Tim Conway

Carol Burnett opened with a Q&A, then let Conway ruin his scene partners on purpose. Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, movie parodies as a civic event. Conway’s regular slot is the ad-lib as a weapon — the pause that makes the living room scream. Eleven seasons of a master class with a curtain. He plays incompetence as high craft. That is the gossip.

CBS's The Carol Burnett Show (1967–1978) parks Conway as Regular. 1960s tags stay on the folder. File s01e01 as ignition: Jim Nabors on the first night: Burnett's Q&A-then-sketches contract announced, the ensemble still finding the detonator. s01e04 is later weather: Lucille Ball and Tim Conway share the hour: movie-parody DNA meeting the corpse-making ad-lib that later became house style. TV Flash keeps the codes as tabs, not recaps — Conway already did the job in the frame.

McHale’s Navy had already parked him as Ensign Parker beside Ernest Borgnine’s sneaky skipper and Flynn’s Binghamton, WWII as PT-boat farce, service sitcom comfort with a movie star’s engine. On TV Flash Conway is 1960s catalog mischief in two uniforms — the sketch and the ensign, the curtain and the boat. Watch Burnett for the pause. Watch Parker for the farce that trained it.

Start the McHale's Navy stack (ABC, 1962–1966) when you want Ensign Charles Parker without a clip-farm tour. File s01e01 as ignition: An Ensign for McHale is the PT-boat contract: Borgnine's sneaky skipper, Tim Conway's Parker, Joe Flynn's Binghamton already apoplectic. s02e01 is later weather: The Day the War Stood Still opens season two on a title that admits the farce: WWII as argument McHale keeps winning. Keep the tab. McHale's Navy remains the room.