‘The Carol Burnett Show’ is a cultural icon of comedy. It set the blueprint for sketch comedy for every show that would come after it. This video clip shows Tim Conway and Carol Burnett in a sketch that showcases their zany skills.
It starts with Conway’s character yelling at his secretary, played by Burnett. He’s concerned she’s wasting paper typing when she should be using an eraser. She said it fell into the typewriter. Conway reaches in and tries to pull it out in frustration, but his hand gets stuck. His facial expressions take the joke further, and the audience cracks up.
He instructs Carol to go down the hall to get paper. The whole exchange takes forever because she plays the part of a lazy and slow secretary. Conway says as she leaves, ‘Must be quite a thrill in her neighborhood at night to see her walking her snail!’
While she is gone, Dr. Otto calls, and Tim Conway picks up the phone. The doctor asks Conway to give Carol a message. The message is dire and suggests that Carol only has a week to live.
Carol returns with the paper, but suddenly Conway’s character is now being extra nice. He asks her if she wants coffee and tells her to rest. She says coffee cuts your life in half. He says, ‘I hope you don’t have any plans past Thursday.’ The studio audience howls in laughter.
Then, she spills coffee on him, and Conway plays it for laughs with big expressions and groaning! He wants to yell, but he holds back in sympathy for her situation. She begins rearranging his desk and accidentally sprays glue all over his suit. He is livid but refuses to lash out. He attempts to break the news to her about the doctor’s message, and she says she knows it’s bad. She tells him that ‘parts started falling off’ earlier in the week. Conway’s face looks on in horror, and the audience loves it!
Finally, he tells her that she only has a week to live. She replies, ‘Oh darn.’ He can’t believe it, wondering how someone who was going to die would be so calm. That’s when Carol delivers the news that Dr. Otto is her mechanic ‘Dr. Auto.’
Conway chases her out of the office, yelling once again! The hilarious skit closes by Carol closing the door on Tim Conway so abruptly that his hairpiece falls off! The comedic timing between them is genius, and the video is hysterical!
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