Went With the Wind

Well, this is really just too much. Dick Martin and Harvey Korman taken on the same week? Surely the inscrutable forces that control the universe can't be this cruel. Well, OK, obviously they can. But still...

It is hard to gauge the impact both Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and The Carol Burnett Show had on my upbringing--well, maybe someone with a degree in psychiatry could. Anyway, both shows for me were of TV's Golden Age, and it remains amazing to me that two seemingly "square" comedians like Rowan and Martin could have been the hosts of the hippest show on TV at the time. But it worked, because Laugh-In took from the past the past (the tux-clad hosts, the televisual homages to Ernie Kovacs) combined it with topical humor, a late 1960s sensibility, and pure silliness. It was rapid-fire humor--sketches rarely lasted more than a few minutes--and if something didn't work, you didn't worry, because something else would come on in a few seconds.



On the other hand, sketches on The Carol Burnett Show were long, but hardly seemed so. A favorite Korman skit of mine was their Jaws parody Jowls. The highlight of these sketches was Tim Conway getting Harvey Korman to laugh--and at 6:08, that happens. Good-luck ham, indeed.



And this sketch, "No Frills Airline" seems eerily prescient.



A couple years ago, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway toured as a duo, performing sketches and routines. Ken and I had the very great privilege to have seen them at Proctors. (Yes, we were probably the youngest people in the audience.) I seem to recall them reprising the classic Dentist sketch:



And, of course, one of the greatest comic moments in TV history, featuring Korman as Rhett Butler:

Ah, remember when television was actually enjoyable to watch?

But let's not forget Harvey Korman's quintessential bad guy Hedy (that's Hedley) Lamarr in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.

The world is a much darker place today.