Tim Conway - # 208

Tim Conway, Who Relished The Role Of Comedic Co-Star, Dies At 85

One of the funniest guys ever - Tin Conway is number 208 on the list.

Tim Conway built a career playing goofballs who rarely took center stage — but he often helped turn good television shows into TV classics. The comic actor, who appeared on shows ranging from The Carol Burnett Show to SpongeBob SquarePants, died Tuesday morning, May 14. The cause was complications from a long illness, according to his representative, Howard Bragman. He was 85.

Conway's breakout role was on the 1960s sitcom McHale's Navy as a bumbling ensign in World War II. On The Carol Burnett Show, he played Mr. Tudball, a Romanian-accented boss perpetually annoyed by his slow-moving secretary. On the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, he voiced a frustrated superhero sidekick called Barnacle Boy.

Conway also starred in many TV shows, but few lasted very long. As he told the Archive of American Television, he always felt more comfortable being the guy standing behind the star, making everyone laugh.

"I've never been comfortable as the star," he said. "I don't feature myself as being the head man. I would much rather stand in the background and make small, funny things go than be up at the head of the class."

Born Thomas Daniel Conway in Ohio, he served in the Army and knocked around in Cleveland's local TV scene before heading to New York to join The Steve Allen Show in the early 1960s. Because the show already had a staffer named Tom Conway, he adopted the stage name Tim.

Conway told Weekend Edition host Scott Simon in 2010 that he started dreaming of a career in comedy when he was just a child. "I was really kind of the class clown," he said. "When you're small, you either are funny or you get beat up a lot."

He had dyslexia, and when he read words that weren't there, he found that other kids would laugh. Conway recalled thinking, "This is a good way to make a living. I'll just go downtown and read and have people laugh."

Conway's role on McHale's Navy led to lots of guest appearances on variety shows. Eventually, he landed a regular role on CBS' popular Carol Burnett Show, where he developed a reputation for sidesplitting improvisations that would make his co-stars crack up.


In the 1970s and '80s, he appeared in films with Andy Griffith Show alum Don Knotts, including in Disney's The Apple Dumpling Gang. He and Carol Burnett Show colleague Harvey Korman worked together in films and in stage productions until Korman died in 2008. In 1980, Conway again was given his own one-hour variety program, titled The Tim Conway Show (the title that was previously used for his 1970 sitcom). It aired on CBS, as his previous shows had, and debuted on March 22, 1980.


In the 1980s, Conway began appearing in a series of satirical how-to videos in which he plays a diminutive, dark-haired Scandinavian known as Dorf (a variation on "dwarf"), reprising his goofy Mr. Tudball accent. The Dorf character first appeared on the January 3, 1986 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In that episode, he was portraying a horse jockey. Dorf also appeared in the 1987 film Dorf on Golf and later appeared in eight other films on a variety of sports from baseball to auto racing. Dorf on Golf was remastered for DVD in 2007. In 2010, all of the Dorf films were remastered in a DVD Collection featuring all eight films, a behind-the-scenes with Dorf, and a commentary track by Tim Conway on "The Legend of the Paddle: The Oldie Hollis Story." Dorf also appeared on an episode of Tim Conway's Funny America in the summer of 1990, leading an aerobics class on his impossibly short legs.
He has lent his voice to other TV shows including The Simpsons, Disney spin-off Hercules, Lloyd in Space, The Wild Thornberrys, Cybill, What's New, Scooby-Doo?, The Proud Family, Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy!, Caillou, and What's with Andy?. He also narrated The Secret Shortcut in Reading Rainbow and hosted The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration.

Conway won six Emmy awards over his career, including four for his work on The Carol Burnett Show. He also won in 2008 for a guest appearance on the sitcom 30 Rock.


He starred in Disney films such as The World's Greatest Athlete (1973), The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), Gus (1976), and The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). He starred in the 1977 comedy film The Billion Dollar Hobo. Conway also co-starred with Don Knotts in The Prize Fighter (1979) and The Private Eyes (1980). He starred in the 1986 equestrian comedy, The Longshot. Conway also appeared with Dick Martin in Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998) as Fred Davis, the main announcer for the Timberwolves' final game, with Martin as his co-announcer, Phil Phil. He was Herman Dooly in the 1996 film, Dear God. Conway and Harvey Korman created a Collector's Edition DVD of new comedy sketches, titled Together Again; it was produced by Pasquale Murena and sold through Conway's official website


Starting in 2003, Conway teamed up with good friend Don Knotts again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series Hermie and Friends, which continued until Knotts' death in 2006. Conway continued to do the series.

In 2007, he hosted Thou Shalt Laugh 2: The Deuce, a collection of Christian stand-up comedians.

In 2012–13, he voiced the character Mulch in DreamWorks' Dragons: Riders of Berk series. In 2014, he played Professor VanVanguard, a knowledgeable character of the lives, characteristics and treating of zombies in the award-winning feature film Chip & Bernie's Zomance

In a career that spanned nearly six decades, he used his lightning-fast wit and impish improvisational skills to turn hapless, bumbling roles into the most popular characters who almost never got top billing.