Thanks, Harvey, for making me laugh

I can’t remember how old I was the first time I saw Harvey Korman on TV, but I do remember the context.

Korman was a regular on "The Carol Burnett Show," a skit-oriented comedy variety show that aired on CBS from 1967 to 1978. Korman died late last week. He was 81.

I watched "The Carol Burnett Show" regularly. Even during my school years, it was my dose of weekly comic medicine.

Admittedly, Tim Conway was my favorite star of the show, but Korman presented the ideal "straight man" persona. That is until he cracked up himself. Watching Korman (and Burnett) laugh uncontrollably at Conway’s antics put us all on the same level. It seemed that we were all laughing together.

Earlier this week, I realized that I wanted to write a tribute to Korman. So I went to Youtube.com to find whatever video clips were on there for Korman. There were several from "The Carol Burnett Show" and scenes from Mel Brooks’s 1974 western satire "Blazing Saddles," Korman’s most notable movie role as the conniving old west attorney general Hedley Lamarr.

It wasn’t until I was in college in 1981 that I saw "Blazing Saddles" because my parents thought I was too young when it came out. Since then, I must have seen it 100 times. (No, I didn’t actually count.) It was one of the first movie videos that I bought. I watched it so much that I wore it out.

There were a couple of Korman scenes from "Blazing Saddles" on Youtube.com, including a scene with Slim Pickens and the scene where Korman is motivating his army of bandits. That scene has one of my favorite lines from the movie.

"You will only be risking your lives whilst I will be risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor."

But I sometimes wonder why some people who we never meet touch our lives so much. I think for me, Korman, Conway and Burnett were my first experiences with an ongoing comedy. I knew that every week at that time I was going to be rolling on the floor from laughing so hard. That started a feeding frenzy. To this day, laughing hysterically is one of my favorite things, and I will go to great lengths to do it.

Indirectly, Korman is part of the reason I enjoy being on stage to try to give people a small taste of what I enjoy.

My recommendation for those days when you find that you need a good laugh as a pick-me-up is to find a DVD or go online to find scenes and clips of Korman doing what made him well-known: Laughing at Tim Conway.

Thank you, Harvey.

Don Bowen covers city and county government for the Tribune and has been known to do standup comedy from time to time. He can be reached at (402) 721-5000, Ext. 1427, or via e-mail at don.bowen@lee.net.