow, wherefore I know not, lost her sense of humour.

Clearly, she isn’t a regular Family Guy viewer. If she were, she’d know that she got off easy. In the segment in question, the show’s fat-slob paterfamilias, Peter Griffin, and his neighbours Joe Swanson (a wheelchair-bound cop) and Cleveland Brown (an African-American deli owner) follow their buddy, oversexed airline pilot Glenn (“Giggity-giggity!”) Quagmire, into a deluxe adult store dubbed Pornoslavia. Peter is surprised that the place isn’t dirtier. Quagmire says, “It’s pretty clean. Carol Burnett works part time as a janitor.” Cut to Burnett doing her Chaplinesque Charwoman routine, mopping up next to a bin of blowup sex dolls, accompanied by music that sounds almost like the theme from The Carol Burnett Show (1967-1978). A nostalgic Joe then recalls Burnett’s famous earlobe tug to her mother at the end of every episode, prompting the expected lewd wisecrack from horndog Quagmire.

What ticked off Burnett? Being depicted in a porn emporium? The dirty twist on her ear tugging? That’s nothing next to the show’s nasty treatment of other faded stars, such as actress Margot Kidder, whose mental meltdown in 1996 was milked mercilessly for laughs in one episode. In fact, the Burnett spoof is actually a riff on a previous Family Guy joke, which had Dynasty’s Linda Evans reduced to cleaning up aisle spills at the local supermarket.

The cast of the animated comedy series Family Guy. (Fox TV/Global Television)

Maybe what we’re seeing here is what used to be called a “generation gap” (nice ’60s term, that) in comedy. If Burnett watched Family Guy regularly, she’d know that, lewd and crude as it often is, it’s also steeped in fondness — albeit mocking fondness — for old-fashioned entertainment. The same scene that pokes fun at her Charwoman also has Peter checking out some vintage porn on a Mutoscope, in which a naughty feminist flapper daringly casts a ballot. (“Yeah, that’s right,” pants Peter, “vote for Taft, you dirty girl!”) And shortly after that, Quagmire launches into a raunchy parody of Donald O’Connor’s slapstick Make ’Em Laugh number from Singin’ in the Rain.

Actually, one of the delights of watching Family Guy is that creator Seth MacFarlane and his collaborators are such musical-theatre geeks. They consistently do The Simpsons’ musical episodes one better, with endless send-ups of songs and plotlines from the likes of Annie, Gypsy, The King and I, My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music, to name a few. Not to mention their ongoing homages to the Bing Crosby-Bob Hope “road” movies, with Peter’s infant son, the nascent evil genius Stewie, and Martini-sipping sophisticate Brian, the family’s talking dog, doing deliciously corny Hope-and-Crosby-style shtick. I’d be surprised if Burnett, who first became famous in a Broadway musical (Once Upon a Mattress) and later starred in the movie Annie, could watch these episodes without cracking a smile.

The comedienne, who made her film debut in Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?, one of those dopey ’60s sex comedies with Dean Martin, should also recognize that the gonad-propelled Glenn Quagmire comes straight out of the same genre. He looks like Jack Lemmon’s lecherous landlord in the 1963 comedy Under the Yum-Yum Tree with a little bit of oily Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione thrown in. A walking sex farce, Quagmire is addicted to double entendres, and his musical sequences are invariably choreographed in the sub-zany style of that risqué relic, The Benny Hill Show.

Now, don’t imagine that I’m an unequivocal Family Guy fan. Of its two older rivals, South Park has the smarter, sharper satire, while The Simpsons boasts far superior animation (not to mention vocal cameos by Thomas Pynchon – you can’t get much cooler than that). Nor is all of MacFarlane & Co.’s humour to my taste: the nude Greased-up Deaf Guy was funny – the first time – but that other recurring character, the decrepit old pederast with the walker, just gives me the creeps. My point is simply that, lurking under Family Guy’s sick and twisted façade, you’ll find a loving sense of its roots in American comedy tradition — its role in the comic continuum, if you like.

If we were talking about an ad agency that ripped off Burnett’s Charwoman to sell, say, Swiffers, then she’d be right to take them to the cleaners for every penny. But Family Guy, like The Carol Burnett Show once upon a time, is one of the most popular comedy series of its era, and its parody of Burnett isn’t a dis, it’s a doff of the hat to a predecessor. Too bad Burnett doesn’t recognize that. Oh, Carol, lighten up!

Martin Morrow is an author and critic based in London, Ont., who grew up watching The Carol Burnett Show.

 

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