Los Angeles, CA — For more than a decade, The Carol Burnett Show reigned as one of television’s greatest comedy institutions — but behind the carefully choreographed sketches and the roaring studio laughter was a secret dynamic that fueled some of the show’s most unforgettable moments.

And no one tells that story better than Carol Burnett herself.

When Burnett speaks about Harvey Korman and Tim Conway, her tone shifts — equal parts affection, nostalgia, and a hint of disbelief at what the two men became together. Their chemistry wasn’t written. It wasn’t rehearsed. It wasn’t even controllable.
It was a comic force of nature.

“We’ve got to get a Harvey Korman.”
Burnett remembers exactly when she knew she needed Korman.
“I had seen Harvey on The Danny Kaye Show, and I said to Joe: We’ve got to get a Harvey Korman. We’ve just got to.”

He was, in her words, what Carl Reiner was to Sid Caesar — a stabilizing presence, a brilliant second banana, a man who could anchor absolute chaos with perfect timing and towering dignity.

And then, destiny intervened.
She met him in the CBS parking lot.

“I practically threw him across a fender,” she admits.
“You’ve GOT to be on our show!”

Korman didn’t stand a chance. He said yes — or else, Carol jokes, “I would’ve broken his neck.”

Enter Tim Conway — the ticking time bomb of unpredictability
Conway, at first, wasn’t even a regular. He guested once or twice a month. Burnett had already seen him stealing scenes on McHale’s Navy and The Gary Moore Show, and she knew instantly:

“There’s nobody funnier in the world than Conway.”

For nine years, he floated in and out of the series. Then, finally, “the penny dropped,” Carol says. They signed him permanently in Season 9.

But this came with a consequence no one fully anticipated:

Tim Conway made it his mission in life to destroy Harvey Korman — emotionally, physically, and always, always with laughter.

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The Dentist Sketch — The Day Tim Conway Declared War
Carol remembers the moment the game changed.

It was the now-iconic Dentist Sketch — Korman as the helpless patient, Conway as a newly-graduated dentist performing his first procedure.

Conway rewrote the history of televised comedy that afternoon.

He began shooting himself with Novocain — in the hip… in the hand… in the leg… rendering different limbs useless one by one. None of this was in the script. None of it was rehearsed.
Harvey Korman was not prepared.

“He was just destroyed,” Carol recalls.
“He was laughing so hard the tears were coming down.”

The crew didn’t know what was happening.
The studio audience was losing their minds.
Harvey Korman was fighting for his life.

And Conway?
He remained perfectly calm — the eye of his own hurricane.

Why No One Could EVER Prepare for Tim Conway
Burnett reveals the secret:

Conway behaved perfectly in rehearsal.
Every line.
Every beat.
Every expression.

Then he would turn to the director and ask,
“Did you get everything, Dave?”
Once he got the yes:

Chaos was guaranteed.

He would unleash versions of jokes that no one — not the cast, not the director, not the writers — had ever seen.

“And that was always gold,” Burnett says.

Harvey Korman never stood a chance.

A Friendship Built on Torture and Love
Despite the war Conway waged on Korman’s composure, Burnett emphasizes one truth:

“They loved each other.”

There was no rivalry. No bitterness. Instead, a bond so strong that after the show ended, the two men continued touring together for years — selling out theaters, performing their live act, and reenacting the same dynamic that defined them on television:

Korman trying desperately to keep his dignity.
Conway trying desperately to rob him of it.

And the audience?
They came to see Korman lose.

The Legacy: A Comedy Duo Unlike Anything Before or Since
Carol Burnett isn’t exaggerating when she says no one could keep a straight face around Tim Conway.
Actors failed.
Crew members failed.
Sometimes even Carol herself broke in ways she never intended.

But Harvey Korman…
Harvey was the chosen victim.

And the world was better for it.

Conway’s gentle mischief and Korman’s explosive reactions became one of television’s most iconic comedic duos — not because of scripts, but because of something deeper:

Trust. Timing. Friendship.
And a promise:
Tim Conway would never let Harvey Korman breathe easily again.