The Carpenters' Very First TV Special

On December 8, 1976, Richard and Karen Carpenter's very first television special was to be aired. It was called The Carpenters' Very First Television Special. In that hour, the Carpenters would perform many skits with guest stars Victor Borge and John Denver. It would end with a Hits Medley at the end (which could be found without applause on the CD "As Time Goes By").

The Skits

After Karen, Richard and the orchestra perform "We've Only Just Begun", they show a clip of Richard conducting the orchestra playing a different version of "We've Only Just Begun", with Karen's voice-over talking about how much Richard loves conducting orchestras. After the orchestra's finished, the Carpenters performed "Top of the World", which can be found on the VHS "Yesterday Once More" (repackaged as "Gold: Greatest Hits" on DVD in 2002).

On top of that, Richard and Karen perform a "Spike Jones and the City Slickers" parody version of "(They Long to Be) Close to You", beginning with a harp introduction. The duo also performed "These Are the Jokes" on the same set as the one of "Top of the World", only with a black background instead of a blue background.

John Denver and Karen Carpenter did a nice duet together of a medley consisting of a cleaned up version of Robert Burns' "Comin' Through the Rye" and the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations." The amazing thing about this medley is that in parts, Denver may be singing "Comin' Through the Rye," while Carpenter sings "Good Vibrations."

They did a skit of Karen's drumming talent as well. It begins with Richard and Karen talking about why Karen played the drums, and Karen says, "Why not"!!" Then, they reminisce to the high school days, where classmate John Denver played the drums in the high school band, and Karen was stuck with the glockenspiel. They told how Karen obtained the drums, and fell in love with it immediately. After that scene, Karen plays a medley including "Strike Up the Band" and "'S Wonderful."

In the end, the band and the orchestra combined together, and performed a Hits Medley to close the show.