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Well before the days of “Saturday Night Live,” the kings (and queens) of sketch comedy were on “The Carol Burnett Show,” regarded as one of the best TV shows of all time. For 11 seasons, Burnett and her rotating cast of co-stars made audiences, and themselves, laugh out loud racking up one of the highest Emmy award totals of all time. But for all the fun they had on stage, there were a few serious moments off stage, including when Burnett decided to fire longtime cast member, Harvey Korman.
Korman, who played the straight man in countless sketches on the show, could be difficult to work with, according to Burnett, but his behavior usually didn’t bother her — except for one instance in the middle of Season 7. In an interview with Pioneers of Television, Burnett said that week Korman was being especially rude to guest star Petula Clark. “You can step on me, cause I can take it,” she said. “But you don’t step on our guest.”
Burnett was so rattled by his behavior, she called his agent to let him know she was firing Korman on the spot, then broke the news to him after the episode was taped. “I said, ‘You want to be off the show? Okay, you’re off the show,'” Burnett said in the same interview. “Don’t come back next week.” The move was unusual for Burnett, who famously fostered a close knit relationship with everyone in the cast, but it worked.
The surprise firing got Korman to immediately change his tune
Harvey Korman, who by Season 7 had appeared in over 150 episodes of “The Carol Burnett Show,” was shaken by the surprise firing. According to Carol Burnett, he first got confrontational, but she didn’t back down. “He said … ‘I have a contract.'” Burnett told Pioneers of Television. “I said, ‘I can break that contract because I’ll just say that you were really rude to the guests and you’re difficult to work with.'”
That’s when Korman relented and begged to be brought back the following week — something Burnett agreed to under one condition. In her 2016 memoir, “In Such Good Company,” she told Korman to come back the next week and change his attitude, “In fact, it would tickle me pink to see you skipping around and hear you whistling in the hall!” she wrote. Korman took her at her word and, according to Burnett, showed up the next week, literally whistled as he skipped down the hall, and was never a problem again.
Burnett, who now has a Golden Globe award named after her, said it was a turning point for the two of them. “He loved the fact that we had that moment and he always talked about it,” she said to Pioneers of Television. “It was hard for me to do.” Korman would end up staying on the show through the end of Season 10, appearing in over 250 episodes overall, third-most behind Vicki Lawrence and Burnett herself.
