page_title: Mama's Family
section_title: Post-television show appearances of Thelma Harper/Mama
hierarchical_section_title: Mama's Family / Post-television show appearances of Thelma Harper/Mama
caption_attribution_description: Vicki Lawrence as Thelma "Mama" Harper, 2009.
context_page_description: Mama's Family is an American sitcom television series starring Vicki Lawrence as Thelma Harper. The series is a spin-off of a recurring series of comedy sketches called "The Family" featured on The Carol Burnett Show and Carol Burnett & Company. The sketches led to the made-for-TV movie Eunice, and finally the television series.
  The show's theme song is "Bless My Happy Home" by Peter Matz and Vicki Lawrence. The show's producers chose to use an instrumental version. Lawrence performs the theme song with lyrics in her live show, Vicki Lawrence and Mama: A Two Woman Show. The lyrics were also featured in an advertisement for the show on MeTV.
  Mama's Family originally aired on NBC, debuting on January 22, 1983. After several timeslot changes and a subsequent drop in ratings, the network canceled the series after two seasons; the final episode from this two-season era of the series aired on April 7, 1984. NBC broadcast reruns until September 1985.
  Two years after its cancellation, original series producer Joe Hamilton Productions revived Mama's Family for new episodes in first-run syndication on local stations across the United States.
context_section_description: Vicki Lawrence has been reprising her role of Mama in her untelevised touring stage show, entitled Vicki Lawrence and Mama: A Two-Woman Show. In the show, Lawrence first performs stand-up comedy as herself, then comes out in character as Mama, giving her opinions on modern-day topics. During the break between the two acts, the audience is shown bloopers from the syndicated seasons of the series. Lawrence also sings the lyrics she wrote for "Bless My Happy Home," the show's theme song, which were omitted from the version used on-air.
  Lawrence has also appeared in her Mama role on several Halloween-themed episodes of the 1998–2004 run of Hollywood Squares with Tom Bergeron at the helm.
  Lawrence appeared on RuPaul's Drag Race in the "All-Stars" season as Mama in the skit "RuPaul’s Gaff-In."
  Lawrence appeared on The Queen Latifah Show as Mama the Monday after Mother's Day 2014 in a comical skit that aired prior to each commercial break. Lawrence also appeared on the show 8 days later alongside two other well-known actresses to speak about her role of Mama and her personal life.
  Lawrence resurrected the character in promos for reruns of Mama's Family on the MeTV channel in 2015–2016.
  Lawrence resurrected the character during the 2015 and 2016 TV seasons of The Doctors, where she talked about health-related issues.
caption: Vicki Lawrence as Thelma Harper, 2009
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