The setup sounds serious.
It is 1942.
The setting is somewhere at sea.
Two sailors are inside a World War II-era submarine, surrounded by maps, controls, pipes, gauges, and equipment that suggest everything they do should matter.
Then Tim Conway and Harvey Korman take over.
And almost immediately, military precision becomes impossible.
The sketch, presented as “1942 Somewhere in Water,” puts Conway and Korman inside a submarine environment where a routine wartime operation gradually turns into a physical comedy disaster. The uploaded clip runs for nearly seven minutes, and almost the entire routine is built around the two performers trying to accomplish serious tasks while making each other’s jobs increasingly difficult.
That contrast is what makes the sketch work.
Everything around them looks important.
There is a large tactical map on the wall.
Model ships mark positions.
There is a periscope.
There are controls that appear to demand careful handling.
One wrong move should have serious consequences.
But Tim Conway has never needed a complicated premise to create chaos.
Give him a map, a sailor, and a few pieces of equipment, and he can turn the entire submarine into a playground.
Early in the sketch, the two men spend much of their time around the large map.
One character appears to be explaining or tracking positions while the other watches closely.
The scene initially has the visual language of a military briefing.
Points are being indicated.
Ships are being moved.
Directions matter.
At least they are supposed to.
But the longer the two men interact with the board, the less this feels like a strategic wartime operation and the more it feels like two people trying to survive each other.
That is where Conway and Korman were so effective together.
Harvey Korman could react to something ridiculous as though it were the last thing his character could possibly tolerate.
Tim Conway could do something completely absurd while maintaining the calm expression of a man who saw absolutely nothing unusual about it.
Put those two rhythms together and even moving a marker across a map can become funny.
The sketch keeps escalating.
The conversation around the map gives way to more movement around the submarine.
One character shifts between controls and equipment while the other follows.
The space itself begins working against them.
A large vertical structure in the middle of the set repeatedly becomes part of the action.
Instead of simply walking around the submarine, the two performers begin interacting with the set physically.
And once that begins, the situation gets much more dangerous for their dignity.
By the middle portion of the sketch, the comedy has moved from verbal confusion into full physical chaos.
One man ends up down on the floor.
The other tries to help.
That does not make things better.
Soon they are pulling, lifting, leaning, reaching, and struggling around the equipment.
The carefully controlled military environment has completely collapsed.
The officers and sailors these men are supposed to represent may be operating a submarine.
Tim Conway and Harvey Korman look like they are trying to survive a piece of furniture.
The physical comedy becomes increasingly exaggerated.
At one point, one performer is stretched upward while the other remains below.
Moments later, someone is hanging or being pulled in an awkward position.
The central structure on the submarine set becomes almost another character.
Every attempt to regain control seems to create a new problem.
That pattern is classic Conway.
A small mistake does not get corrected.
It develops.
Then it develops again.
The audience gets time to understand what is going wrong before the next complication arrives.
That slow escalation makes each new physical gag stronger.
Korman’s reactions are equally important.
His characters often look like men desperately trying to preserve order in a world controlled by Tim Conway.
That expression is visible throughout this sketch.
The more ridiculous the situation becomes, the more Korman appears to be asking the same silent question:
How did I get trapped here with this man?
And Conway keeps giving him new reasons to regret it.
The submarine setting is perfect for that kind of comedy because there is nowhere to escape.
On land, Harvey could theoretically walk away.
Inside a submarine?
He is stuck.
The set is enclosed.
The machinery surrounds them.
The mission must continue.
And Tim Conway is still there.
Eventually, the action shifts toward the periscope and the large cylindrical equipment extending from the side of the set.
Now the sketch looks as though it might finally return to its military premise.
Perhaps they are going to locate a target.
Perhaps they are finally going to accomplish something.
Instead, the machinery becomes another opportunity for confusion.
The two men crowd around the periscope.
One looks.
The other interferes.
Their bodies compete for space.
Once again, the serious function of the submarine equipment becomes less important than the absurd way they are using it.
Then the sketch produces one of its biggest visual escalations.
A large torpedo-like object extends dramatically into the room.
At this point, almost nothing about the operation appears under control.
The object is enormous.
The space is tight.
The two men are still trying to manage the situation.
And Conway’s character eventually has to physically deal with the oversized mechanism.
The image alone is funny.
A supposedly disciplined wartime crew has reached the point where the submarine itself seems to be winning.
That is the real joke running through the entire sketch.
The enemy is almost irrelevant.
The ocean is irrelevant.
The military mission is irrelevant.
These two men are already in enough danger simply trying to operate their own equipment.
The humor comes from watching competence disappear piece by piece.
At the beginning, there is still the suggestion of order.
Uniforms are neat.
The map is ready.
The submarine is functioning.
The characters appear to have jobs to do.
By the end, the room has become a physical comedy arena.
That transformation is what makes the sketch memorable.
Tim Conway does not need to play a loud character.
He can create enormous comedy through timing, movement, and the way he approaches simple tasks.
A pause can be funny.
A wrong movement can be funny.
Taking too long to understand something can be funny.
And Harvey Korman is the perfect person to stand beside him and react.
Their chemistry depends on imbalance.
One performer remains strangely calm.
The other becomes increasingly frustrated.
One creates the problem.
The other has to live with it.
Then the problem gets bigger.
The submarine sketch gives them an ideal environment for that formula.
Everything looks serious enough that the nonsense feels even more ridiculous.
Military maps become props.
Equipment becomes obstacles.
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A periscope becomes part of the joke.
Even a torpedo becomes something that looks almost impossible for them to handle correctly.
The title card says “1942 Somewhere in Water.”
That is technically the location.
But after a few minutes, the more accurate description might be:
Somewhere between a military mission and complete disaster.
And that is exactly where Tim Conway and Harvey Korman were at their best.
They take a setting built around discipline, precision, and danger—
and turn it into seven minutes of two men barely surviving each other.
