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• About Together Again
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• Article on Mr. Conway
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Tavis: I'm laughing already, because Tim Conway is here and I'm honored to have him on this program. For 11 seasons he starred, of course, on one of TV's classic variety programs, "The Carol Burnett Show," earning four Emmys along the way for his hilarious -

Tim Conway: Five.

Tavis: I'm sorry.

Conway: Five.

Tavis: Five -

Conway: Actually, five and a half. I got a local one there, only half the size. Five and a half.

Tavis: Five and a half Emmys along the way, but who's counting?

Conway: Not me.

Tavis: For his hilarious work (laughs), often opposite straight man Harvey Korman. He and Harvey Korman have teamed up for a new DVD based on a sketch show they've been performing over the past five years - is that correct - five years?

Conway: I had no word on that, but that's good, yes. Eight years.

Tavis: Eight years (laughs).

Conway: Yeah. This is a numbers problem we're going to have.

Tavis: My numbers are all off here.

Conway: Yeah, I know. That's okay, don't worry.

Tavis: Eight years.

Conway: What size shoe do you have?

Tavis: (Laughs) The new disc -

Conway: Looks to be 11.

Tavis: The new disc is called "Together Again." Is that correct? "Together Again?"

Conway: I don't know; you're holding it, not me. What does it say? (Laughter)

Tavis: Yeah, it says, "Together Again."

Conway: "Together Again," yes it does. By golly, that's a good title.

Tavis: Here's a sample. (Laughter)

[Clip]

Conway: I've got to get work, that's all there is to it.

Tavis: (Laughs) It's still funny. I'm honored to have you here.

Conway: Well, thank you very much. That was very short, but thank you, I really appreciated it. (Laughter) Oh, there's more? Okay.

Tavis: So much of your comedy is physical. Has it always been that way for you?

Conway: To the best of my knowledge, yeah. Well, I'm a natural athlete, every muscle toned to perfection, so it's really not that difficult for me. (Laughter) I did, I actually started out as a jockey. I was going to be a jockey, and I was galloping horses in Cleveland. But at this weight, horses ask you to get off, as do the trainers. (Laughter) So I got into something that I really knew I could make an honest living in.

Tavis: Did you grow up in a funny household? Were your parents funny?

Conway: My parents were hysterical, but they didn't know it. As a matter of fact, my dad - and this is a true story - he was Irish. You couldn't tell him if anything was wrong. He hooked up a doorbell one time, backwards, so that it rang all the time except when you pressed the doorbell. I swear to God. And I said, "Dad, those wires are crossed - " He said, "Leave it alone."

So we'd sit at home at night and you'd hear this (makes noise). And when it would stop, my dad would go, "I'll get it." (Laughter) And that's the kind of daily stuff I lived with, so yeah.

Tavis: You said something a moment ago that you just went right past, and I think I want to go back and get this. You said that your parents were hilarious and didn't know it.

Conway: No, they had no idea.

Tavis: So how did you know, then, when you were funny?

Conway: Because I was brighter than they were. I really was. They were sharing an IQ it wasn't really that much to overcome that. (Laughter) No, I just would sit back and look at this. And silly stuff - a tornado came through town, blew the house down across the street, took a tree out of our yard like this, threw it down the street.

My dad goes to the door, opens the screen door, looks out, and he goes, "Those damn kids." Now, I ask you, do you think kids (laughter) could actually take a tree and throw it down the street? Take the roof off the -

Tavis: Let me ask you, you were making a comment; you were joking when the clip was running -

Conway: That was no joke.

Tavis: Okay.

Conway: No.

Tavis: That your -

Conway: I don't know what the comment was, but it was no joke.

Tavis: (Laughs) You're 70-something now, and -

Conway: Seventy-three.

Tavis: Seventy-three, and still working and still funny.

Conway: I've got about a week left, incidentally. (Laughter) But I do look good now. You look good toward the end - you really do. It's blood pressure, really. People think I add color. But no, it's just - I could blow at any minute. (Laughter) This'll put the ratings -

Tavis: Please not in the next -

Conway: Yeah, okay.

Tavis: Not in the next 10 minutes.

Conway: It'd be some good ratings, though, if you think about it, you know what I mean?

Tavis: Yeah, yeah, that's true - Tim Conway passed on Tavis' show.

Conway: There you go, there's a show.

Tavis: It'd be great ratings for that one night, but nobody would come on tomorrow night.

Conway: You just keep repeating it. (Laughter) Lay the body out here, I'm on every show.

Tavis: Let me ask you, to your point about being 73 now, for most of us as we get older, our skills diminish.

Conway: Yeah.

Tavis: And I don't know where you're going to go with that, so I better jump in real fast. (Laughter)

Conway: Well, I had no skills to begin with, so mine are actually - I'm getting more accomplishments now (unintelligible).

Tavis: I'm glad you said that, I was about to ask. You're still as funny now as you ever were -

Conway: No question about it. (Laughter) I was never really that funny, so it wasn't really - you're not talking about topping much.

Tavis: So how do you manage to get better, to get funnier as you get older when all the rest of us see our skills diminish?

Conway: Yeah, there you go, see? Well, first of all, I have a photographic - um, uh - (laughter) memory, so I can recall a lot of things from the past. I don't know; I never cared much about anything in life. I'm just kind of a free spirit. I'm the dumbest guy in the business, which I'm very proud of. I know nothing about the business or what I'm doing here or anything, so I don't have all that - and I've never been number one in this business, as you know. The top hundred guys? I'm usually about - I'm not even close to the list.

Tavis: But you got five and a half Emmys, though.

Conway: Yeah. I think I got Emmys just because of my acceptance speeches, because they never had anything to do with the show or the audience or anything. One time when I was getting an Emmy they said, "The nominees are Tim Conway for 'The Carol Burnett Show,'" I got up and went on stage, just on the nomination.

Tavis: Just on the (laughter) -

Conway: Yeah. And Redd Foxx was looking at me, going "You didn't win yet. We're just - “I said, "Yeah, but if I do, I'm up here, save all that time, they don't have to play that music and everything." "Well, you got a point there." So I just stayed there, and I didn't get it. Yeah. (Laughter) Chevy Chase won that year. Eh, well.

Tavis: Tell me about this friendship, this relationship with Harvey Korman for all these years.

Conway: Very poor performer. (Laughter) Yeah, so I feel quite bright around him. No, he's a very, very bright guy. He can do the New York crossword puzzle in 10 minutes, but he can't tie his own shoes. So it's very easy for me to put him on, and it's wonderful to travel with him, because he believes everything. We stopped for - one time we were coming back from New York in a private plane and we had to stop for gas in Arkansas.

So they put gas in and we took off again and I said, "I don't think that guy put that gas cap back on." And he went, "What?" (Laughter) And I said, "I swear, I don't - I didn't see him put the cap on." He went to the pilot and said, "Turn around, we've got to land, because the gas cap's off." The pilot's going, "We don't have a gas cap, what are you talking about?" (Laughter) So it's little things like that. I keep myself going.

Tavis: Tell me about this particular show.

Conway: Well, this is, like, old-fashioned comedy. There's about six sketches in there, I do the Old Man and Tudball and Dorf and -

Tavis: I love Dorf, I love Dorf.

Conway: Yeah, isn't that good?

Tavis: Yeah.

Conway: And stand-ups, and things like that. A girl, Louise DuArt, traveled with us. I don't know why, but there she was. (Laughter) She did impressions, and we played for eight years and did about 125 shows a year all over the country, Canada, and it worked out great so we decided to put it out on DVD.

Tavis: Do you -

Conway: We only have the, and you're holding it.

Tavis: Is this it?

Conway: That's it. So, yeah. (Laughter)

Tavis: Just one DVD.

Conway: We've been trying to sell it now for, oh, about six months, but thank gosh we still have it.

Tavis: You sold this one, yeah.

Conway: We wouldn't have anything to hold up. (Laughter)

Tavis: I'm afraid to ask this - do you ever get serious?

Conway: No. No, no, no, no. No. Let me think. (Laughter) No, I can't ever recall being serious, no. That's a waste of time, I think. Well, there have been moments when I've really - no, I guess there isn't. (Laughter) Well, like for instance a lady asked me for my autograph the other day and I said, "Okay," and I gave her my autograph.

And she looked at it and she said, "I can't read this." I said, "Well, that's the charm of an autograph. You just go - and that's really my name." And she said, "Well, I can't read it." And I said, “I'll tell you what. Give it back to me. I'll take it home and I'll type it.” So I took it home and I typed my name and I sent just my typed name to her. So now she's going around going, "I got Tim Conway's autograph." (Laughter) And people are going, "Really? That's very nice handwriting." She did.

Tavis: You have to be the only comedian who I think I've ever conversed with who -

Conway: Said nothing.

Tavis: No, was a home - worse - was a home economics major.

Conway: Yes, college, yeah. Well, my mother was -

Tavis: Home economics?

Conway: Yeah, my mother was a seamstress and I could sew. I used to make my own clothes. You couldn't wear them; they were ill-fitting. (Laughter) But I used to make my own stuff, and I took home ec in college because I was the only guy in the room - I was the only one who actually knew how to sew. There were 30 girls, and me. Figure it out.

Tavis: (Laughs) Smart move.

Conway: In those days, they showed a special film on undergarments, and I wasn't allowed to see it. That's how far back we go?

Tavis: Wow.

Conway: But yeah, I made my own clothes, yeah. I was a chef in the fraternity for a while. Used to go in at night and after making all the dinner and cleaning up and everything, I'd take all the eggs, scramble them, make sandwiches, and go up and sell them in the sorority. And then they found out the egg bill was about $190 one month, (laughter) and I was out of that.

Tavis: As funny as that is, what's funnier is your time of being in the service and -

Conway: I was in a little bit longer than most people are, yes, because the Army had no sense of humor at all (laughter), they really didn't.

Tavis: But the stuff you did, though - share a little bit of what you - that they didn't find funny (laughs).

Conway: I wasn't court-martialed by the big court martial, with a lot of guys there. (Laughter) Where they go, "You can't handle the truth." It wasn't one of those, but it was just, like, the sergeant and the barracks lieutenant and everything. I was on guard duty, and they're very touchy about having your rifle with you when you're on guard duty. (Laughter)

And you're supposed to - when the lieutenant comes around and checks you every couple of hours, and he goes, "Halt." And I go, "Advance, be recognized, and date of birth" and all that, and - now, during time of war, if you go "Halt," the guy goes bang and shoots your head off. So you don't have time for all that garbage.

But I'm guarding a service club, and it has pool balls and dominoes and cards and things in there, and it's 2:00 in the morning, and you're on for two hours, off for two, and I'm going (unintelligible). So I fell asleep in a car, just for a moment (laughter), and I went "Oh, jeez, the guy's coming." And they've got one of those mad dogs with them - (makes noise).

So I get up and I go around the corner to meet this lieutenant, and I'm supposed to stop him with my rifle, and I realize I left my rifle in the car. So I go in the garbage and I take out a long, neon tube - one of those white jobs - and this lieutenant comes around the corner and I go, "Halt. Advance and be recognized."

And he gives me a date of birth and (unintelligible), and he goes, "What is that?" I said, "It's a light bulb, and if you come any closer, I'll turn it on." (Laughter) And I got to paint rocks - I painted rocks white, and then you put them over here, and then you take them over here on the other side. So I had a lot of experiences like that.

Tavis: Back to you - let me tie this in right quick.

Conway: Okay.

Tavis: You told a funny story earlier about your typing the autograph. You did some typing during your time -

Conway: I was the only one in my unit that could type, or read. And I don't read that well, I'm dyslexic. And they thought "Oh, that's great. It's okay." Yeah, I found out that all you needed is orders, and somebody to sign it. So I would write up orders and I would sign it. And I would be in charge of myself. I was stationed in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.

I was the only guy in the barracks - I assigned myself to this barracks and I lived there for a month, just by myself. (Laughter) And I assigned myself to be mailman. So that was my only job, go down to the mail and get the mail at 4:30 every night.

Tavis: And there was nobody in your barracks to pass mail to.

Conway: Nobody in my barracks, no.

Tavis: But you were the mailman.

Conway: I was the only guy. I'd get a hometown paper once in a while, and that's it.

Tavis: So you just - (laughs).

Conway: Then I wrote out the orders that - because other guys are carrying these 400-pound bags of stuff around, and I said, "We should have cars." So I assigned a jeep to myself. So I'd drive down now every night (makes noise), put the paper in the back and then drive back. (Laughter)

Tavis: Just assigned yourself.

Conway: Yup. I was there for - then I assigned myself to Seattle, because that was nice. I defended Seattle for two years. (Laughter) Well, we weren't attacked, were we? (Laughter)

Tavis: Now, this part of the story's true - he just assigned himself a transfer order, and he went -

Conway: I went all over the country, yeah.

Tavis: - from one base to another.

Conway: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Tavis: And I assume now in retrospect you understand why you got court-martialed.

Conway: Yes, yes.

Tavis: Okay.

Conway: And I found also in telling these stories that they do call me once in a while and say, "Come back in the Army and we'll show you a few things now." (Laughter) Were you in the military, by any chance?

Tavis: My father was.

Conway: Yeah, there's a military dream, there's, like, the actor's dream, which you dream you're in a play and you don't have the script and you can't, right? And there's also a military dream where you dream that they call you back up and you go back in the Army and all of that. It's scary. But I even write myself orders in my dreams. (Laughter)

Tavis: I could do this for hours if they gave me that kind of time around here. Thankfully, Tim Conway really was joking when he said there's only one of these. There's more than one, and you can have one. The new DVD -

Conway: Six. (Laughter) Yeah, if you look it up on TimConwayLive.com. I don't know what all that means, but it could be important. (Laughter) It's a wonderful site.

Tavis: TimConwayLive.com, get your DVD, "Together Again." Tim Conway and Harvey Korman. (Unintelligible) we could get together again.

Conway: And we will, we will, because I'm not going home. I don't have anywhere to go.

Tavis: And you didn't die on me.

Conway: No. Nope.

Tavis: So now -

Conway: It could have been big. Think about it.

Tavis: (Laughs) I'm out of here. Thanks for watching tonight.