Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Tim Conway

"The Carol Burnett Show" used to hold two tapings for each episode.  One was the "proper" taping, where the cast all performed everything to the line.  The other eventually became the looser taping, wherein the cast was encouraged to improvise.  And by the cast, I really mean Tim Conway, who made a particular sport of coming up with wacky nonsense to make his fellow actors laugh. 

The Carol Burnett Show was before my time, so I've only seen footage in various anniversary shows and best-of compilations.  Yet the common thread of all these shows was that so much of the "Best of" material came from those looser tapings --- maybe it's just human nature that the most memorable moments are the ones that were completely off the cuff and broke people up.  If you're going by just the compilations shows, poor Harvey Korman never kept a straight face in ten years.

RIP to the always funny Tim Conway



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