Bea Arthur’s Wikipedia page is like a second home on the Internet for me. I stop by probably at least once a week to double check a date in the chronology of her career or even to add an entry to her Filmography. Am I doing the lord’s work? Well, not quite, but I love learning new things about Bea’s life and documenting them when I can. Around the time I was writing about when Bea hosted An Evening at the Improv I noticed that her television credits on Wikipedia included a 1977 appearance on Laugh-In. Naturally I immediately skedaddled over to YouTube, but sadly the episode was nowhere to be found. Until recently, all I had to go on were a few photos from newspaper articles promoting her as the special guest star on the episode which just made me want to see it all the more.

This Laugh-In is often referred to as the “new” Laugh-In since it was a revival of the original Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In which ran on NBC for six seasons from 1968 to 1973. People generally refer to the original show simply as Laugh-In. Confusing, much? Yes, but that’s all part of the fun of the zany, campy, fast-paced sketch comedy format that was a precursor to Saturday Night Live. Watch a few episodes, and you’ll likely recognize many famous faces in the cast (Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Tim Conway, Ruth Buzzi, to name a few) and guest performers (Cher!). Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In was also known for its catchphrases such as “Sock it to me!” and “You bet your sweet bippy!” The 1977 revival eschewed the co-host format of the original series in favor of rotating special guests along with a new “cast of mixed nuts, odd balls, and loonies” (including June Gable, who you might recognize as Estelle from Friends). The first episode featured Bette Davis as the special guest and also marked Robin Williams‘ television debut. One of the funnier skits is a send up of the Irving Berlin song, “Sisters,” with three of the cast members dressed as nuns. I feel like there are almost no jokes about nuns these days, don’t you? Jokes about religion and the clergy abound in Laugh-In, including the segments featuring Bea in the second episode.

So there I was, doomscroling away on Twitter this past summer, when longtime follower and fellow Golden Girls fan, Leah, alerted me that the YouTube channel Clown Jewels had finally uploaded Bea’s episode of Laugh-In! It’s not every day that new Bea content comes around and, while this isn’t exactly never-before-seen footage, it certainly hasn’t been easy to come by. Episodes of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In are all over YouTube, and you can still find DVDs of them, but footage of the 1977 Laugh-In seemed practically non-existent. I’m still not sure where Clown Jewels even got it from. Before watching it, though, I do want to direct attention to the text below from the Wikipedia page for Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In:

Much like The Golden Girls, there are many jokes on Laugh-In that wouldn’t be made today along with political and pop culture references that will be pretty unfamiliar to most younger viewers. Some jokes are still funny in the context of the time while others are very cringe or even outright offensive. Being P.C. was never the M.O. of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, though, and it always straddled the line between the counterculture and respectibility. In the ten years that had passed between the shows’ respective premieres the United States experienced a huge amount of political and social change. Nixon was out, women could finally get their own credit cards, abortion was legal, the Vietnam War was over, and Carter was in. The new Laugh-In incorporated many of the original’s gags but in a way that spoke to, if not a new generation, one that certainly had a very different outlook. If you want to read more about the history and development of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In I highly recommend Ken Feil’s book in the TV Milestones Series from Wayne State University Press.

And so, without further ado: fix yourself a stiff drink, grab a Walnetto, and behold Bea Arthur on the second episode of Laugh-In!

The episode aired on October 10, 1977, and Bea was fresh from her Maude Emmy win that September. She appears first in the show’s intro alongside Wayland Flowers and Madame. Madame throws in a reference to Anita Bryant which even seems to take Bea by surprise! There are a few other jokes about Anita throughout the episode as this was at the height of her Save the Children campaign and a few days before the infamous pie incident. Bea then appears in a skit that takes place in a restaurant as a play on her support for animal rights.

The best thing about this episode is that we get to hear Bea sing—a lot! Her third skit plays heavily on her Maude fame, pairing her with a housewife version of herself as she belts out Helen Reddy’s classic second-wave feminist anthem, “I Am Woman.” Some of the lyrics have been replaced with things like “I use new Glo-Wax on my floor” to create a hilarious send-up of the challenges women still faced in spite of the liberation movement.

The press had always been sort of obsessed with whether or not Bea was like Maude off screen. She was asked about it constantly. In fact, there was a syndicated interview with her that ran in newspapers in May 1977 with headlines like “Bea Arthur Plays It Just Like ‘Maude'” or “Bea vs. Maude.” It’s bad enough to pit women against each other, but imagine being put in competition with…yourself. Bea says in the interview: “Maude is politically oriented and very strong in the women’s lib movement which is something I never thought of in my life.” She never described herself as a feminist, but I love that she was game to play with this contrast. After all, Maude was often described as a “female chauvenist,” but she struggled against Walter whenever she wanted to work outside the home throughout the series.

There are a couple of other short bits with Bea before she’s introduced as “Burbank’s answer to Walter Cronkite” to deliver the Laugh-In News. This segment featuring humorous comments on current events had also been a long running part of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, and will seem very familiar if you’ve ever watched Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live.

Bea introduces a few more segments and tells a couple of jokes before making her appearance as Mother Anne, the first woman priest in her parish who hears confession from an unsuspecting parishoner. She’s great in the whole episode, of course, but this has got to be what cinched the Emmy nomination for her. I love how this skit skewers both gender and religious stereotypes. Mother Bea, indeed!

The end of the show features Bea cutting a rug and interacting with the other cast members during the Disco Talk. This was an updated version of the regular cocktail party segment from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In that “comprised all cast members and occasional surprise celebrities dancing before a 1960s “mod” party backdrop, delivering one- and two-line jokes interspersed with a few bars of dance music.” Bea appears alongside Madame one last time (where she unfortunately says the r-word, although in the context of how it was used at the time) before popping out of the iconic Laugh-In joke wall to crack a few more jokes with the rest of the cast. Finally, she sings the first line of “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” before being sprayed with water by Lenny Schultz.

Bea was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety or Music for her appearance on this episode, losing to Gilda Radner (another comedian with a special place in my heart) from Saturday Night Live. The new Laugh-In was short-lived, only running for six episodes. Don’t miss the last episode, though, because it has a few minutes of bonus footage featuring Bea! I really love this era of Bea’s career. She was still starring on Maude, but the series would end the next year. Her appearance on this episode of Laugh-In is sort of a precursor to the fun and surprising things she did in the years leading up to The Golden Girls, including starring in the Star Wars Holiday Special and hosting her very own television special. I hope you enjoyed watching Bea on Laugh-In as much as I did!