The two-hour special “Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love” (8 p.m. Wednesday, WPXI-TV) is not a birthday party or a roast but a stroll down memory lane that features a 90-piece orchestra and clips from Burnett’s greatest hits over her decades in entertainment.

“I had my dear chum, Julie Andrews, sitting with me for the evening,” Burnett said in late March, about a week after “90 Years of Laughter + Love” taped in Hollywood. “It’s not just about the (‘Carol Burnett Show’), it’s going back (almost) 100 years to when I started in television. There’s even a clip of me singing on (the 1952-61 series) ‘Omnibus.’ ”

“90 Years of Laughter + Love” includes clips from Burnett’s TV specials and guest roles — her “Better Call Saul” castmates attended the taping — and appearances from the stars of the upcoming “Palm Royale” (formerly known as “Mrs. American Pie”), a 10-episode Apple TV+ show also starring Kristen Wigg, Allison Janney, Laura Dern and Ricky Martin.

In a tribute to Burnett’s starring role as Miss Hannigan in the 1982 movie musical “Annie,” Pittsburgh native Billy Porter (as Rooster) appears alongside Bernadette Peters (as Lily) and Jane Lynch (as Miss Hannigan) in a performance of “Easy Street.” (Aileen Quinn, who played Annie, sings “Tomorrow” in the special.)

“Billy came in, and he knocked it right out of the ballpark,” Burnett said. “He is so sweet and so funny.”

On the special, Burnett is joined by comic actress Vicki Lawrence (“Mama’s Family”) and fashion designer Bob Mackie, who both worked with her on “The Carol Burnett Show,” which is featured in a segment that salutes the late Harvey Korman, Tim Conway and Lyle Waggoner.

Burnett, who recalls doing her first-ever Q&A at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena in 1962 (“It had a roof that would open!” she remembered), said despite her dramatic turns in “Better Call Saul” and in the upcoming “Palm Royale,” she is not looking for any particular kind of roles these days.

“I take it as it comes,” she said. “If it’s a good dramatic role? Sure. But the same thing if it’s a good comedy role. We used to be pigeonholed. When we were starting out, if you were on television, you couldn’t do movies. Or if you were a singer, you couldn’t do a sketch or comedy.”

She points to Steve Lawrence, one of her favorite guests on “The Carol Burnett Show,” who was in an airport once and got approached by teenage girls who knew him as “that funny guy” on Burnett’s show.

“They had no idea he was a singer,” Burnett said. “Steve used to say, ‘Hey, if the show’s long, cut my song but don’t cut the sketch.’ We used to put a lot of our musical guests in sketches, and they were thrilled because in other variety shows all they did was their song and maybe a finale or something. I even used Ray Charles in a sketch. And he loved it. He said, ‘Nobody ever asked me to do anything like this.’ ”

Alas, clips from one of my favorite Burnett roles are not included in the special: CBS’s “Fresno,” a 1986 comedy miniseries that was a sendup of “Dallas,” “Dynasty” and “Falcon Crest.” (Instead of oil or wine, Burnett was matriarch of a family with a raisin empire.)

“It was one of my favorite shows, too,” Burnett said. “There was so much (material) that we had to eliminate certain things. But when I did ‘Fresno,’ oh my God, we laughed so hard all the way through it. But we were kind of thrown to the dogs by the network. They put us up against I-dont-know-what. And then at one point, they inserted a laugh track because they were afraid people wouldn’t think it was funny. They dumbed it down. I thought it was one of the most clever scripts I’d ever read.”

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)