‘The Carol Burnett Show’ featured a brilliantly funny sketch involving Tim Conway as a newsman who experiences a problematic broadcast. There is a simple background of the world, and Tim Conway is sitting in front of it at a desk, wearing a simple black suit. Tim as ‘The Newsman’ starts by saying, ‘Good evening. This is Paul Bedford with the news.’
He talks about how the news is the most updated and modern news possible, saying, ‘Even I have not yet seen the news. The news comes from a machine, and we take the news from the machine and put it on the air and give it to you.’
Tim says they do this so that people can get the news as it happens. Then, he puts his hand out to the right and waits for a few seconds before he gets the news from the machine. He puts his hand back and tells the audience there are technical difficulties, and they’ll fix it shortly.
Tim sits there awkwardly, twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the technician to figure out what’s wrong. They clear up the difficulty, and he reads the paper, saying, ‘The news machine is broken.’ The crowd laughs hysterically.
Tim says, ‘Let’s take a look at the weather. Don?’ Don doesn’t respond, and Tim looks over and says, ‘Don will be back from vacation on Monday.’ He continues to read bad news, and there are sports scores but no teams.
He calls for a commercial and sits there smiling hilariously while the crowd laughs. Tim says anyone can call in for questions, and no one calls, so he repeats the number. He makes a scoffing laugh, and the audience laughs.
Tim says, ‘Oh, there’s a call coming in now.’ He answers and starts to say random foods. He says, ‘Who is this? Oh, honey, I’m on the air!’ Tim closes by saying, ‘Goodnight folks, and as I like to say, no news is good news.’ The audience loves the sketch comedy, jokes, and Tim Conway’s fantastic delivery.
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