Carol Burnett has described a lot of things in her life — legendary sketches, iconic costumes, the pain of wearing high heels for 11 seasons — but nothing brings out that special Carol sparkle quite like talking about Tim Conway.

Because Tim wasn’t just funny.
He was a one-man demolition crew who treated every sketch like a personal challenge:
“How fast can I make Harvey Korman fall apart today?”

Tim Conway Talks New Memoir, ‘What’s So Funny,’ With Carol Burnett at Beverly Hills Event

Tim Conway: The Man Who Treated Rehearsals as… Optional 
According to Carol, rehearsals meant absolutely nothing to Tim.
They were a formality. A polite suggestion. A loose guideline he might consider using in the next life.

She remembers it vividly:

They’d block the sketch

Learn the lines

Walk through the timing

Feel totally confident

And then showtime would hit, the audience would sit down…

…and Tim Conway would become a wild, unsupervised creature operating on pure instinct and chaos.

Carol says it like only she can:

“He would blow into some bit of business we hadn’t even rehearsed… and there he’d be, doing stuff we’d never seen in our lives.”

At that moment:

Cameramen were winging it

The director was whispering prayers

The crew was holding onto the set walls for stability

And the audience?
Utterly obliterated.

Carol calls it “pure gold.”
Everybody else called it “take cover.”

Carol Burnett Remembers Tim Conway: “He’ll Be In My Heart Forever”

Harvey Korman… The Human Sacrifice of the Burnett Show 
Carol doesn’t sugarcoat this part.
Tim had a mission.
A passion.
A calling.

To destroy Harvey Korman.
Every sketch.
Every night.
Every chance he got.

Carol says Tim would actually wait — wait for the moment he and Harvey were paired up again.
Because that’s when the real fun began.

Harvey, bless his tortured soul, believed in serious comedy.
He wanted discipline.
Professionalism.
Gravitas.

Tim heard that and thought:
“Challenge accepted.”

The moment a sketch started, Tim became the comedic equivalent of a loose raccoon in a grocery store.
And Harvey…
Well…
Harvey became a statistic.

Carol sums it up with deadly accuracy:

“He prided himself on being a very serious comedic actor… but he could NOT hold it together when Tim got going.”

Translation:
Harvey’s face started melting approximately 7 seconds after Tim opened his mouth.

Why It Worked: Tim’s Unholy Commitment to Going Too Far 
Carol’s favorite thing about Tim wasn’t just the jokes — it was his relentlessness.

He didn’t aim for the laugh.
He aimed for the point where the laugh became a physical crisis.

He’d lean in, lean harder, commit deeper, and stretch the moment until the audience crossed into:

crying

gasping

wheezing

clutching their ribs

bargaining with God

Carol says:

“He would keep at it until the audience could no longer…”

She doesn’t even finish the sentence — because she doesn’t have to.
We all know what comes next:
LOSING IT.
The kind of losing it where you actually start praying for the sketch to stop because your spine is giving out.

And right behind the collapsing audience?
Harvey Korman, silently pleading for mercy that never came.

The Tim Conway Effect: Pure, Weaponized Comedy
What Carol calls “pure gold” was really Tim’s ability to throw the entire studio — cast, crew, cameras, even the lighting grid — into absolute comedic freefall.

He didn’t push the show off the rails.
He picked up the rails, bent them into a pretzel, and used them to poke Harvey Korman until he collapsed.

Carol Burnett doesn’t just remember Tim Conway with love.
She remembers him the way veterans remember friendly fire survivors.
With awe.
With trauma.
With respect.
And with the kind of laughter that rearranges your spine.