Mama's Family: The Complete First Season

Spun off from a series of skits that originally appeared on The Carol Burnett Show, this raucous sitcom takes place in a blue-collar suburban neighborhood somewhere in the Midwest, where irrepressible, sharp-tongued widow Thelma “Mama” Harper (Vicki Lawrence) presides over a perpetually squabbling, dysfunctional family. Mama shares her small house with her high-strung younger sister Fran (Rue McClanahan), slow-witted but amiable son Vint (Ken Berry), and Vint's teenaged children, Buzz (Eric Brown) and Sonja (Karin Argoud). Popping up from time to time are Mama's two married daughters Ellen (Betty White) and Eunice (Carol Burnett), and the latter's husband Ed (Harvey Korman), as well as the flirtatious Naomi (Dorothy Lyman), for whom Vint has a yen. Mama is hardly your typical matriarch; she doesn't have much patience for foolishness and doesn't hold back when she feels sharp words are in order. Lawrence—magically transformed once she donned a wig, thick spectacles, and dowdy dresses—gets all the best lines here and anchors the show effortlessly, even when surrounded by more seasoned comedic performers such as Burnett, Berry, Korman, and White. Unfortunately, Mama's Family hasn't dated particularly well, and in a post-Married with Children sitcom landscape Mama's clan doesn't seem nearly as quirky as it did during the Reagan era. Nonetheless, there are still plenty of laughs to be gleaned from the 13 first-season episodes from 1983 collected on this extra-less two-disc set. Optional. (E. Hulse)