The Dentist Sketch That Made Harvey Korman Lose Control on Live TV

The pair had the audience doubled over with laughter as Harvey Korman played a terrified patient and Tim Conway stepped into the role of the world’s most disastrously nervous dentist.

Tim Conway once revealed the joke that made Harvey Korman laugh so hard he actually wet his pants on “The Carol Burnett Show.” Comedic duos like Conway and Korman simply don’t exist anymore. Every time they appeared together, chaos and genius collided, and nowhere was that more evident than in the iconic “Dentist” sketch. On Conan O’Brien’s show, Conway explained that Korman laughed so uncontrollably during filming that he literally couldn’t hold it in. Conway played the jittery dentist, while Korman portrayed the anxious patient — a setup that had the studio in hysterics before the sketch even got underway. The scene opens with Korman discovering his usual dentist is unavailable, and the nurse calmly assuring him that the new dentist is “fully qualified,” though she quietly adds that he just graduated.

Conway, equally terrified, gathers what little courage he has and prepares to pull Korman’s tooth as requested. What follows is pure comedic mayhem. The inexperienced dentist accidentally injects his own hand with novocaine, sending it limp. Determined to continue, he attempts the procedure anyway — only to jab his own foot next, leaving both his right hand and leg temporarily paralyzed. Korman tries desperately to remain serious, but the moment Conway’s limbs go numb and he begins wobbling around, Korman breaks completely. He collapses into laughter, unable to keep a straight face as Conway delivers a masterclass in physical comedy. The audience roars the entire time.

Conway never loses his composure, staying perfectly deadpan until the very end, when he finally shares a moment of cracked laughter with Korman. The sketch has since become the stuff of comedy legend — and no one could truly blame Korman for losing control. Conway later admitted the sketch was inspired by a real event from his time in the military. During his final weeks of service, he visited a dentist who accidentally injected himself in the thumb, leaving his own hand numb. Just like in the sketch, the dentist insisted on continuing with the procedure anyway, much to Conway’s shock.

“The Carol Burnett Show” launched the careers of countless comedy legends and earned eight Golden Globes and 25 Emmy Awards over the years. Conway loved to prank Korman, often surprising him with bits he had never rehearsed. “Harvey never saw what I was going to do until we were actually doing the sketch,” Conway recalled. “In the dentist sketch, you can literally see Harvey wet his pants from laughing.” Beyond his work on Burnett’s show, Conway became beloved for voicing Barnacle Boy on “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

Before entering show business, Conway worked in the military and later at a local television station in Cleveland. “I had no formal training. I just had a sense of humor and had been in front of a microphone,” he once said. He appeared as a guest star on “The Carol Burnett Show” for eight seasons before officially joining the cast in 1975. “They were doing 33 shows a year,” Conway explained. “Carol asked why I didn’t just become a regular. I told her I’d do 32 shows and leave one open so I could guest somewhere else. I always ended up on her show anyway. My job every week was simple: make everyone break character.”