by Corey Andrew
Corey: Is it tough to work when you’re trying to plan something like this?
Lisa: I’m so anal that I planned so much in advance, so most of it’s done. Also I have a lot of back-up; I have an assistant. The Friar’s Club is doing pretty much everything. Put it this way, it could happen tomorrow and it would go off without a hitch. I’m not thinking about it too much, except micro-managing every single detail!
Corey: What about the dress?
Lisa: Yes, I went to the Jew place in (TLC’s) ‘Say Yes to the Dress,’ Kleinfeld’s. I got a big ball gown and we measured it and it’s like 150 inches around at the bottom, so it’s like a Scarlett O’Hara dress. We measured the doors to make sure I could fit. Here it is, I lose weight and I still can’t fit through a freakin’ door!
Corey: Is your father going to walk you down the aisle?
Lisa: No, I think the tradition with second marriages is, you’re on your own. I’m walking myself, plus he can’t fit down the aisle with me and that dress. Sad, but true.
Corey: Have you discovered you’re more of a girly-girl than you thought?
Lisa: Oh yeah, my colors are Tiffany blue and ivory, so yeah, that says a lot. Either that, or I’m just a money-grubbing whore who likes Tiffany’s, giving people a gentle hint to buy me something expensive!
Corey: How much have you been talking about the whole relationship and planning and stuff onstage?
Lisa: A lot. Not the planning and stuff, because I do comedy guys can relate to, not so much women, because guys are the ones usually spending the money on the tickets, so I talk a lot about Jimmy and his enormous nut sack and all the other stuff. I don’t really talk too much about the wedding, because guys are like, ‘Move on, bitch.’
Corey: Have you gotten a sense of disappointment, because you’re seen as a guy’s gal—ready to throw down with the fellas?
Lisa: I’d like to think there’s weeping across the country about it, but so far I haven’t gotten any letters of protest. ‘OK, she’s off the market, let’s move on. What’s Sarah Silverman doin’?’
Corey: You did another roast for David Hasselhoff. There seem to be these themes with other comics when they roast you. Has that changed now that you’re getting married?
Lisa: No, those freakin’ idiots. How can’t they know? Jimmy’s been on ‘TMZ’ with me, ‘Extra,’ on Howard Stern and still the comics can’t do their research and find out that I don’t like the blacks anymore. Not that I don’t like them, it’s just non-exclusive. Hopefully next year they’ll catch up and the jokes will be about Jimmy’s big balls and not me.
Corey: When you’re going into a situation like this do you think of jokes they might say about you, come up with some lines about yourself?
Lisa: With women comics, it falls into five categories: whore, fat, ugly, not funny and stupid. I always know which one’s they’re gonna hit me with. This was actually the first roast where every joke about me was hilarious. You can hear me laughing at every single joke about me. I felt like I was the star.
Corey: You weren’t the closer this time, right?
Lisa: No, I went first and it was much easier. I hope I can do it like that from now on.
Corey: Did you think of any good lines after the fact that you weren’t able to say?
Lisa: No, I’m used to preparing like 30 pages because I usually close and I have to cut out like 20 pages. I have so much material that I’m all tapped out. With this one, it was like, move on to the next thing. Screw Hasselhoff; who’s the next victim?
Corey: Have you noticed your demeanor changing as you step into this new phase of life? How much is it affecting your comedy?
Lisa: I’m still the disruptive bee-yotch I’ve always been. I think I take even more chances because now I have a built-in security guy who will kick everybody’s ass for me. I sometimes listen to tapes of my recent shows and am like, ‘Oh, my God. Did I really say that?’ Sadly, it’s gotten even worse.
Corey: Are you purposefully trying to be more outrageous because you don’t want to be seen as a housewife?
Lisa: No, I think it happens naturally. I don’t think you should try and be anything, because that comes across as phony. I go, wow, that is the next phase of getting a little more edgy and just keeping the edge on. I never notice myself backing off, which I’m really grateful for.
Corey: Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that you’ve gotten more well-known and people want you to be lashing out at them? Take it up a notch because they’re already expecting you to hit them?
Lisa: I never care what people think. I can perform in comedy clubs the rest of my life, so whatever. Now that I’m doing theatres for the past few years, that’s gonna be my audience and it’s a real gift, so I’m just gonna be myself. I don’t go ramping it up. I just be me because that’s who they paid to see, not just stumbling into a comedy club. You don’t really try to be edgy, but your own personality, unfortunately, can be spiteful.
Corey: What was the first thing that struck you about Jimmy that made you think he had a chance?
Lisa: He was really naturally funny. He doesn’t try to be funny. I’ve dated guys, ‘I’m really funny, too.’ And I’m like, ‘No you’re not, dude. You’re fuckin’ stupid.’ Jimmy’s funny without trying and really had me laughing. Also I’d dated bad boys for so long I really liked that he had real nice morals and character. He didn’t have a bad bone in his body. He’s not too difficult on the eyes—from what he says.
Corey: How would you describe his sense of humor?
Lisa: He can be corny and that makes me laugh. He’s more along the lines of outrageous. I’ll say, ‘That’s so funny, I’m gonna put that in my act.’ Basically I steal all his material and the audience benefits.
Corey: What’s one of the sweetest things he’s ever done for you?
Lisa: Oh, my God, I don’t even know. Oh, I know! He let me plan the whole wedding and kept his mouth shut about it. I’m the classy one as you can tell.
Corey: When did you think of the nickname for Jimmy?
Lisa: Actually, Howard Stern said it, so he was honored. ‘I used to be Jimmy Cano and now I’m Jimmy Big Balls, but when Howard gives you a nickname, you stick with it.’ Now he likes it. We just got a puppy and I was outside trying to make it shit outside for a change, and somebody yells, ‘Where’s Big Balls?’ Great, his dumb big nut sack is more famous than I am.
Corey: After the wedding, how soon are we going to be hearing the pitter patter of little feet in the Big Balls house?
Lisa: Never! Come on, let’s be honest, we’re both 49; our kid would be a retard. With this dog, if we don’t kill it, we may get another one, you never know.
Corey: You could do the Hollywood thing and adopt.
Lisa: How about the fact that we hate kids, does that count?
Corey: You could afford a nanny, so it could just be like a status thing.
Lisa: I think kids decrease your value. You know, Angelina Jolie, please stop adopting those niglets. We don’t need that no mo’!
Corey: Now that you’re off the market, what is some good advice you have for singles?
Lisa: Oh, my God. Get your whore stage out of your system in your 20s, because it’s kind of gross in your 40s. Then, don’t look for a guy who’s good-lookin’ or had a lot of money, look for the things that really count: nice character, nice morals—and a big meat sack.
Tim Conway
What’s a Tim Conway?
“About 120 pounds.”
Such is the spontaneous repartee the diminutive comic is known for, whether he’s causing the entire cast of “The Carol Burnett Show” to turn crimson and tear up from laughter or holding his own with another comedy legend, Don Knotts, in “The Apple Dumpling Gang.”
Conway got his start on “The Steve Allen Show” and then “McHale’s Navy,” but he is probably best known for the Burnett show, where characters like the not-so-swift-footed Old Man and the perplexed and heavily accented office boss, Mr. Tudball, ma
de him an audience favorite. The show-stealer was also known by millions for his ability to get Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence and, on occasion, Burnett to lose their cool and crack up on camera.
As Tim Conway gets closer to resembling the little Old Man character he plays, who shuffles along a path at a turtle’s pace, his comic sense of timing hasn’t slowed a bit.
(On a side note, this interview occurred prior to the death of Harvey Korman, so we weren’t really teasing the dead—just the elderly.)
Corey: You have to be honest, you’re carrying this show, right?
Tim: Absolutely. I’m telling you, I don’t know how much longer I can do it. I’ve been carrying this guy for 45 years. He thinks I’m his friend or something.
Corey: Can you tell me a little bit about the format of the show?
Tim: I’m sensational in it, I can tell you that much. It’s kind of a traveling Burnett show. We do about five or six sketches, and there’s a lady who travels with us, Louise DuArt, and she does impressions. We do stand-up. It really is a Burnett show. We do characters, the old man and Tudball and Dorf. Not sketches that they saw, but for the most part it’s something they will recognize. It’s like when you go to see Andy Williams and he sings ‘Moon River,’ and you go, ‘By golly, it was worth it.’ We try to sing ‘Moon River.’ I guess they enjoy it.
Corey: Is there a question and answer period?
Tim: Yes, there is, and there’s plenty of places where we jump in and do what we did on the Burnett show—Harvey still being a very poor performer. He’s still easy to break up. It truly is such a joy to do. I know that sounds crazy when you’re working. We give them what they’re looking for and they really enjoy it.
Corey: When was the first time you realized you could get someone to break up while a camera was rolling?
Tim Conway: It was on the Burnett show, that’s for sure. I think the biggest one was the dentist sketch, where Harvey (Korman) went south on me and never recovered. First of all, I never took the business seriously. I was never one to (say), ‘Let’s get our lines down and rehearse’ and all that crap. I was out there having a good time. If they had told me to go home at any time during my time in show business, I’d say, ‘That’s great. I’ve had a ball, and I’ll see you folks in another time zone.’
That attitude lent itself to monkey-ing around. Carol is about as gracious as you can get for a star. Anybody who let us clown around her the way we did, she should have her head examined. She just let us do whatever we wanted. It was a very easy show to do.
Corey: When the ad-libs first started, did they want to keep them out and do another take?
Tim: No, Carol believed in doing the show as though it were live. We taped it twice, once on Friday afternoon—and that was really a dress rehearsal to find out where we were going. And at night we would tape the show and they didn’t correct it. That’s why they left everything in. It had the appearance of being done at that time and the audience was in on it. Sometimes the crew didn’t know what we were going to do for the air show—including the producers. It had the quality of letting the audience join in on the break-ups.
Corey: I spoke to Vicki Lawrence about a month ago, and she described it as almost a playground-like atmosphere.
Tim: Absolutely. The last three or four years I don’t think we rehearsed three hours a week. We would get the sketches on Monday and by Monday afternoon we had it all down. So we would just talk the rest of the week. That was another thing, Carol did not believe in over-rehearsing. Let’s keep it fresh and whatever comes out that’s going to be entertaining will come out while we’re taping.
Corey: When you first started to get Harvey to bust up, what would he say after?
Tim: He was always kind of embarrassed about it, and after a while, he just gave up. The thing was, I was a writer. I’d write a sketch for us and write one thing but do something else while we were doing the sketch, because I knew where I could go with it and how to control it. And he’d just stand there and stare at me. It was fun to see him go. You could tell the minute we started he was trying to control breaking up, and we hadn’t even started anything yet.
Corey: Was that a lack of professionalism on his part?
Tim: I would say so, definitely.
Corey: Who was the hardest to get going?
Tim: Carol. It was awfully hard to break Carol up. We’d get to her once in a while.
Corey: Did you see that as a challenge?
Tim: Oh yeah. She knew it, too. But we continued to do it.
Corey: When you created the Old Man character, did you think you would still be doing him 30 years later?
Tim: No, I didn’t think I’d do it for that show. I didn’t do the Old Man until we started taping that show. When I started walking out, I was walking across the room and I thought it was a joke to walk that way. They’ve got to stop me, because this thing is gonna be three days long if I keep walking this way.
And I just kept walking and walking and nobody stopped me, and I thought, ‘Jeez, they’re actually accepting this.’ We had a sketch that was eight minutes and it probably went until at least 15 on the original one. That’s the way things were discovered on that show.
Corey: I always enjoyed the Mr. Tudball and ‘Mrs. Huh-Wiggins’ sketches. Where did the character come from, and how would you describe his accent?
Tim: I have no idea where that accent came from. That was another thing with the Burnett show, you’d get a sketch, and it didn’t matter what your character was supposed to be on paper. You’d go to wardrobe and Bob Mackie would throw a strange costume on you—you’d get a bad toupee, some kind of a dopey voice—and that was your character for the week. Those characters came out spontaneous almost.
With Tudball, I wrote the original sketch, and the writers had a room at the end of the hall, and there were six of us. At the other end of the hall was the secretary who would type all this stuff. You’d have to walk all the way down there to say, ‘Change this, type this.’ You spent most of the day walking back and forth. They finally got this intercom and it was one of those early ones, two buttons: talk and off. When it would buzz, you’d say, ‘Hello,’ and when you wanted to talk, you’d press the talk button.
But when you pressed the talk button, you couldn’t hear the guy on the other end. You’d call down and say, ‘Charlene, could you just type …’ ‘Hello?’ ‘Uh, Charlene …’ ‘Hello?’ ‘Charlene, don’t press the…’ ‘Hello?’ You have to walk all the way down and say, ‘Charlene, don’t press the button while I’m talking. You see I can’t hear you; you can’t hear me.’ That was the basis of that sketch. And Carol, her character came from Bob Mackie. He put that big rump on her, and she said, ‘Don’t you think we should take this down a little?’ He said, ‘No, stick it out there and let’s see what happens.’ Away it went.
Corey: At what point do you know a sketch is good enough to become recurring?
Tim: I think the audience that first night was a definite indication. That was the thing, you never really knew. The dumbest things would take off. That was really meant to be a one-time-only sketch about an intercom.
Corey: What would it take for the Apple Dumpling Gang to ride again?
Tom: Wow, I don’t know if we could get up on a horse again. I’d love to. Don and I are getting some kind of an award for Disney. Outside of ‘Mary Poppins,’ that was one of the highest grossing movies of the time when Disney was around. I guess you get your footprint in cement on Mickey Avenue or something.
Corey: Are they gonna make you put on the old get-up?
Tim: Boy, I hope not. That was great to work with Don. I always say, I’m in this business because of Don. When I used to watch the old Steve Allen show and man on the street with Don and Tom Posten. Don is an icon in the business. That face and what he does with it just will never be duplicated. Don is Barney in real life. It was such a pleasure to finally get to work with him. There’s some things in that movie I’m very proud of, and a lot of that is spontaneous, to
o. Of course, Don being the professional he is, went right along with it and became part of the picture.
Corey: Are people hesitant to work with you?
Tim: Yeah. As a matter of fact, in ‘The Apple Dumpling Gang,’ the scene in the firehouse where we take the ladder out, they actually built a set for us way ahead of the time they were supposed to shoot that. They said it was really a silent movie sketch and we were going to have to work it out. They built this set and brought us out for a whole week just to rehearse this scene, while they were filming other parts of the movie. Don and I would come in and talk about Steve Allen and show business and we would go home at noon and we never even attempted to do anything. After about a week, now they’re ready to shoot this thing, and they say, ‘OK, what did you guys work out?’ I said, ‘Actually, Don worked most of it out. Don, do you want to show them what you’ve got?’ He had nothing. We just started walking around the set, creating it as we went. And they said. ‘Great. Swell.’