Tim Conway and Harvey Korman could make almost any situation funny.
Put them in a dentist’s office and chaos followed.
Put them in a clock shop and Harvey could barely keep a straight face.
Put them inside a tiny submarine?
The result was exactly what audiences had come to expect: complete comedy disaster.
This memorable Carol Burnett Show sketch places Conway and Korman together as two sailors inside an absurdly cramped submarine. Episode listings describe the segment as two Japanese sailors arguing underwater, and the premise gives the pair everything they need to create physical comedy.
The setting itself is already a joke.
A submarine should represent military engineering, discipline and precision.
Instead, everything feels ridiculously small.
The performers barely seem to have enough room to function.
That immediately creates opportunities for Conway’s style of comedy.
Tim Conway was particularly brilliant when his character was given a simple task that should have been easy.
Then he made it almost impossible.
Operating equipment, moving around the submarine or communicating with his partner could suddenly require enormous effort.
Harvey Korman was the perfect person to put beside him.
Korman’s characters frequently believed they were responsible adults trapped with someone completely incompetent.
That dynamic powered many of their greatest sketches.
Harvey wanted progress.
Tim created delays.
Harvey wanted professionalism.
Tim created chaos.
Harvey wanted to finish the scene.
Tim frequently seemed determined to make that impossible.
Audiences loved watching the battle.
And there was always another question hanging over their performances:
Would Harvey break character?
Korman’s inability to suppress his laughter around Conway became almost as famous as the scripted material itself.
Viewers started watching his face whenever Conway prepared to do something strange.
A slight smile could appear.
Harvey would look away.
He would attempt to recover.
Then Tim would push the joke one step further.
Sometimes that was all it took.
The submarine sketch benefits enormously from that chemistry.
The confined environment keeps the two performers close together.
Harvey can’t escape Tim.
Every mistake becomes his problem too.
That’s a simple but extremely effective comedy structure.
It also demonstrates why Conway and Korman’s partnership remains entertaining decades later.
Their comedy wasn’t entirely dependent on references to 1970s politics or celebrity culture.
Much of it depended on universal human frustration.
Everyone knows what it feels like to work with someone who makes a simple task unnecessarily difficult.
Everyone knows what it feels like to try to remain serious when somebody nearby is doing something ridiculous.
Conway and Korman took those experiences and exaggerated them.
The military setting only increases the contrast.
Soldiers are expected to be disciplined.
These two are anything but.
A submarine crew is expected to work together efficiently.
These two can barely function.
The more serious the environment is supposed to be, the funnier their behavior becomes.
That’s classic parody.
The sketch originally appeared during a 1974 episode featuring Bernadette Peters and Tim Conway. The same episode also included an “As the Stomach Turns” parody involving a possessed character and Conway as an unlikely exorcist.
That variety illustrates what made The Carol Burnett Show special.
One episode could move between musical performance, movie parody, character comedy and broad physical humor.
Conway could appear as one ridiculous character and then become someone completely different minutes later.
Harvey could play the authority figure.
Carol could transform into an outrageous movie heroine.
Vicki Lawrence could become a character decades older than herself.
The format encouraged experimentation.
And sometimes the best experiment was simply:
Put Tim Conway and Harvey Korman in a tiny room and see what happens.
The answer was usually laughter.
Today, clips like this work particularly well on social media because the visual premise is understandable immediately.
Two men.
Tiny submarine.
Strange equipment.
One of them already looks frustrated.
You don’t need to know the episode.
You just know something is about to go wrong.
That’s timeless comedy storytelling.
And when the two men happen to be Tim Conway and Harvey Korman, audiences know one more thing:
Whatever the mission was supposed to be, there’s almost no chance they’re going to complete it normally. 😂
