The moment Harvey Korman whispered, “Tim… please stop… I can’t breathe,” live television officially surrendered.
No one — absolutely no one — was prepared for Tim Conway to drift into the sketch as “Dr. Nose” and quietly detonate it from the inside.
The setup felt ordinary enough. Lines were flowing, cues were being hit. Then Conway appeared, armed with an absurd prop that looked suspiciously improvised. The energy in the room shifted instantly. You could see it in Harvey’s eyes — the realization that survival was no longer guaranteed.
Korman tried. He truly did. Lips trembling, hand pressed over his face, shoulders tightening with effort. He attempted to hold the scene together as Conway examined him with exaggerated seriousness.
Then came the line.
“This might sting a little.”
Delivered calmly. Innocently. As if nothing strange was happening at all.
Harvey broke in spectacular fashion — a sound escaping him that was part laugh, part desperate plea. The audience detonated. Applause mixed with shrieks of laughter. People in the front row were wiping tears from their sleeves.
The cameras could barely keep up. Crew members behind the scenes were said to be losing it just as badly. And Conway, sensing total collapse, did what only he could do — he leaned in harder.
He added fresh lines. Extended pauses. Tiny physical gestures that stretched the moment beyond endurance. The sketch unraveled completely, but somehow became even more brilliant because of it.
What made it legendary wasn’t just the joke — it was the authenticity. Nothing felt forced. It was live, fragile, and gloriously out of control.
One viewer summed it up perfectly: “We’ll never see anything that perfectly unhinged again.”
And decades later, that moment still stands as proof that sometimes the funniest thing on television is watching professionals lose it — and loving every second of it.
