What’s So Funny?
Foreword
Let me start off with: I absolutely adore Tim Conway. Maybe there are other performers as funny, but in my opinion, I can’t think of anybody funnier. Tim is a true original, with a comedic mind so brilliant that it’s downright scary. His sketches with Harvey Korman deserve a spot in whatever cultural time capsule we’re setting aside for future generations.
I first became aware of Tim in the early 1960s when he was a guest one week on The Garry Moore Show, where I was a regular performer. We didn’t get to know each other very well at that time because he did a solo performance and appeared in a sketch that I wasn’t in that week. He was also quite shy. However, when he did his routine, he killed the audience (and all the rest of us on the show!).
Our paths didn’t cross until a few years later when I had my
own variety show and we booked Tim as a guest. People assume he was a regular on the show from the get-go. Not so. He was a regular guest one or two times a month until the ninth year, when (Duh! How stupid were we?), we finally asked him to be on every week.
We would tape two shows on Friday in front of two different audiences. In the early show, Tim would perform a sketch exactly the way we rehearsed it all week. Then when we did the second show, he would pull out all the stops, improvising and coming up with hysterical bits of business none of us had seen before. Many times a four-minute sketch would stretch to ten minutes or more due to the bits he added, plus the added laughter from our audience. The second show was always the one that went on the air, because what Tim came up with was . . . pure gold. Sometimes we were accused of breaking up on purpose. Not true. We all tried our best to keep straight faces, but when Tim got on a roll that was all but impossible.
However, let me emphasize, he never tried to hog the spotlight. He would only improvise when it was suited to the character he was playing.
Tim is as wildly inventive in real life as he is on the screen. You never know what’s going to happen when he gets going. In the fall of 1973, our show was chosen to be the first television show to open the newly completed Sydney Opera House. We put together the necessary personnel, crew, and performers and flew off to Sydney where we all stayed at the same hotel. During rehearsal time, we got together in the evenings and visited the restaurants around town. After a few days our group began to shrink as people split off, which often happens when you’re working on location. Caution is thrown to the wind, and mini and major love affairs start popping up. Naturally, the various couples thought
their rendezvous were big secrets. Wishful thinking. At the time, I was married to the show’s producer/director, Joe Hamilton. We felt funny about the state of affairs, but these were adults and it was none of our business. Put it this way, we were a long way from home and people were assuming that what happened Down Under would stay Down Under.
A few nights before the show, Joe and I made a dinner date with Tim, who was traveling alone. He suggested that we pick him up at his suite. At the appointed time we went to get him. Joe knocked on the door, and Tim called out, “Come on in.” The door was unlocked and we entered the living room. Tim was nowhere to be seen. “In here. C’mon in,” he called from the bedroom. Joe and I walked over to the open door and looked into the dimly lit room. There was Tim, bare-chested, lying in the bed, with the covers pulled up to his waist. He was smoking a cigarette with his arm around a realistic, full-size toy sheep whose head was peeking out from underneath the comforter.
“Hi guys. Be right with you,” he said, waving to us. Tim leaned over, kissed his bed partner on her polyester, wooly brow, and said sweetly, “Don’t wait up, Barbara. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Turning to us with a big wink, he said, “I know you’ll keep this to yourselves.”
Since the show went off the air, we have remained close. His wife, Charlene (“Sharkey”), who is one of my dearest friends (she was an assistant on The Garry Moore Show), is the perfect companion, supportive and . . . funny in her own right. They are devoted to one another. Sometimes when we all go out to dinner together, we laugh so much that I’ve made myself learn how to do the Heimlich maneuver, just in case.
I’ve talked about his comedic genius. People often ask, “What’s Tim Conway really like?” Did I mention that he sews? He’s a tailor!
Not only can he whip up a new suit for himself, he can upholster furniture! He also builds furniture! I wouldn’t be surprised if he could erect a suspension bridge with his bare hands.
More importantly, he’s as nice as he is funny. I’ve never heard him say a bad thing about anybody. He’s loyal to his friends, and he never fails to stick his neck out for those he loves.
In reading his story (both hilarious and thought-provoking) you’ll gain a great deal of insight into the events that fashioned him into the kind and funny genius he turned out to be.
Did I mention that I adore him?
—Carol Burnett
What’s So Funny?
Introduction
People have often asked me, “If you weren’t in show business, what would you be doing?” The truth is, I don’t think there’s anything else I could be doing, so the answer would have to be, nothing. Then again, there’s nothing I love more than making people laugh, so I guess you could say I’m in the only business I could be in. I was born to enjoy life and I’ve always wanted everyone to enjoy it along with me. That’s why I can’t see myself any place other than standing in front of an audience with one purpose in mind—to make people feel a little bit happier than when they came in.
I didn’t start out to be a comedian. I didn’t want to grow up to be a policeman, or a soldier, or a fireman, either. I wanted to be a jockey and, believe it or not, I actually gave it a try. It didn’t work. The truth is, I was terrified of riding real, live horses. And when I did, I had a habit of falling off them. This sort of thing wouldn’t
work for a jockey. You’d be amazed how angry a bettor can get when the horse he’s put money on crosses the finish line without a rider.
Fifty years ago I slid head first, without a helmet, into the entertainment industry. I came of age during one of the most exciting, innovative, and influential eras in the history of television. My first big show was McHale’s Navy, which was followed by The Carol Burnett Show, where I remained until it ended. That was four decades ago, and I’m still performing. Maybe not on a weekly basis, but you can catch me on shows from SpongeBob SquarePants to 30 Rock, and from Hot In Cleveland to Mike and Molly. While Carol, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, and the rest of my Burnett buddies have a special place in my heart, working with people like Tina Fey, Melissa McCarthy, Wendie Malick, and Valerie Bertinelli is not chopped liver. I also perform, live, in theatres, and in dinner clubs from Martha’s Vineyard to Los Angeles, with plenty of stops in between. In other words, I continue to ply my trade, whatever that means. And, considering that I’m approaching the big 8–0, and am still going strong. Not only do I have a classic American rags-to-riches story to tell, I’m living proof that life keeps getting better and better, if you let it. Kind of motivational, don’t you agree? That’s one of the reasons why I decided to write a book.
So come along and let me entertain you, this time on the printed page. And if I give you a laugh or two, great, and if I don’t, keep it to yourself.
