A Sunday Funny: Why Does A Secret Plan to Destroy A Sketch Partner Make Me Laugh?

Another in an occasional series on things that never fail to crack me up, for reasons I can never fully explain

In the very early days of Saturday Night Live, the hosts, writers, and even the showrunner himself frequently deployed a kind of critical shorthand.

It was a way to dismiss any premise that didn’t quite fit the vision for such a new, hip, trailblazer of a show.

Host Buck Henry remembered wanting to rewrite an early sketch to give it a traditional ending, but SNL writers dismissed him:

Group of six people, with a man in a cardigan and glasses in the foreground, smiling and looking at the camera.

“They thought somehow it was like Carol Burnett.”

Band leader Paul Shaffer recalled that even something as pedestrian as the closing credits had to avoid sounding “too Carol Burnett.”

Man in sunglasses performing at a piano in a blue tracksuit.

And Lorne Michaels himself famously corrected director Dave Wilson for using the word “skit, explaining:

"Man speaking passionately at a desk with wooden backdrop."

“We do sketches.
Skits are what Carol Burnett does.”

To the young rebels of SNL, The Carol Burnett Show represented everything they wanted to avoid:

Too broad… too formulaically corny… and at the top of the list: too willing to let performers break character and laugh at their own material.

Professional actors are taught from day one: never break character. The show must go on.

"Man laughing joyfully in casual attire, sitting in a relaxed setting."

Stay in the moment. Keep the illusion alive.

But what happens when a performer deliberately sets out to destroy that very principle? Not by accident, but through calculated comedic warfare?

Enter Tim Conway and Harvey Korman in one of the most famous sketch breakdowns in television history.

“The Dentist” from The Carol Burnett Show, originally aired on March 3, 1969.

"Comedy scene featuring a dentist and patient in an office with dental chair."

Conway plays a fresh-out-of-dental-school practitioner treating his very first patient, played by Korman.

The sketch was inspired by Conway’s real-life dentist, who while still a student accidentally injected novocaine into his own thumb while working on a patient. As Conway explained:

“He numbed his own thumb and didn’t want to mention it to the patient. I did the same thing to Harvey.”

"Older man in a brown sweater speaking during an interview with a colorful backdrop."

As the sketch unfolds, Conway’s bumbling dentist repeatedly injects himself with novocaine, each time affecting a different part of his body. His hand goes numb, then his cheek, and then his leg begins to give way.

A dentist exaggeratedly yawning while administering treatment to a nervous patient in an office setting.

All the while, he continues trying to work on Korman’s character with increasingly impaired motor skills.

Conway later revealed: “The idea of repeated accidental novocaine shots was a surprise to him; he hadn’t seen that part of the sketch until we were taping.”

That last part is crucial. Conway had weaponized a surprise.

Picture this from Korman’s perspective.

You’re strapped into a dentist chair, in full view of a of a live audience. Your scene partner begins an increasingly absurd physical performance you’ve never seen before.

"Doctor examining patient in a humorous medical scene."

You’re supposed to maintain your role as an anxious patient, but Conway is suddenly going off-script – what’s next?

The moment when Korman first starts to crack is visible – a tiny smile creeping across his face as Conway’s debilitated dentist struggles to function. Conway then doubles down, his body becoming more grotesquely numb, and his movements more erratic.

Korman tries valiantly to stay in character. But it’s a losing battle.

His laughter starts as barely contained, and it’s pretty much downhill from there.

"Comedic scene of a dentist with tools and a nervous patient in an office setting."

Conway, meanwhile, follows his plan with complete intention, never once acknowledging that he’s destroying his scene partner.

This wasn’t winging it or goofing around, it was deliberate. He knew exactly what he was doing every step of the way, following his own secret script. A meta-performance designed to systematically dismantle Korman’s composure.

As Conway later admitted: “My object was to find places in the sketch where I knew I could break up Harvey. I don’t think I ever missed.”

"Talk show hosts and guests laughing during an interview."

So: What’s So Funny About It?

Why does watching Harvey Korman completely lose his composure make me laugh? I think I know why.

The vulnerability is contagious.

"Comedic dental scene with a nervous patient and a dentist in an office."

When we see a professional performer completely lose it, something primal happens.

Korman’s helplessness and attempts to maintain composure trigger our own laughter.

The “prisoner” dynamic:

Korman is a sitting duck. He’s quite literally strapped to a chair.

Two actors in a comedic scene, one examining the other's nose in a doctor's office setting.

He’s trapped: between his professional obligation to continue the scene and his human inability to stop laughing.

Genuine humanity emerges.

For a moment, we’re not watching Harvey Korman The Actor play a dental patient.

"Comedic dental scene with a nervous patient and a distressed dentist."

We’re watching Harvey Korman, the human being react honestly to something genuinely funny happening to him in real time.

The sketch runs about nine minutes, but Conway’s systematic destruction begins around the three-minute mark and continues through to the end.

Despite Korman’s helplessness threatening to break him, Conway rallies each time, remembering his core objective: a premeditated assault to destroy his scene partner while maintaining his own character’s perfect discipline.

The extent of Korman’s breakdown was legendary.

As Conway later revealed with obvious pride: “As a matter of fact, in the dentist sketch, you can actually see Harvey wet his pants from laughing.”

Man in a dental chair with a dentist preparing for treatment, dental certificates on the wall.

While I couldn’t find a direct quote from Korman about this particular sketch, it’s virtually certain that his reaction is real. The helpless, uncontrollable laughter that builds and builds is unmistakably genuine.

Conway got what he wanted. And poor Harvey? One thing for sure: He never stood a chance.