A prisoner of war (Lyle Waggoner) is being held for questioning by some German soldiers (Harvey Korman and Tim Conway), and we just can’t stop laughing. This is classic Tim Conway, folks! Thank goodness for YouTube, the platform that serves as a veritable worldwide museum of film and television history.
Funny lady Carol Burnett and her counterparts Tim Conway and Harvey Korman were masters at striking America’s funny bone, and their unique brand of zany, farcical, slapstick humor is just as funny today as when the show aired. The CBS sketch comedy and musical variety show was so popular throughout its eleven seasons that an oft-told joke in the TV industry at the time was that CBS stood for Carol Burnett Show.
Recorded in front of a live studio audience, part of the fun of the show was hearing the audience’s exuberant laughter on every punchline. Carol gave the show a further intimacy by chatting with her fans on-camera between sketches at times, and she always took at least one audience member’s request for her to do her famous Tarzan yell.
During its 279-episode run, the program won a record-breaking 25 Emmys and eight Golden Globes. Carol Burnett herself received more People’s Choice Awards than any other actress on record, and Time magazine dubbed her hit series one of the hundred best television shows of all time.
The show originally ran from 1967 to 1978, for 279 episodes, and returned with nine new episodes in 1991. It also generated a spinoff sitcom, Mama’s Family, with Vikki and Harvey portraying two of their recurring sketch characters from the Carol Burnett Show.
When Tim breaks out the puppet, Lyle looks like, “I knew I should’ve called in sick. At 6:37 is when Lyle starts to lose it. This skit may be the only time Lyle ever broke up. Tim Conway will always be one of the very best comics to ever live. Don’t miss this hilarious sketch in the video below.
