TV's good old Saturdays

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It's been years — decades — since the broadcast networks had much of anything worth watching on Saturday nights.

These days, with the exception of a couple of reality shows and maybe a newsmagazine, it's repeats and old movies. Anyone under the age of — what, 30 or 35? — would have a hard time believing that American viewers were glued to their sets for three hours watching one network on Saturday nights.

Back in the '70s, CBS had a lineup that included "All In the Family," "M*A*S*H," "Mary Tyler Moore," "Bob Newhart" and "Carol Burnett" — not just five hit shows, but five classic shows.

Why can't a network do something like that again?

"Well, I think it's because we've all gotten older, and we're not there anymore," Burnett said with a laugh.

She pointed out that, like so many things in television, that Saturday-night lineup was sort of a fluke. "The Carol Burnett Show" started out on Mondays at 9 p.m. and moved to Wednesdays at 7 (quite unsuccessfully) before it was moved again, to Saturdays at 9.

"Then they got the idea to do the lineup on Saturday night, and that's when the magic happened. ... It just clicked," Burnett said. "The synergy was just right and wonderful."

But she doesn't have any more of an idea of how to re-create that magic than do today's network executives. "I don't know," Burnett said. "I feel sorry for anybody kind of starting out today that might want to do what we did, because I don't think it can be done anymore. I don't think a network would have the faith in it, nor would they want to put the money into it. It would cost a lot more now to do what we did then."

The television icon said she doesn't watch television "that much anymore. I haven't found it that much fun anymore."

And she said she feels sorry for TV writers because, "Now, it's all pretty much reality shows, and they can only go so far."

"I miss the good dramas, and I miss good comedies. And I do miss variety. I mean singing, dancing, sketches, costumes, guest stars."

But she's not looking for variety shows to make a comeback anytime soon.

"Maybe somebody can come back and a network would have the faith in someone who would do that," Burnett said. "I can think of a few people who would be wonderful, but it's really the (network) suits. They run it."

WHEN HER VARIETY SHOW went into syndication and was cut back to half-hours, it became purely a sketch-comedy show, because all the musical numbers were cut. (Clearing the music rights was prohibitively expensive.)

And that has led to a bit of confusion for some younger viewers who are unfamiliar with the husband-and-wife singing duo of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.