Try remembering a popular form of comedy that looks beyond sarcasm, race and politics. One that eschews profanity for inference. One that even works without words.
Is your brain sufficiently racked yet?
The in-your-face school of comedy has so permeated sitcoms and stand-up acts in recent years that many people have a hard time recalling anything else. But that doesn’t mean the purest form of comedy is extinct.
“It’s much harder to write real comedy that doesn’t rely on language and shock value,” said Tim Conway, one-half of a long-running comedy duo with fellow “Carol Burnett Show” alumnus Harvey Korman.
Conway and Korman are known for their physical humor, razor-sharp timing and bits that morph from obvious to subtle in the same line. But they’re not known for making cheap jokes at the expense of pathetic, fleeting celebrities, or espousing their views on Iraq in order to galvanize the public.
The pair visit the Lecture Hall at the Colorado Convention Center on Saturday for their farewell tour, armed with a mixture of new material and beloved sketches and characters from their “Carol Burnett Show” days, such as Dorf or Mr. Tudball.
A nostalgia act? Perhaps, but one that has repeatedly connected with new audiences. By Conway’s estimate, the tour has performed 150 packed shows annually the past eight years.
“If it hadn’t been that way we’d have stopped doing it a long time ago,” Conway said. “It’s great (because) we have an immediate response from the audience, even though every night is different. It’s designed for family entertainment, and the audience is satisfied when they leave, so it’s enjoyable for us.”
Conway, who turns 73 a week after he and Korman visit Denver, never expected to be in the business this long. As a young man he dreamed of racing horses professionally, a passion he still shares as the occasional owner of thoroughbreds.
“I used to gallop horses at a track in Cleveland,” Conway recalled. “If I hadn’t fallen off of them as much as I had I’d probably still be doing that.”
He wrote for a Cleveland radio station and recorded a comedy album with broadcasting mainstay Ernie Anderson, eventually landing a spot on the TV show “McHale’s Navy” in 1962. Various TV appearances led to “The Carol Burnett Show,” where he and Korman perfected their witty, expressive jousting. The show ran for 10 years, earning three Emmy Awards for Conway and four for Korman.
Conway has been a mainstay in TV and movies, from Disney’s “Apple Dumpling Gang” series with Don Knotts, to frequent cameos in sitcoms like “Married with Children,” “The Drew Carey Show” and “Yes, Dear.” His expressionistic style and firm grasp of comedic fundamentals has made him a go-to guy for dozens of other projects, including a phalanx of cartoons.
His résumé reads like a programming guide for popular children’s shows: “Scooby Doo,” “The Wild Thornberrys,” “Hermie & Friends,” “SpongeBob SquarePants.” That last show, in fact, has reunited him with former “McHale’s Navy” star Ernest Borgnine, even if they don’t technically share any on-screen time.
“I didn’t know I was on (‘SpongeBob’) until my granddaughter told me,” Conway said. “With those things you go in and record something and it’s on a year later.”
But Conway takes the job seriously. For him, voice work exercises a different creative muscle than facial expressions, body language or outrageous costumes. He also appreciates the leap of faith many voice actors take when providing the soul of an invisible character.
“It’s interesting trying to get some kind of personality into a cartoon that you’ve never seen,” Conway said. “They draw the cartoon around your voice so you have nothing to base it on. It always looks so good though. I think the cartoons are much funnier than the voices.”
Conway has even done the cartoon “The Wild Thornberrys” with Korman, who’s also no stranger to voice work. But the pair’s strength plainly lies in their stage show. Their effortless ability to riff on each other is something earned through decades of experience.
“We do have a written show, but if something happens in the theater, or someone sneezes, we usually manage to draw attention to it,” Conway said. “We had one show where all the mics went out and we did 15 minutes on silent movies.”
Still, Conway relishes his mischievous ability to crack Korman up during the routines, something he was well known for on “The Carol Burnett Show.”
“He’s just a very poor performer as far as that’s concerned,” Conway said with a chuckle.
Perhaps that’s why Korman’s 1978 talk show was so short-lived. Conway had one of his own in 1970, but it suffered a similar fate. Now the variety shows of yesteryear have been replaced with the glossy soap operas and game shows of reality TV.
“Everything has to have some kind of target audience or demand or that kind of nonsense,” Conway said. “People don’t just do funny for funny anymore.”
Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.
