It's very confusing.
Variety shows just don't seem to be well done as a whole. Since there've been none on "live TV" for decades it's as if the decision makers have a "Variety shows won't sell as whole seasons." mentality. With the added, often astronomical, costs of music licensing they are pretty much dead out of the gate. As long as "The Carol Burnett Show" aired, I don't know that a complete series box set would be affordable, mostly due to music licensing fees, but also that TL likes to severely overprice product they release. I'd guess a minimum $60 per season should this one ever get a full release. In spite of that, I'd love to see such a release and would do my best to make the purchase.
It's much the same situation for "The Smothers Brothers Show." Another I'd love to see get a full series release. After all, that one's only 3 seasons.
Of course, another 60s variety show, "Laugh-In," actually got that full series treatment long after everyone thought there was no chance of it ever happening, for many of the same reasons I stated for Carol's and the Smothers' shows. So maybe there's hope after all...
I'm still amazed about Laugh-In getting a complete series set. Too bad it likely won't ever happen with Carol. I have no interest in the Smothers Brothers, but I wish The Flip Wilson Show could get a complete series release similar to Laugh-In, even with a high Time-Life price tag.
I, too, am still amazed about the complete series set of Laugh-In. I'm watching the last season, Season 6, once a week now, to stretch it out a bit. After one more episode, there's the Christmas program with Steve Lawrence. I've never seen most of these season 6 episodes, so it's a real treat!
I like Flip WIlson, too, and he was a frequent guest on Laugh-In before he got his own series, which, for some reason, I didn't get to see regularly. I know that Rhino issued a handful of episodes, six or so, from the show maybe 15 years ago or more, but they've been long out of print.
I'd like Season Sets of the Smothers Brothers, or at least a Best of Season 1 set which they never did, only 2 & 3. In those they edited some musical numbers from several episodes, though the guests who sang them were in the credit sequences. It seems they aired the entire series on a cable channel I didn't have in the late 80's or early 90's.
I'm not sure why the Carol Burnett Show releases became so problematic, with episodes released and then released later on with edits, and so many crossover releases that duplicated things. I think someone mentioned once they have the GWTW episode on 6 different releases, or something like that. Yes, where's that spreadsheet?
I have the spreadsheet with all 11 seasons and what was and was not released. I am not able to post it here because HTF doesn't support excel as an upload file. If you PM me with your email address I can send it to you. The list does not include the Guthy-Renker DVDs because these were exact re-releases of the first 10 volumes of the Columbia House set.