Conway and his cronies really illustrated the old adage “You have to know the rules before you can break them.” They managed to make cracking each other up work in a way that Fallon, Sanz, et. al. could not.
I should have added “the rest of the story” to this account, but I was a bit rushed when I posted earlier. Apologies to those already familiar with this.
When Ernie Anderson tired of doing the Ghoulardi bit (which was a genuine phenomenon in northeastern Ohio — as Drew Carey, The Cramps, The Black Keys and many others will attest to), Conway urged him to come out to California and do voiceover work.
That’s how he wound up as the announcer on The Carol Burnett Show (where he occasionally appeared in sketches as well), and later the voice on all ABC-TV promos, including the enduring “The Lo-o-o-ve Boat.”
Very enjoyable…thanks! He got it right in terms of Ghoulardi’s cultural influence. I always said that an entire generation of northeastern Ohio kids grew up slightly skewed…in a very good way…because of him.
And I know, because I was one of them.
OK, as a Monster Kid of the 60s-70s (Sammy Terry of Indiana was my Horror Host), that was pretty moving.
Midway through his tenure with Carol Burnett, his old man routine got stale. He beat that one into the ground every show, IIRC.
For some reason, I think as a time-burner, or some reason to take the pressure off of actually coming up with something, ISTR that *every *time Corman and Conway were doing something together, at least 20 seconds to a minute were wasted on Corman’s reaction, and the audience starting to crack up.
Nobody is that funny, especially if one is doing the same old routine over, and over, and over again, and they had even done a rehearsal. Can’t think of anything funny to say/do? Start acting like you’re getting ready to crack up. Close up on Conway’s straight face. Cut to Corman’s ‘trying’ to keep from laughing. This must be funny, right? 1 minute of content taken care of, on a 23 minute show.
Can’t stand the guy, anymore.
Pre-CB, I had thought that he was great.
When he went to LA and Jerry G Bishop went to Chicago Anderson gave his blessing, giving us Svengoolie and Son of Sengoolie, who can be seen nationally on METV.
Jerry, of course, was another Cleveland broadcasting phenomenon…for a time the most popular radio DJ in the market on KYW/WKYC. He was also one of the most intelligent and thoughtful guys in the biz. He traveled with The Beatles on tour in 1965/66, and the questions he asked them in the many interviews he conducted stand way out from the crowd of usual inanities most jocks hurled at them.
I didn’t know about the whole Svengoolie bit until just a few years ago, and it surprised me a little. Seemed a bit out of character from the guy I knew, but it’s testimony to the powerful effect that Ernie/Ghoulardi had on so many in Cleveland, and not just kids.
Personal note: I taped Jerry’s last show on WKYC in 1966, and I still have that tape. That day, he told his listeners about going to WCFL in Chicago, and said if any were ever in the city they should look him up. As it happened, I was traveling with my grandparents that next summer, and we came through Chicago, so I took him up on that offer. He came out into the lobby of the station and spent several minutes talking with this starstruck teenager. He couldn’t have been any nicer or more genuine. It’s something I’ve never forgotten.
That’s the first thing I think of when Tim Conway is mentioned. That little rambling bit of scene thievery is still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, and he’s one of the funniest people just ever. Vicki Lawrence capped that perfectly, too, also a very funny person.
I’m just a real big fan of funny people (and I loved that show). 
I’m actually more amused by Carol’s creativity in hiding her corpsing in that scene than Tim’s (very funny) bit.
Very difficult to rate TC today because his style of humor was very much related to the period in which he performed. That was perhaps 1955-1980 (I’m just guessing at that).
Viewed from outside that period, he is nowhere near as funny as he was back then. He was one of the best.
How so? All the dentist sketch requires is a price change in the punch line.
By far the funniest acceptance speech I have ever seen was Conway’s for his Carol Burnett. He pulled out a supposed letter of congratulations from a putt-putt golf course on his winning, instead it was an ad for the golf course…He read it completely seriously…The build on the laughs for the dead-pan delivery and the concept was incredible. By the end, I had tears running down my face, I was laughing so hard.
I really do consider him the Buster Keaton of his era.
That relaxed, semi-deadpan style has gone somewhat out of favor, in the U.S. at least. Compare Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segments over the years. In the Curtin/Aykroyd era the delivery was very formal and direct. The silliness of the writing contrasted with the seriousness of the way it was read. From Dennis Miller to the Fey/Poehler era it’s been much different. They introduce guests and play to the audience in ways that the older casts never did. In part I think that’s because news shows themselves have become more conversational. But I also think there’s a change in comedy styles over the years. I can’t think of any sketch shows doing that low-key, earnest, deadpan style anymore. (Well, Stephen Colbert to some extent, but in service of a very pompous character.)
Derf is like a skewed Jean Shepherd for the '60s & '70s. On his site have also been webcomics about going to school with Jeffrey Dahmer, getting a ride to art school from Mr. Fred Rogers, and working in his local sanitation department. That last one is NSFW at times.
Bob Newhart and his phone-call routines comes to mind too.
Always brilliant, never fashionable. I’d watch “Dorf on Golf,” if nobody was around.
Someone above mentioned the possible pairing of Newhart and Conway, and I’m not sure that would really work. In an odd way, I don’t think of Bob Newhart as a comedian; he’s just such an incredible straight man that everyone around him becomes funny. Even in his one-sided phone calls, alone on stage, the other guy got all the best lines. He was that way on his TV shows, too; his reactions to what was going on around him made those things funny. Put him with Time Conway, and if Newhart had broken up like Harvey Korman used to, that would have taken away what he did best.
If Conway and Newhart would have worked, it would have been like this, each of them trying to maintain their deadpan styles and make the other laugh, and the audience waiting to see who cracked first. I give the edge to Newhart in that battle.
I’ve watched maybe half a dozen of his sketches, based on what people have said around here. All but one of them leads, at best, to a couple of snickers, but most of the time I’m not all that amused.
But then there’s the elephant sketch. Just thinking “hrnerfl” is enough to make me giggle, and watching that scene leaves me breathless with laughter.
I’m not sure why it’s so different from his other pieces, but good god it’s awesome.
he was good with facial expressions. i don’t think his vocal delivery varied enough.