Who in the hell invited Carol Channing?!

It certainly seemed out of place, and she got so much screen time compared with the actual stars and singers who were at least able to sway with the beat.

I have nothing against Carol Channing, but her appearance here seems weird. Is she related to someone important to the film, or was she just passing by and someone said "Hey, come in, the more the merrier" ?

"Spock! Form an away team! You, me, Bones, Scotty and umm... Ensign Smith!"

Yeah, she's hard to miss: tall, dressed all in white, and smack-dab in the front row. Had she worn yellow, she'd be mistaken for Big Bird. But scary? She's about as scary as Edith Bunker, aha ha ha.

Y'know, I have a theory about Carol/this shoot. Notice how Tina Turner (on Channing's left) keeps waving her arm right in Channing's face. This is no easy trick, as Tina is a good foot shorter than Carol--it almost looks like she is trying to piss off the old broad. In one shot, however, the person standing next to Tina--in the very spot otherwise occupied by Channing!--is producer Allan Carr. (Note: Carr appears at stage right, so you'll need the letterboxed version to see him.) My theory: Carol Channing walked off, tired of being bullied by that little passive-aggressive tyrant, Tina, and was then replaced by Carr in the same way an acceptance-speech-giver is replaced by a seat filler at the Oscars. (You can also see Carr in the wide shot at the very end--he's the man in black in the front row who just stands there while everyone else does his or her best disco moves.)

Slightly off-topic: I once worked with an otherwise perfectly normal nerd who got worked up every time Carol Channing brought Hello, Dolly! to town, back in the mid-'90s. (I believe Carol herself may have been in her mid-90s by then, ha ha.) Now, THAT guy still "scares the crap outta me."

MYSTERY SOLVED: George Burns invited Carol Channing! I was just reading Burns' second autobiography, "Living It Up," came to a chapter entitled, "Here She Is Ladies and Gentleness -- Mrs. Charles Lowe!" and almost immediately remembered this thread. Lowe worked as a rep on the "Burns & Allen" TV series, so George had known him before he married Carol Channing. After wife Gracie Allen retired, George was looking for a comedy partner to continue his act, so he teamed with Carol and the pair headlined together from 1962-63, and they even attended a private party at the White House where they sang songs with JFK and Jackie. Published in 1976, the chapter ends with, "Carol Channing and Charlie Lowe are still two of my closest friends... I'd do anything for Mrs. Charles Lowe."

As for the bit of trivia above that I wrote a few years ago, it came from The Sgt Pepper Scrapbook, a fluffy book about the making of the film (PDFs of the book can be easily found by doing a quick google search).

The film becomes a time capsule of late 1970s pop culture with the last scene in which the cast is joined by "Our Guests at Heartland" to sing the reprise of the title track while standing in a formation imitating the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album cover. The scene was filmed at MGM Studios on December 16, 1977; indeed, according to co-star Carel Struycken (Mustard's henchman, "Brute"), Sgt. Pepper was the last film to be made at MGM under that studio's then existing management.

The "guests" were:

Peter Allen, Curtis Mayfield, Keith Allison, Cousin Bruce Morrow (Cousin Brucie), George Benson, Peter Noone, Elvin Bishop, Alan O'Day, Stephen Bishop, Lee Oskar, Jack Bruce, The Paley Brothers, Keith Carradine, Robert Palmer, Carol Channing, Wilson Pickett, "Charlotte, Sharon, and Ula", Anita Pointer, Jim Dandy, Bonnie Raitt, Sarah Dash, Helen Reddy, Rick Derringer, Minnie Riperton, Barbara Dickson, Chita Rivera, Donovan, Johnny Rivers, Randy Edelman, Monte Rock III, Yvonne Elliman, Danielle Rowe, Jose Feliciano, Sha-Na-Na, Leif Garrett, Del Shannon, Geraldine Granger, Joe Simon, Adrian Gurvitz, Seals & Crofts, Billy Harper, Connie Stevens, Eddie Harris, Al Stewart, Heart, John Stewart, Nona Hendryx, Tina Turner, Barry Humphries, Frankie Valli, Etta James, Gwen Verdon, Dr. John, Diane Vincent, Bruce Johnston, Grover Washington, Jr., Joe Lala, Hank Williams, Jr., D.C. LaRue, Johnny Winter, Jo Leb, Wolfman Jack, Marcy Levy, Bobby Womack, Mark Lindsay, Alan White, Nils Lofgren, Lenny White, Jackie Lomax, Margaret Whiting, John Mayall, and Gary Wright.