Carol Burnett: Keep On Keeping On

On Friday, CBS will air the Kennedy Center Honors -- what some call the Dom Perignon of awards shows. This year, five great artists joined the elite ranks of Kennedy Center Honoree.

The day before the honors were awarded, The Early Show's co-anchor Julie Chen sat down with a few of this year's recipients, including one of the funniest women in America.

How funny is Carol Burnett?

"I don't know, it depends, really, on the material to me," she says. "I'm not that funny in real life, I don't think."

The comedian says she's not sure where her ideas that make people laugh come from.

"Maybe it's just something inside that I didn't know about, until I got to college and did a little one-act play that happened to be a comedy," Burnett says. "I don't remember any particular lines. But I got laughs. And I thought, 'This is neat.' And then some of the guys on campus who've seen me came up and said, 'You want to have lunch on the lawn?' And I thought, 'This is a great way to meet guys.'"

Her success brought more than dates. By the time she was 23, Carol Burnett had taken Broadway by a storm.

In 1967, she got the television show that made her a household name – "The Carol Burnett Show."

Along with Vicki Lawrence, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway, for 11 years, "The Carol Burnett Show" was a runaway hit.

The four comedians worked together well, but sometimes it was hard for them to get through a sketch without everyone cracking up.

"The most disciplined was Vicki Lawrence," says Burnett. "Harvey was a patsy. All Tim had to do was (Burnett makes a face) and Harvey would be gone."

Of course, "The Carol Burnett Show" had some great costumes, which were all designed by Bob Mackie. For the show, he designed 50 costumes a week for everybody.

And with Mackie's costumes, Burnett became every woman – a housewife, a secretary and a movie star, among others.

Since the show ended, Burnett worked on movies, plays and books – keeping audience smiling.

"I just want to keep on keeping on," she says. "But I can't think of another. I'd like to be an astronaut … not a passenger."

But the public may not let her, so Burnett says she'll come back an astronaut in her next life.