What's So Funny?: My Hilarious Life

by Tim Conway

  Early one afternoon, Sophia called from the kitchen.

  “Tommy!’

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “What you are doing?”

  “Yelling back at you.”

  “Don’t be smarty pants. I need bread.”

  “So do I!”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” I called down, “I’ll get it.”

  I dragged myself off the bed, put on my shoes, went downstairs and out the front door; the most exercise I’d had for the past day. I got into the Pontiac and headed for the A&P. Before I got there I dropped into Bright’s Drugstore where I bumped into Marty Hawthorne.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Not me,” I replied. “Things are looking pretty grim. I haven’t worked since I got out of the army.”

  “Hey, cheer up, buddy,” he answered. “Things weren’t looking so good for me when I left the service, either. Then I got a job at KYW-TV. I’m selling time and I’m making a lot of money. Come to think of it, there could be an opening for you at the station.”

  “Really, what?”

  “A guy named Jack Riley who works for Big Wilson, the radio disc jockey, just got called up by the draft. Biggie hosts the morning radio show. He plays records, he has guests, he tells jokes, and he plays the piano. He’s got this canary in a cage on top of the piano, and the bird sings when Biggie plays.”

  “So what does Jack do?” I asked.

  “Well, he picks out the records to play, he answers the fan mail, and he writes jokes for Biggie.”

  “I don’t write comedy,” I said.

  “Trust me, neither does Jack,” laughed Marty. “He just pulls jokes from a joke book.”

  “And that’s all he does?”

  “Well, he’s cleans out the birdcage, every day.”

  “You know,” I said, “I think I’m qualified.”

  I hopped into my Pontiac, zipped into Cleveland, went to the KYW station, and, using Marty’s name, asked to see Jack. (Protocol was different in those days, especially in Cleveland. You could just drop by and talk to anybody. Today, you’d have to book an appointment months in advance, even in Cleveland.) We had a chat and Jack thought I’d be a perfect replacement. We never mentioned salary—probably because, as I later learned, it was thirty-five dollars a week. Hey, it wasn’t bad considering that I didn’t have to pay room and board. I was hired on the spot. When I arrived home later that afternoon, Sophia was in the kitchen.

  “Where’s the bread you supposed to get?” she demanded.

  “I just got a job, Ma,” I cried.

  “Multumesc, Isus!” (“Thank you, Jesus!”), shrieked Sophia.

  She gave me a big hug, and after she let me go, I told her what had happened.

  “This wonderful news. Your father will be pleased. Now, go get bread.”

  A couple of weeks later, Jack left for the armed services, and I began doing my life’s work, making people laugh.

  Acting as Big Wilson’s assistant was a breeze. Monday through Friday, I’d pick out the records, give Biggie a sheet of jokes that I’d copied from various joke books, answer his fan mail, and clean the birdcage, the bottom of which usually was lined with the previous day’s jokes. And there was a bonus, an unofficial service attached to my job that Jack hadn’t mentioned. On weekends, Biggie hosted record hops at various high schools in the area, and, as part of my workload, I helped him. I’d arrive at the appointed time, play the records for the first hour, and then Biggie showed up for maybe forty minutes. He’d do some snappy patter, spin a record or two, and split, leaving me to spin the platters for another couple of hours. I did most of the work but Biggie paid me twenty-five dollars in cold, hard, beautiful cash. You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out the formula: Thirty-five dollars plus twenty-five dollars equals Easy Street. I bought a three-piece suit, a sports jacket, a new pair of shoes, a new battery for the Pontiac, and a book, 1,000 Jokes for All Occasions. Plus, I got to entertain the record-hop crowd with the material I gleaned from any comedian appearing on Ed Sullivan’s. I was in show business. I was in hog heaven.

  Around this time, I moved out of my ancestral home in Chagrin and rented a studio apartment in Cleveland. Thus, I was able to celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday in my very own place. I decided to make it a surprise party. I sent out invitations informing the guests that someone was going to take me bowling and that I wouldn’t be home until 8:00. Then I gave instructions: The guests were to come to my apartment around 7:00 and set up the food and drinks, which they were assigned to bring. The key would be left on the sill over the door so people could let themselves in. I also suggested that everyone bring a small gift that didn’t exceed ten dollars.

  The fifteenth of December came and everything went smoothly. Nobody had trouble finding the place because I included a map in the invitation. So everyone was there waiting for the birthday boy to make his appearance. Eight o’clock came and went, as did nine o’clock, but the birthday boy never showed up. Finally, at around 10 P.M., the guests left, convinced that I’d given the wrong date. I hadn’t, and when they called the next day to see what had happened, I told them quite simply, “I never got an invitation.”

  It was one of the best birthdays I ever had. I didn’t have to listen to a lot of small talk and party into the wee hours of the night, which is what usually happens at birthday celebrations. I really enjoyed bowling (by myself) and I took in a movie, a western called Apache Territory, which was pretty good. Best of all, when I got home I had a whole bunch of presents waiting.

  A lot of recording artists came through Cleveland and once it became known that I was the person who selected the records that Biggie played, many of those artists requested that I include their latest efforts on my list. I had no objections and was happy to do so. They, in kind, were so happy that they’d often bring me little gifts to show their appreciation. I didn’t think anything of it because the gifts were nothing more than tokens. I did notice that the visiting artists gave envelopes to some of the other guys who selected the DJ music for the afternoon and evening broadcasts. I assumed the envelopes contained thank-you notes. They didn’t. Something else was afoot.

  It all started in 1951 when a disc jockey named Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues recordings on WJW in Cleveland. In those days, Cleveland was a pop music breakout city, a place where national trends first appeared in a regional market. Freed was the city’s most popular DJ and had a huge following. He pioneered rock and roll and brought it front and center. He also was one of the organizers of a show on March 21, 1952, at the Cleveland Arena, an event now recognized as the first rock and roll concert. (The concert had to be shut down because there was a near riot when too many people crowded inside.) Freed went on to New York City and national fame. Then, in the early ’60s he was named in the notorious payola scandal that rocked the music world. Recording companies and artists were paying disc jockeys to play their records, proof that those envelopes contained a lot more than thank-you notes. Fortunately, I never got any kickback, just knickknacks. Freed’s career was ruined. Mine wasn’t.

  I picked up another source of income at the station by working Friday nights during the high school football and basketball seasons. After 10 P.M. people would call in to ask the final scores of the local high school games, and I’d rattle them off. Now, if that were all I did it would have been boring. To keep myself amused I’d vary the results. A typical conversation went something like:

  Caller:

  “I want the Euclid and Independence score.”

  Me:

  “The final score of the Euclid and Independence game was Euclid eighteen.”

  Caller:

  “Yeh, but what was the Independence score?”

  Me:

  “I don’t know.”

  Caller:

  “Whaddya mean you don’t know?”

  Me:

  “I mean I don’t know.”

  (Pause.)

  Caller:


  “Is there anybody there that does know?”

  Me:

  “I don’t know. I’m a recording.”

  (Long pause.)

  Caller:

  “Is there anybody there who isn’t a recording?”

  Me:

  “Just Tony”

  Caller:

  “Let me talk to Tony.”

  Me:

  “Tony’s off tonight. Do you want me to put you on hold till Monday?”

  (Longer pause.)

  Me:

  “Sir?”

  Caller:

  “Never mind. I’ll get a newspaper.”

  As he hung up I heard him say to someone with him, “Can you believe how stupid these people are?”

  • • •

  I had another routine that worked pretty well, too. Someone would call for the score, and I’d say, “The final score of the Rocky River and Parma game was twenty-one to seven.”

  Caller:

  “Who won?”

  Me:

  “Twenty-one.”

  Didn’t last too long on the Friday Night Scoreboard. But, it sure provided good material for the future.

  After three months at the radio station, a job in promotion opened up in the television division of KYW. I jumped at it. On paper my new work was pretty simple. Throughout the day a slide showing a scene from an upcoming program, usually a movie, would flash on the screen while an offscreen announcer read the copy written by me. If, say, a Humphrey Bogart movie were scheduled, I’d write something like “Bogie at his best in the Warner Bros. action-packed drama To Have and Have Not based on the Ernest Hemingway novel. Directed by Howard Hawks and featuring sultry Lauren Bacall and gravelly voiced Walter Brennan.” When the three stars were shown on the TV screen, my script was read. So what could go wrong? Well, supposing a Three Stooges movie also was scheduled that day and a mix-up occurred. The result? The Bogie, Bacall, and Brennan slide might appear onscreen as the announcer read, “Curley, Moe, and Larry wreak havoc in Boobs in Arms, a slapstick romp in which the three nitwits are inducted into military service.” Or, vice versa. The slide for Boobs in Arms might be shown as Curley, Moe, and Larry were identified as Bogie, Bacall, and Brennan. You get the picture. Whenever a glitch like this happened the station manager would call in and scream, “Who screwed up!” Invariably, the blame would be placed on the innocent copywriter. I used to watch TV at night in total fear whenever my promos came up. Sometimes the picture and text matched but the slide was in upside down. Whatever. You always could count on a mess.

  Quirky little incidents like these rarely happen today because everything is so high-tech. Consequently, spontaneity is hard to come by, and a lot of the fun in broadcasting has gone by the boards. Looking back, but not as far back as those Cleveland days, I know that’s one of the reasons The Carol Burnett Show was so enjoyable. We made mistakes, and if those mistakes got a laugh, they were kept in. That wasn’t the case at KYW-TV. Basically, my job in promotion was to keep numbers and slides in order, not exactly a dream job for a dyslexic.

  The Importance of Being Ernest Anderson

  Ernie Anderson, a well-known entertainer in early television, was also one of the greatest guys you could ever hope to meet. He’d been a disc jockey in Providence, Rhode Island, when WHK in Cleveland brought him out to be their morning man. This was a big deal. His face was plastered on billboards all over town. Everyone at KYW was worried that he’d put a big cut in our morning radio shows. Among the most worried were Biggie Wilson and, of course, me. We spent weeks trying to think of ways to compete with the new voice in town that threatened our very being. Not to worry, Ernie took care of our problem.

  WHK held a big party the night before he was to start broadcasting, and Ernie was asked to say a few words to the audience of sponsors, station employees, and guests. He went up to the microphone and started telling a series of jokes. Whenever he got near the end, a guy in the crowd would yell out the punch line. Ernie let it go for about four jokes. Then he asked the guy, who, unbeknownst to Ernie, happened to be the owner of the station, “How do you know all the punch lines, sir?”

  “I can anticipate them.”

  “Really,” said Ernie, “well anticipate this . . .” At which point he suggested that the gentleman go do something—which is quite personal and physically difficult if not impossible to do—to himself. Those were the last words Ernie Anderson ever uttered into a WHK mike. He was immediately relieved of active duty, and the regular disc jockey returned to the morning show the very next day.

  Purely by happenstance, I officially met Ernie a few nights later as I was driving down Euclid in my used Volkswagen Bug that had replaced my late Pontiac. I was doing about thirty-five miles an hour in first gear because it was the only working gear at the time. I figured if I could get to the automobile shop I could leave the car to be fixed. I lurched along accompanied by the high-pitched roar caused by driving that fast in first. A 747 taking off didn’t make as much of a racket as my little VW. I’d stopped at a red light and was gunning the motor to keep the car from stalling when another car pulled up beside me. The driver rolled down the window, and I recognized Ernie Anderson. He didn’t know me from Adam but that didn’t stop him from calling out, “Hey, schmuck, are ya charging your battery?”

  We started talking and bonded immediately. Ernie followed me to the auto shop, and after I dropped off the Bug, he drove me to my apartment. That was the beginning of a forty-five-year friendship.

  In the early days of our relationship, I spent most of my spare time with Ernie listening to tales of his screwups. They were legion. His immediate problem was his lack of work. I suggested that he get a job as a booth announcer at KYW until something better opened up. He did, and we did a lot of on-air bantering together; we really thought we were hot stuff. We began doing live promotions for the station, and not long after, Westinghouse, our parent company, sent someone out from New York to check out the two guys on the morning show. When we heard that a man was coming from the home office to see us, Ernie and I were sure it was to discuss terms for a new show. We had it made.

  The Westinghouse executive arrived and met us in the conference room. He sat across the table from Ernie and me and glanced through some of the promotional copy, which the station manager had given him. He dropped the papers on the table and looked up.

  “Who’s responsible for this crap?”

  I pointed to Ernie and he pointed to me. The guy dismissed us and we went back to our booth. Later that day, the program manager called.

  “I want you and Anderson in my office at three o’clock on Friday.” This was Wednesday. We knew we were going to be fired. They never fire you on a Wednesday; they always wait till Friday.

  On Friday, Ernie and I went to the program manager’s office. He was seated behind his desk and the second we walked in the door, before he could say anything, we both said together, “We quit.”

  The guy’s mouth fell open as the two of us turned and left the room.

  Our firing/quitting wasn’t such a disaster. Ernie and I already had decided that we had more to offer than chitchat and had made an appointment to see the station manager at WJW-TV. We were going to pitch a morning show with Ernie as the talent and yours truly as the director. Ernie’s talent was still in question and there was no question that I had never directed anything. The crazy thing is the station manager hired us. We had one week to prepare Ernie’s Place, a two-hour morning show on which a movie would be shown. During the intermission, Ernie would chat with a guest. Our first week on the air was an unequivocal mishmash, two hours of confusion, which I aided and abetted from the director’s booth. Did I mention that I’d never directed a TV show and that I didn’t have a clue how to do so? I couldn’t even get the show on or off the air at the appointed times. I had no idea how to “back time” a movie, which means timing it so that the film ends at an exact moment. That first week whether or not the movie had ended, it was cut off at 10:00 in order for the station t
o go to network programming. If you saw Citizen Kane on Ernie’s Place, you’d never know what “Rosebud” was.

  Some of the experienced staff members realized that I was useless, and we got a few of them like Chuck Schowdoski to do the actual directing. The alleged director (me) sat in the booth twiddling his thumbs while Chuck and the others ran the show. As far as guests, nobody knew who Ernie was, therefore nobody wanted to appear with him. I came up with a plan to fill the guest slots. I’d lock the camera on, come out of the booth, and join Ernie as the guest. I played a whole bunch of people. Ernie would introduce me by saying things like, “Today we’re delighted to welcome Chef Luigi Schumaci.” I’d come out in the guise of an Italian chef, and we’d do an extemporaneous interview about making “veal ears à la Diavolo.”

  One time I sat down in front of the camera and talked with what I called a pseudo-Romanian accent.

  “Hello, I’m huh-Dag Herferd,” the name popped into my head.

  “I understand you’re a bullfighter,” shot back Ernie.

  “That’s huh-right,” I answered not bothering to change my Sophia-inspired accent to a Spanish one. I spent the next seven minutes talking bull(s).

  During these interviews, I was all over the place uttering non sequitur after non sequitur while Ernie played it straight. This was great training. Gradually I began writing comedy sketches for the “guests.” Ernie and I had a ball with these bogus conversations and taped a few for our own amusement. Meanwhile, our show became such a joke that people actually started watching. The reviews were scathing and went along the lines of, “Want to see stink? Don’t miss Ernie’s Place.” Soon, we became the talk of the town, partly because the town was Cleveland. People expected so little, and we were able to provide it. And then, in the fall of 1960, lightning struck in the form of Rose Marie. A former child star and now a featured member of one of the most popular sitcoms of the day, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Rose Marie was in Cleveland on a promotional tour and scheduled to appear on Mike Douglas’s talk show on KYW-TV. Her visit literally launched my career.