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The Stand Up Wife
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
The premise
Here’s the bit.
A cheerful marriage counselor, Dr. Weller, hears from Mr. Phyllis that his wife, a celebrated nightclub comedian, treats their home life as one long stage act. She bursts into the office to applause and answers every sincere question with a gag, and even her breakdown into tears turns into a bit with novelty disguise glasses. The doctor prescribes his own kind of shock treatment: he feeds her a string of classic joke setups about mothers-in-law, old neighborhoods and her figure, and she must not deliver a single punchline. She strains, squirms and finally holds out, and the couple celebrates her cure, until the doctor's own last riddle proves too tempting for everyone.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 3
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
Does Raquel Welch sleep on her back?
I'll be so quiet that you'll be able to hear your hair grow.
An Italian quack. That's what you get when you cross a duck with Sonny Bono.
Behind the scenes
The people who made it.
Dave Powers
Director
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
The official clip descriptions and Peacock list this as season 7, episode 16; TVDB and IMDb number the same January 19, 1974 Carl Reiner episode as 17, because both keep a slot for a show listed for November 17, 1973, which IMDb notes was replaced by a repeat.
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
More from The Carol Burnett Show.
