Happy 83rd Birthday to Texas Legend Carol Burnett!

It totally makes sense. Mama's Family has to be set in Texas.

Those Southern accents, those floral sun dresses Eunice and Mama wore. That big hair. Harvey Korman as Ed, wearing short-sleeve Oxford shirts, looking like it might be 115 degrees out.  Get the picture?

Carol Burnett is a San Antonio native. As a girl had big dreams even though a depression-era childhood with alcoholic parents is no picnic. Unlike Eunice, the stars came to Carol: her father ran a movie theater and her mother did publicity for the studios. Eventually, she moved with her grandmother and sister to Hollywood and the rest is, as they say, showbiz history. Eunice Harper Higgins wasn't so lucky.

A lot of Carol's classic comedy-variety show was about her love of the glitz of old Hollywood. That Gone With The Wind parody comes to mind. Yet when they did The Family, stuff got real. Texas real: large problems. Dysfunction and resentment between generations. An old lady who drank beer and harangued her daughter. All set in what is supposed to be in genteel rural America. It was tragi-comic and it rang true.

The City of San Antonio has preserved the Burnett house as an early childhood learning center. And the Austin Film Festival recently honored Carol as the Texas-born legend she is. I hope she's found joy in that.

Happy Birthday Carol! You've made me laugh a whole lot.

Here's coverage of Carol earlier this year in Austin.