In the high-wire act of live variety television, most comedians armed themselves with sharp wit and rapid-fire punchlines. Tim Conway understood something more dangerous: the power of doing absolutely nothing—at precisely the right moment.
For eleven glorious seasons on The Carol Burnett Show, audiences tuned in not just for the sketches themselves, but for the beautiful chaos that erupted when Conway decided the script was merely a suggestion. And no one suffered more gloriously from Conway’s comedic terrorism than his frequent scene partner, Harvey Korman.
The Master and His Favorite Target
Harvey Korman was, by all accounts, a consummate professional. He’d mastered the demanding craft of playing the “straight man”—the anchor who keeps a comedy sketch grounded while his partners spin off into absurdity. He’d honed his skills alongside Danny Kaye before joining Burnett’s ensemble in 1967. He had discipline, timing, and an almost superhuman ability to maintain character.
Then Tim Conway walked into his life.
“I think it was Tim’s goal in life to destroy Harvey,” Carol Burnett recalled in a later interview, her affection for both men evident in every word.
Conway first met Korman in 1966 during an appearance on The Danny Kaye Show. The two men immediately clicked, starting what would become a lifetime partnership that lasted until Korman’s death in 2008. But their friendship contained a delicious tension: Conway’s mission to make Korman break character, and Korman’s doomed attempt to resist.
“Harvey has done close to 1,000 sketches with Carol and Danny Kaye before that,” Conway once explained in a 1973 interview. “It’s not always a different character in each one, but it’s certainly a different attitude. Something has to happen to make people laugh every time, and he’s done it.”
What Conway understood was that Korman’s very professionalism made him the perfect victim.
The Strategy: Rehearsal Lies and Live Betrayal
According to numerous cast interviews and behind-the-scenes accounts, The Carol Burnett Show followed a disciplined weekly rhythm. Scripts were written, sketches rehearsed, blocking perfected. On taping night, they performed each sketch twice before different studio audiences, editing together the best moments from each performance.
Conway played along during rehearsal week—mostly. He’d perform the sketches as written, giving everyone a false sense of security. Then came taping night.
“I always save things for the actual taping,” Conway admitted in an interview with the Journal and Courier. “Some come on the spur of the moment, and some I keep in the back of my mind.”
Korman knew this about his friend, and it terrified him. “No matter how many times we rehearse, Tim never does anything the same way,” Korman said in a 1973 Press-Telegram interview. “He’s got a great comic mind and he’s always testing new gags or bits of business.”
But knowing Conway would improvise didn’t help Korman prepare. How do you defend against someone who weaponizes unpredictability?
“I can’t help falling apart because I’m one of his greatest fans,” Korman confessed. “It’s his fault I break up. It’s impossible to be around him and keep a straight face.”
When Silence Became Violence: The Oldest Man
Among Conway’s arsenal of recurring characters, “The Oldest Man” became one of his most effective weapons against Korman’s composure. The character appeared in various sketches—as a fireman, a surgeon, a safecracker—always moving with agonizing, deliberate slowness that transformed simple actions into comedic torture.
In one legendary sketch, Conway played “The Slowest Sheriff in the West.” From his very first step onstage, he owned time itself, stretching each movement until the air grew thick with anticipation. He didn’t rush. He didn’t explain. He simply existed at a pace that made glaciers look impulsive.
“With a crooked wig, a fake badge, and that mischievous spark in his eye,” one account describes, “Conway decided to ignore the script completely.”
Korman, playing a desperate bank robber, tried to maintain his urgency and frustration. But as Conway shuffled across the stage with painful deliberation, pausing between each syllable, making every gesture last an eternity, Korman’s professional facade began to crumble. His lips trembled. His shoulders shook. His eyes watered.
The audience recognized the battle before it was lost. They leaned forward, waiting for the inevitable moment when Korman’s discipline would shatter.
And when it did—when Korman finally collapsed into helpless laughter—the studio erupted. Because they hadn’t just watched a funny sketch. They’d witnessed something rarer: two friends trusting each other enough to lose control in front of millions.
The Dentist: Comedy So Effective It Required Dry Cleaning
No discussion of Conway’s ability to destroy Korman is complete without “The Dentist” sketch, performed in 1969 and still considered by many to be one of the funniest sketches in television history.
The premise was simple: Conway played a newly graduated, nervously incompetent dentist treating his first patient—Harvey Korman—who needed a tooth extraction. What should have been a straightforward five-minute sketch became an exercise in escalating physical comedy and Korman’s systematic breakdown.
The novocaine needle was supposed to numb the patient. Instead, Conway’s hapless dentist repeatedly injected himself, causing various parts of his body to go numb in sequence. His right hand became useless, dangling like “a half-filled water balloon” as one viewer described it. His leg collapsed. Half his face went slack.
Each escalation was perfectly timed, perfectly executed, and completely devastating to Korman’s composure.
“That’s over 50 years old and still one of the funniest things you’ll ever see in sketch comedy,” Carol Burnett said decades later.
The sketch became so legendary that rumors circulated about its effects on Korman. According to Conway, his physical comedy was so overwhelming that Korman actually wet himself from laughing.
“Tim swears Harvey wet his pants,” Burnett revealed in a 2024 interview, adding with a smile, “For the record, Harvey denied it.”
Whether true or not, the story became part of television folklore—a testament to Conway’s ability to push physical comedy past the point where a professional actor could maintain control.
The Elephant Story: When the Cast Became the Audience
If “The Dentist” showcased Conway’s physical comedy genius, “The Elephant Story” demonstrated his mastery of verbal improvisation.
During a 1977 “Mama’s Family” sketch (long before it became its own series), the cast gathered around a table for what should have been a simple scene. Everyone knew their lines. Everyone knew their cues.
Then Conway, with that familiar glint of mischief in his eyes, began telling a completely unscripted story about a circus elephant.
What started as a brief tangent stretched into minutes of increasingly absurd detail. Conway described Siamese elephants connected at the trunk, a monkey dancing the merengue, a trainer’s mishap, all delivered with the earnest seriousness of someone recounting a profound personal experience.
The studio audience roared. More importantly, the cast disintegrated.
Carol Burnett covered her face the moment Conway ad-libbed “I saw these Siamese elephants”—she already knew they were doomed. Dick Van Dyke, filling in for Korman that night, collapsed almost immediately. Even Vicki Lawrence, usually the most composed of the younger cast members, began to crack.
Conway, meanwhile, maintained perfect deadpan, continuing his increasingly ridiculous tale as if nothing unusual were happening around him.
According to IMDb trivia, the show was taped twice each week before different audiences. After the cast barely survived the first elephant story, the director informed them they would need to tape it again—and that Conway would deliver a completely different story.
“The announcement drained the color from everyone’s faces,” one account describes. “They returned to the stage knowing they were doomed, but powerless to prevent it.”
When Conway finally finished his second, equally absurd elephant tale, Vicki Lawrence—who had been holding everything inside—delivered what many consider one of the greatest ad-libs in television history. Looking directly at Conway, she deadpanned: “Are you sure that little a**hole’s through?”
The studio exploded. The cast collapsed. Even Conway broke character, laughing at Lawrence’s perfect timing.
“It unleashed a monster,” Lawrence later said about that moment, noting it was the first time “Mama” had really spoken out and helped establish the character that would later anchor a successful spinoff series.
The Philosophy: Less Is More, Patience Is Power
What made Tim Conway’s approach so effective wasn’t cleverness or rapid-fire jokes. It was his understanding that comedy doesn’t always come from doing more—sometimes it comes from doing less.
From patience. From silence. From allowing the other performer and the audience to fill in the absurdity themselves.
“Harvey has more fun than the audience,” Korman admitted in a 1973 interview. “I’ve laughed not only at the original version of the sketch but at each new twist Tim gives to it right up to and including the taped version in front of the live audience.”
This mutual enjoyment was key to why their partnership worked so beautifully. Korman wasn’t annoyed by Conway’s improvisations—he was Conway’s biggest fan.
“There’s no doubt about it, Harvey is my best audience,” Conway said in a Sunday News interview from the same era. “Every time we work together in a sketch, something triggers Harvey’s funny bone, and he can’t stop laughing even when we’re supposed to be taking everything so seriously.”
And Conway, for his part, admired Korman’s talent just as much. “In sketch comedy, I don’t think anybody touches him,” Conway said about his friend. “It’s like a finely tuned racing car.”
The Legacy: When Breaking Character Became the Art
The relationship between Tim Conway and Harvey Korman represents something special in television history. In an era when variety shows dominated primetime, when performers were expected to maintain perfect professionalism, these two men turned breaking character into an art form.
Their sketches weren’t just funny because of the scripts—they were funny because of the genuine, uncontrollable joy visible on screen. When Korman collapsed in laughter, when Burnett covered her face, when Lawrence finally cracked, audiences weren’t just watching performers break character. They were watching friends having the time of their lives.
“People think we broke up all the time and that’s not true,” Carol Burnett clarified in a 2024 interview. “It’s just that it’s so delicious to remember.”
She’s right that the breaking wasn’t constant—but when it happened, it created television magic that endures decades later.
The Carol Burnett Show ended its run in 1978 after eleven seasons. Korman and Conway continued working together for another three decades, touring the country with their two-man stage show, creating DVDs of new sketches, and making guest appearances together.
When Harvey Korman died in 2008, he left behind a legacy as one of television’s finest comedic actors. But perhaps his greatest gift to audiences was his willingness to be destroyed by his best friend—to laugh so hard he forgot his lines, to abandon professionalism in favor of genuine joy.
Tim Conway lived until 2019, passing away at age 85. In the flood of tributes that followed, people didn’t just remember Conway’s characters or his sketches. They remembered him making Carol Burnett laugh. They remembered him making Lyle Waggoner laugh.
And most of all, they remembered all those times—so many, many times—he completely paralyzed Harvey Korman with laughter.
“I’m heartbroken,” Burnett said when Conway died. “He was one in a million, not only as a brilliant comedian but as a loving human being. I cherish the times we had together both on the screen and off. He’ll be in my heart forever.”
In an age of carefully edited comedy, of multiple takes and perfect timing, the partnership between Tim Conway and Harvey Korman reminds us of something television rarely captures anymore: the joy of watching talented people lose control, the beauty of genuine laughter, and the power of friendship that’s secure enough to withstand—even encourage—a little professional sabotage.
Conway understood that sometimes the funniest thing a comedian can do is nothing at all. Just stand there. Walk slowly. Pause. Let the silence build until it becomes unbearable.
And watch as even the most disciplined professional in the room dissolves into helpless laughter.