The youngsters actually think Adam Sandler is funny. He isn’t fit to carry Conway’s jock. Vicki Lawrence’s, either.
Who?
Why can’t you just post a funny clip without trashing something else, or launching into the whole overdone “I’m so old and my taste is better than yours! Hey kids, get offa my lawn!” cliche? It seems like so much of Cafe Society is like this these days, and it really gets old. (No pun intended.)
Hey, it’s what old people do.
But seriously, Britney Spears sucks.
Since the Carol Burnett Show was kinda before my time, I had written off Tim Conway after seeing those TV commercials back in the '90s advertising videos of his “Dorf” character. I remember seeing the clips in those commercials and wondering “Who in hell would think this is funny? Oh look! He just tried to cast his fishing line into the water and he hooked his hat instead! It’s the height of comedy! HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha ha … ho … heh … hem … alrighty then.” I concluded that Conway’s humor was intended for old people who don’t understand anything but slapstick.
However, what little I’ve seen of his CBS performances (I’ve seen the elephant story thing before), I’ll concede that he’s all right.
One question about that video, though: What the heck is the other guy sitting on? Maybe it’s just a bad camera angle, but it really looks like he’s sitting on thin air with his right thigh just resting on the arm of the sofa. His center of balance looks all wrong when compared to his visible support.
So what exactly does Vicki Lawrence say at the end? “You hear that little asshole ???”
She says “Are you sure that little asshole’s done?”
Er… am I the only one completely baffled by that clip? Like, what is the audience in hysterics over? The fact that the cast is cracking up for some reason? The story that the guy in the cap is telling isn’t supposed to be funny, is it?
It reminds me of when Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz spend half an hour giggling like idiots at each other… except everything looks really 70’s.
silenus will say he’s proud that he has never heard of Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz, or that Bob Hope was a lot funnier than they are, whoever they are.
Actually, Fallon can be hilarious, and Hope without Crosby is a waste of space. Sandler has never been funny.
If you can watch that clip without cracking up, I’m tempted to put you in with what Dave Barry would call the Humor-Impaired.
It does help, though, when you realize:
a) All except the very first part he pulled from thin air. There was nothing in the script about Siamese elephants, etc.
b) They were under terrible time pressure, but Conway wouldn’t let up. He just kept making things up.
c) In all the years of the show, Carol Burnett almost never lost it on stage, but even she couldn’t get it together.
Oh, and the “other guy” that Phase42 mentioned is Dick Van Dyke, just for information’s sake.
RR
I’m not sure it would be funny to someone who isn’t familiar with the Carol Burnett show. It’s not the elephant story itself that’s funny, it’s watching the rest of the cast react. If you’re not familiar with Conway’s ability to incapacitate the other actors; if they’re all strangers to you, then the scene loses a lot.
I dunno. I never saw the Carol Burnett show, and am not terribly familiar with Conway, but that was a riot. He just…wouldn’t…stop. Magnificent timing, too.
No, it’s Lyle Waggoner. Interesting trivia: Waggoner got rich later by renting out trailers used by celebs on the sites of movie shoots.
This is what got me. The guy has impeccable comedic timing there.
Perhaps I was a bit hasty. It might be Dick van Dyke after all. The video quality is crappy, and his face is mostly turned away–but the body language looks like van Dyke’s. Hmmm.
The funny thing is, Conway would do this every single time he was on stage. He would always hold back something in rehearsal, and then let loose when filming. Harvey Corman could never ever stay in character once Conway got rolling.
Conway was at his funniest when he was on the Carol Burnett show, mostly because of how he played against everyone else he was on stage with.
They showed this clip on those Dick Clark / Ed McMahon Blooper shows 20 years ago or so (with Vicki Lawrence’s last line bleeped), and I recall it being Dick Van Dyke.
I have a lot of fond memories of the Carol Burnett show, and that “elephant scene” in particular. :sigh: :giggle: I never cared for the “Mama” skits, but that was about all I didn’t just absolutely love.