We’re all used to old TV shows getting cut up in reruns. The Carol Burnett Show got it worse than most. Not even the lawyers foresaw DVDs, let alone streaming, so no one figured out how to pay for all the songs in each episode.

Carol came from Broadway, so she’d often include big dancing and singing numbers. It could be The Jackson 5. It could be operatic soprano Beverly Sills. Syndicators cut down the hour-long “The Carol Burnett Show” into the music-free thirty-minute “Carol Burnett and Friends.” Carol would come out at the end with her autograph book, wearing a Bob Mackie-designed Sgt. Pepper costume. Bobbie Gentry, Phyllis Diller, and Gwen Verdon were there too … but no one would mention it. The whole five-minute song-and-dance medley was gone and “good night” was the only bit left.

Good news for us. You can now find (mostly) uncut episodes of “The Carol Burnett Show” on Amazon Prime and The Roku Channel and even officially licensed on YouTube. Give it a watch and come back…

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Most folks recognize Fran Drescher’s exaggerated Queens accent from “The Nanny.” I think it’s safe to say she heightens it for comedy, especially the nasal quality, but at the core, it’s how she talks. Here’s an interview from 2018.

Of course, Drescher’s an actress, so she’s learned to ramp it up – or tamp it down – as needed. In her film debut, 1977’s “Saturday Night Fever” it’s not quite so exaggerated when John Travolta abandons her on the dance floor.

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Mark Elliott passed away April 4, 2021. If you grew up watching white clamshell VHS prints of Disney movies, Mark’s voice is forever part of your childhood.

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You can find the four seasons of British sitcom “The IT Crowd” on Netflix – and you should. It’s centered on three people who work Information Technology (I.T.) in the basement of a large London corporation. Chris O’Dowd (“Bridesmaids,” “Girls”) is Roy, the slacker. Richard Ayoade (“Travel Man,” “Submarine”) is Moss, the nerd. Katherine Parkinson is the allegedly normal one stuck with Moss and Roy.

There’s a lot of great small moments between characters, but my favorite episodes are the big farces where small bad choices snowball until there’s no dignified way out. It’s tough to find just one clip that explains all of that, so here’s some “greatest hits.”

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I’m excited to see a three-season (so far) TV comedy is finally coming to the US. “Wellington Paranormal” is a spin-off from the 2014 New Zealand mockumentary, “What We Do in the Shadows.” The movie is both subtle and over the top – a  horror/comedy about vampires who rent a house together in the New Zealand capital, Wellington. You’ll probably recognize Taika Waititi (“Thor: Ragnarok,” “Jojo Rabbit”) and Jemaine Clement (“Flight of the Conchords,” “Moana”).

In the original movie, the vampire lads run into all kinds of trouble, including the local cops, Officers Minogue and O’Leary. They’re by-the-book, but a bit dim.

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