The Carol Burnett Show – season 1, episode 1 – Jim Nabors

The Carol Burnett Show – season 1, episode 1 – guest star Jim Nabors, originally aired September 11, 1967

In this very first episode of The Carol Burnett Show, Jim Nabors is the very first guest star. Going forward, Carol Burnett considered him to be “lucky”, and had him as the guest of the first episode of every season.

Segments include:

• V.I.P. — where F. Lee Korman (Harvey Korman) interviews guest stars in their own homes, ambush-style. Here, he interview Shirley Dimple (Carol Burnett), an expy of Shirley Temple.
• “The Ski Lodge” – Jim Nabors and Carol Burnett are accident-prone misfits/ nerds at a ski lodge. Carol fractured her arm when checking into the lodge …. And broke Jim’s leg when she fell on top of him!
• “Carol and Sis” – the very first occurrence of the recurring skit, with Carol and Roger (Harvey Korman) as a mostly-happily married couple. But Carol’s teenager sister (Vicki Lawrence) lives with them. And, causing friction. Carol’s arranged for a nerdy neighbor boy to take her for a walk. Roger likes him, but Sis doesn’t.

Music

• Jim Nabors sings “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” in Italian, and Carol as the Charwoman sings “Georgy Girl“.

Trivia

• Jim Nabors becomes Carol’s good luck charm. She had him as the guest star on the first episode of every season.
• The idea of having Carol start each show with a question-and-answer session came from the series’ first executive producer, Bob Banner.  Garry Moore‘s did audience warm-ups himself, prior to the taping of each edition of The Garry Moore Show.