I, too, had this amazing mini-series on VHS tape. Those are long gone. Later when it was reshown I decided to re-record it at a better quality (higher speed) and edit out the commercials. Unfortunately, they added a LAUGH TRACK and RUINED IT!!! Not the same and it lost all it's humor with uproarious audience laughter (in the wrong spots), sheesh. Brilliant cast, and I quote lines from this all the time. Like at breakfast with Carol Burnett as Charlotte Kensington saying to her daughter-in-law, Talon (Terry Garr), "Talon, just because you're not blood doesn't mean you're not just as much a part of this family as, say Tiffany." Tiffany being her ADOPTED daughter played by Valerie Mahaffey. They really need to re-release this on DVD.... WITH NO LAUGH TRACK!!! One of the best TV shows I ever watched.

But it was royally raked over the coals when it first aired.CBS showed one two hour part, then it was hour parts for a week, instead of the usual mini-series, two hour movies on three nights.Fresno wasn't allowed to dominate the night as it should have been.Yet still people saw it and loved it.Willard Scott on the Today show commented on how funny it was.Thankfully, I don't recall anything about the second airing with the laughtrack.Favorite bits for me? Those shots of Carol descending the staircase. Slowly.Nothing else, just Carol descending the staircase. Look at her dress, everyone. Isn't it stunning? Grodin did indeed make this thing. My favorite bit was at the end, after the ridiculous trial and he is in the hall yelling at Carol, probably, or Teri Garr.Photographers are swarming around him, snapping pictures, moving like vultures.Suddenly he removes his hat and starts swatting at them."Here! Photograph this, you want to take pictures so badly!" The dinner table. Everyone would storm off and leave. Carol and Mahaffey were the only two left. Mahaffey was Tiffany, Carol's adopted daughter (don't ask about this!).Carol would exclaim "I wish just once one of my real kids would remain at the dinner table one evening." Mahaffey would make the most hurt expression.Mahaffey mastered the wooden soap performances as well. Thank goodness she went on to win deserving Emmys.

Every once in a while I remember watching this back in 1986 and have to smile. We were die-hard Dallas fans in my family (God knows why), so the tremendous evening soap-opera send-up worked very well for us. I won't ever forget the Raisin Capital of the World, DDDLT, or other giggle-producing memories (Carol Burnett's Dynasty-inspired wardrobe, e.g.). Will this ever be available on home video?? I hope so! I would love to see it again.No one who ever watched Dallas, Dynasty, Falconcrest, or other 70s-80s vintage evening soaps can find this anything but hilarious and spot-on. Its skewering of every soap/melodrama formula ever over-used will leave you howling and hoping it will go on for much longer. The week we spent watching it was one of the funniest of my television life, and made all those Friday nights soaking up South Fork seem worthwhile.It seems as though television has grown/withered to such an extent that this kind of miniseries no longer has any place in prime-time or anywhere else. It is a great pity! I am a great fan of smart entertainment, which is more often than not treated as an oxymoron by the industry these days. TV needs more of this kind of thing.

My brother and I watched this and I still recall some of the choicer scenes: the family at the table where an empty seat is placed for the long departed Patriarch Mr. Kensington, hat and vest in place. Carol Burnett as Mrs. Kensington telling hired hand Jaun that he didn't need a raise, "I've seen what your family wears and what they eat, you don't need a raise." Dabney Colman as Mr. Tyler Cain taking his niece to school in the limo. (She hates to "attrack attention"). The lady with the water rights, her clock collection and her beer drinking, hick husband in his dirty T shirt with a wedge of belly exposed. Charles Grodin as Cain Kensington pouring mama's bloody mary "breakfast". Jerry Van Dyke hosting a fund raiser for WHIP (Woman with Husbands in Prison)was a hoot. Mrs. Kensington visiting her son in prison...well it was just one belly laff after another. Non stop hilarity with an absolutely wonderful cast of characters. This NEEDS to be released on DVD!