Tim Conway has
delighted generations of family audiences since he became a regular on
the Steve Allen Show in the early ‘60s, but to millions of TV
fans, he will always be remembered for making fellow cast members Harvey
Korman and Carol Burnett crack-up on The Carol Burnett Show in
the 1970s.
Throughout his
career, Tim Conway has proven that clean material can still be
side-splittingly funny. Today Tim is still keeping audiences in stitches
as he tours the country with Harvey Korman in a comedy revue, "Together
Again."
We recently had
an opportunity to speak to Tim backstage at a performance at the Warner
Theater in Washington, D.C. We asked him to share his thoughts on TV
today, what parents can do, and some of his memories of Steve Allen and
The Carol Burnett Show.
PTC: How
did you come to be involved with the PTC?
CONWAY: I became involved through Steve Allen. Steve
was of course the guy who gave me my start on television out here in Los
Angeles way back in the ‘60s. I did a lot of things with Steve along the
way, and one of the projects that he became very interested in was the
PTC because he was always conscious of material and content and the
public. He thought the public should be respected. He didn't believe in
the foul language, and the nudity and things of that nature that were
creeping in to television at that time. And so, later in the years, much
later, when the PTC became involved in trying to clean up a little bit
of television, I also became involved through Steve and some other
friends.
PTC: Why
did you feel that it was important to get involved with the PTC?
CONWAY: In my career, I've also tried to respect an audience. I
don't think I've had to apologize for too much along the way. There may
have been a few slips, and I certainly am by no means a prude, but I
just have a
certain respect for the audience, and I would like them to
come with the whole family, sit down, enjoy something, go
home, and be able to talk about it. When there were only three channels,
you sat down in front of a television set, so the whole family was
there, there was no editing to be done because obviously we couldn't
tape any of those shows in
those days, so the editing was done by the networks, and they did a very
competent job, as far as I'm concerned. And then we noticed that little
things started to creep in here and there. A little bit of language, a
little bit of nudity. Now we're in a mess, actually. It just seems to be
getting worse and so, you try to do your best to point out to people –
and I think this last election probably did more good than anything in a
long time to make people realize that we aren't all on the same side out
there, that we really don't enjoy this profanity and inappropriate
content.
PTC: Why
are there some in Hollywood so committed
to the raunch on television?
CONWAY: Well, first of all, not all of Hollywood is, and I
think obviously we know who the culprits are, but it's because it does
sell. You go to a theater and see some of these movies that are being
made nowadays with raunch and nudity in it, and you can hear the
response from the audience that they're quite pleased with it. I don't
believe in the fact that we have to clean it up totally and restrict any
company from making anything like this. What we'd like to do is
obviously convince the people that maybe they don't have to go see it. I
think one of the ways you can do that, especially with television, is
not to support it, not to support any of the products that advertise on
it, not to support it by watching it – and by not going to theaters and
laying down ten, twelve dollars to see this kind of raunch… I'm speaking
to you today, when the new toy coming out now is the new game where you
can assassinate JFK. I think that's probably the new low in what we're
doing in this business nowadays.
PTC: How
does the Conway family handle the problem?
CONWAY: I'm sure I sound like an angry old man, but it's not that
you know. I don't use profanity in public with an audience because
that's where my workplace is, and I don't use nudity because I think
there's enough violence in the world today without people seeing me
nude. So I'm doing maybe my part to protect the almighty comedy that I
think is so funny, that is just funny for funny. The reason The Carol
Burnett Show did so well in the ratings is because people were
looking for that comfort zone in the old days when the whole family sat
around and watched television and enjoyed it. It brought back that
camaraderie of a family, that union of a family where you could sit down
and actually enjoy something together. I don't watch television with my
children nowadays because they never know what's going to jump up and be
on that screen, and it's embarrassing. Even though my kids are in their
30s and 40s, I still don't enjoy sitting in a living room and watching
some kind of raunch come up. I'm just uncomfortable with it with my
family.
PTC: Your
recent reunion shows with the cast of The Carol Burnett Show have
done very well, indicating a market for this type of entertainment. Why
then do you think it has remained absent from television? Do you think
the special was a success because people are hungry for that kind of
fun, family-friendly entertainment?
CONWAY: Carol always regarded the audience as a member of the
family. You'll notice that on that show we really didn't do anything
that was totally suggestive. Sometimes it seemed as though maybe we were
doing something a little nasty, but it was probably either a mistake, or
we certainly didn't do it with the intent of offending an audience.
Carol believed in keeping a very, very broad audience, never
declaring the show one way or another, Democrat, Republican, or
Catholic, Protestant, or whatever. We made fun of ourselves and of
products, but we never made fun, really, of people who had maybe
embarrassed themselves nationally and are now being torn apart by the
Tonight
Shows and things of that nature. You say, "Do I want a legacy?" Well,
hopefully that will become part of a legacy. That people will look back
and say, as they do with Gleason and Laurel and Hardy and Steve Allen
and the rest of the greats, that funny was funny in those days, you
didn't need language, you didn't need nudity, you didn't need all the
obscenities in order to make something funny. I've always felt that the
easiest way to get a laugh is to do things like that. It's a lot tougher
to do some delicate writing to make it funny and it's also a lot funnier
to me.
PTC: Do
you have grandchildren? Are you concerned
about what they watch on TV?
CONWAY: I have a granddaughter now, and I'm very concerned about
what she sees and hears, and so is her mother. Something will come on
television, and my granddaughter will say, "I can't watch this, my
mother doesn't want me to." So I know that she's going in the right
direction, and I think it's wonderful, I really do. She'll make her own
choices later in life, but in these formative years, I think it's
tremendous that her mother takes the time to say, "Look, you're not
going to watch this kind of programming
because it just isn't good for you." She doesn't buy the products that
sponsor them, and she doesn't allow her daughter to have those products
that sponsor those programs. If we had enough of those people doing
that, you'd see how fast things would be cleaned up. If you're not
buying the product, they're certainly not going to be picking up another
13 weeks to do the show.
PTC: Any
funny stories about the Carol Burnett gang
that you'd like to share?
CONWAY: No.
PTC: Tell
us about your current tour with Harvey Korman.
CONWAY: No.
PTC: What
makes someone funny?
CONWAY: I don't know [laughs].
PTC: Are
there any other projects you're working on
that you'd like our members to know about?
CONWAY: Yes there is, one important project I'd like
members to know about. I have a dental appointment next
May. I think it's May. Let me see, I think it's May 17th or
15th, I'm not sure. Think it's the 15th, and it's just a cleaning, but I
do have a dental appointment in May, and other than that not a great
deal is happening in my life.
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