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Undercover Cops

The Carol Burnett Show
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.

The setup

A weary police sergeant and his fussy rookie partner stake out a park at night as a courting couple, with the rookie squeezed into a dress and blonde wig as the bait.

Community rating

– / 10

The premise

Here’s the bit.

Sergeant Howard Mullins meets his new partner, Officer Frisbee, in a darkened city park, where the rookie refuses to start work until he has inspected his superior's identification. Their assignment is to catch a mugger who has been robbing couples, so Frisbee changes behind a bush into a flowered dress, handbag and towering blonde wig to play Mullins' date. On the bench the act keeps collapsing: Frisbee frets about his looks, bristles at having an arm around him, sulks over remarks about Mullins' wife and complains that his girdle is pinching, while another undercover pair strolls past. When the mugger finally appears he sees straight through the disguise, takes their wallet, gun and handcuffs and leaves the two officers shackled to the bench, Mullins vowing to quit the force while Frisbee resolves to carry on as a meter maid.

The funny people

Meet the cast. 5

Say it with us

Highly quotable.

They told me at the police academy, never accept a case unless you had proper identification.

Everybody looks better than my wife.

I can smell a cop a mile away.

A little extra

Notes from the archive.

Harvey Korman repeatedly breaks into laughter at Tim Conway's performance in drag. Conway was still a guest star on the show when the sketch aired in March 1972.

The rabbit hole continues

One more couldn’t hurt.

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