I was tinkering around the house the other day and an infomercial came on. It was “The Lost Episodes of the Carol Burnett Show.” It was the first time I’ve really paid much attention to an infomercial.

I watched the whole thing.

To children of the 1970s and early 1980s, Carol Burnett was big-time funny. In our younger days before we started running around town, we watched it every Saturday night.

In those days, Saturday nights often meant having friends over to play cards with the kids putting on pajamas, playing “Cowboys and Indians” and the like. If the card game went on late enough, we kids would hunker down in the living room and watch Carol’s show. If it went even later, we pretended to be brave and watch “Tales from the Tomb,” a horror movie show many local TV stations hosted on Saturday nights. I still remember being relieved when other kids didn’t want to watch.

The Saturday night lineup back then was “All in the Family,” “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Bob Newhart” and then Carol.

That was quite a lineup — must-see TV for many of us.

It always seems that I had a group of pals around who were big fans of that show, too. We’d crack up Monday morning at school, reliving Saturday night’s show.  I remember a few times we’d try to re-create some of the skits and our teachers would let us perform them for the class. We especially liked to do the spoofs of TV commercials.

We weren’t as funny as Tim Conway, but we tried.

Most of my memories of Carol Burnett’s show are of me on the floor, curled up watching. I know part of the fun was hearing my parents laugh at the shenanigans: all kids like to hear their parents laugh.

It was truly comedy at it’s finest.

Back in those days, the TV variety show was still in vogue.  By the end of the 1970’s, however, that particular genre of television had started to go out of style. The sketch comedy, big-musical-number-type show that had been popular since the birth of television had enjoyed a good 30-year run, give or take.  I don’t know what the “thing” became after that. I just remember being pretty sad when they started taking them off the air.

I especially remember many a cold winter night, covered up and trying desperately to stay awake past my usual bed time of 8 p.m. Carol was on from 9 to 10 p.m. There were plenty of times I missed the end, or even propped one of my eyes open so that I wouldn’t miss any of it.  This was before the days of DVR and even VCR. You either watched the show on its given night or hoped you’d catch the re-run in the spring.

I’m not sure we have the caliber of talent that was apparent on that show. Maybe we do and no one has ever seen today’s talent in that genre. Perhaps you could plunk Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Will Farrell and other great comedians in a variety show and they’d be just as funny. There would be some off-color stuff, most likely.

The show was probably successful because it had a core group of people who were a true ensemble. You hear how generous a performer Carol Burnett is, and it’s apparent when you watch. We can see how she gave the spotlight to her supporting cast often, making them leading players in the eyes of viewers. She made it seem that it wouldn’t have been the same without Vicki Lawrence, Harvey Korman, Lyle Waggoner and Tim Conway.  And it wouldn’t have been.

I’ve tried to tell my kids and my students about the show. I want them to laugh like I did. I want them to understand the comedy. Isn’t that funny how we get to this spot where we are constantly trying to reintroduce classic stuff to younger generations?

“The Lost Episodes” could be mine for four easy payments of $20 or so. OK, well, I probably don’t need them that badly.

For now, I’ll just watch the clips on YouTube and on the infomercial.

After all, I don’t like to sing “I’m So Glad We’ve Had This Time Together” to the money in my ever-slim bank account.