Tim Conways's Dentist

[+ purplekow]

Today, September 8, 2014, Daddy had in his news update, a picture of Tim Conway doing a dentist bit on Carol Burnett. i have a particular fondness for that clip. I must have been a teen when that first aired and I was watching on the night it aired, along with my father. My father was an excitable man, a passionate man, a proud man but he was not a particularly childlike man. This clip however, got him to laughing convulsively, like a child being tickled. He laughed practically from the first seconds of the bit through the entire skit. His laughs grew louder and louder and more and more breathless and gasping. Tears were running down his face and he was actually holding himself so as to not pee his pants. When the bit was over he continued to laugh until the end of the news which followed. Believe me it was hard to laugh through the news back then. For several days, I overheard my father regaling anyone who would listen about the details of that skit. Even years later, I could casually bring it up in conversation, and he would start to chuckle and recall details. Looking at the skit now, it is clear it is funny, but for me, not convulsively laughing funny. There was something in it that just struck a chord with my father. This was the most innocently happy i would ever see my father.

Anyone care to share a memory in which their father was the most ........you had ever seen him. Fill in the blank with a pleasant word, this is not the thread for "this is the most angry I ever saw my father" or "this is the most violent I ever saw my father".

[adriano46]

Remember the skit and remember well "The Carol Burnett" show as one of the most funny and entertaining moments of my young life, sitting down with family each week to see what she and her group would come up with next. Those moments of extreme spontaneous hilarity (especially in the days of live telecasts when the cast like Harvey here, could not keep a straight face through some of Tim's extemporaneous moments, were the height of good humor.

 

Purplekow, my Dad had a tremendous sense of humor, despite being a very tense man in a tense marriage and with a tense job. He thoroughly enjoyed having us (we were a large family) sitting around in the den each week as we went through weekend TV as a family - Carol Burnett, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason (his favorite), Bob Hope, with doses of Ed Sullivan, and Archbishop Sheen thrown in (yes, the Catholic thing of Sundays, no matter where we were). My Dad was a WWII vet, avid golfer when he had a chance (rare), and hard worker always trying to provide for his family as best he could. I too look back on those weekend evenings as a period of almost innocent bliss with my family, and with my Dad who died all too quickly.

[whipped guy]

Loved that skit... anything that Tim Conway did on that show... and especially the old man and his walk, Mr. Tudball, etc. my dad did as well.

 

Actually my dad loved and lived to tell jokes. He could have been a standup comedian. Once when we were in a restaurant with some friends he was in rare form. We were seated in a small area... The overflow area used for private parties. Others were seated there was well. He went into his routine just for the benefit of the half dozen or so friends at our table. After the first joke the whole room burst out in laughter and applause. He then went into joke-mode and drove the place wild. He had quite the repertory and timing to pull things off. That was the probably my fondest wild memory of him... and he was in his 80's, used a walker, and was legally blind at the time. Of course when he was younger you could only imagine!!!! They didn't come any better. I was indeed blessed. Plus, in many ways be was my best friend!

[Steven_Draker]

He laughed practically from the first seconds of the bit through the entire skit. His laughs grew louder and louder ...

 

I haven't seen the Carol Burnett' show before and I was having the same reaction as your Dad when I saw the skit.

 

It was outstanding and it made my day. Thank you for posting it, Daddy.

[+ beethoven]

When I was teaching in dental school, from 1972 to 1990, I used to show that clip to the freshmen in my course, "Introduction to the Profession," as part of freshman orientation. I didn't tell what was coming, just said nonchalantly, "Here's a view of the dental profession that you may care to follow one day." Needless to say....

Very popular!

[bigvalboy]

Funny stuff. I used to love to watch Harvey Korman and Tim Conway do skits together. Korman could never keep from laughing. Conway would just look at him sometimes and Korman would lose it. Unfortunately his son's very conservative talk radio show, with Tim calling in periodically as a guest was off putting to me, and for me at least, it became difficult to admire him as I had previously.

[+ Gar1eth]

I haven't seen the Carol Burnett' show before and I was having the same reaction as your Dad when I saw the skit.

 

It was outstanding and it made my day. Thank you for posting it, Daddy.[/color]

 

Steven- a couple of things. The Carol Burnett Show was a comedy-variety show on from 1967 to 1978. When I was a child, I loved it. At one point it came on Mondays at 9 pm. My bedtime was 9pm. Long before there were VCRs or DVRs, I would try to stay really quiet lying on the couch in our den while my Mom was cleaning up the kitchen hoping she would forget I was up.

 

My understanding is that they did two shows. One more of a dress rehearsal in the afternoon. And the 'real' show at night. They would take the best of the two performances to show on TV.

 

In the later years of the show they had a skit called Mama's Family. It consisted of a not very bright daughter (Eunice) who had been worn down by life- played by the star Carol Burnett. Her mother Thelma Harper who never thought much of her daughter (played by Vicki Lawrence who was about 16 years younger than Carol but made up to look older), Harvey Korman as long suffering husband Ed, Tim Conway in later years playing Ed's best friend Mickey Hart- not considered too bright. dick van Dyke as a friend of Ed after Korman left the show.

 

I think most if the characters on the Carol Burnett show would try to make the other actors loose their focus and start laughing. But this increased over the later years and especially once Tim Conway joined the cast in the last few years.

 

Here is an episode of Tim cracking everyone up in a sketch. They are supposedly playing a game called Password where someone gives a one word clue and others try to guess the the word from a clue.

 

[video=youtube_share;iaaj7Mv4QO0]http://youtu.be/iaaj7Mv4QO0

 

Gman

[whipped guy]

When I was teaching in dental school, from 1972 to 1990, I used to show that clip to the freshmen in my course, "Introduction to the Profession," as part of freshman orientation. I didn't tell what was coming, just said nonchalantly, "Here's a view of the dental profession that you may care to follow one day." Needless to say....

Very popular!

Hopefully you also added the the Bill Cosby dentist routine to that course that dates from 1983... I recall the phrase "lip in your lap" from that skit to describe the numb feeling from a local anesthetic.

 

Incidentally, I have had virtually all of my dental work sans local simply because I hate the numb feeling...

[+ deej]

My understanding is that they did two shows. One more of a dress rehearsal in the afternoon. And the 'real' show at night. They would take the best of the two performances to show on TV.

 

That's the story Burnett tells. Although in her version they'd do the first show (for lighting & blocking) and it would be taped in case something went wrong during the second show. After that first taping, Conway would ask the director "did you get everything you need?" and if the answer was yes that was when he went on a mission to crack up Kormann during the second show.

 

In its day it was appointment television for almost everyone.