There are comedy moments that age like fine wine, and then there’s Tim Conway’s “Budget Airline” sketch from The Carol Burnett Show — a five-minute masterpiece that feels like it was engineered in a lab to destroy human composure. Aired on March 22, 1975, during Season 8, Episode 21, the bit has racked up over 30 million views across YouTube and streaming platforms in the past decade alone, with fans insisting it’s “the funniest thing ever committed to television.” And the secret weapon? Conway moving half a second slower than physics should allow.
The premise is gloriously simple: Harvey Korman plays a harried airline pilot giving a pre-flight safety demonstration. Vicki Lawrence is the perky stewardess. And Conway? He’s the world’s oldest, most confused passenger — a shuffling, mumbling, half-deaf senior who turns a routine announcement into absolute anarchy. Dressed in a cardigan and bowtie, Conway enters with the speed of continental drift, pausing mid-shuffle to adjust his hearing aid, search for a seat that’s already assigned, and finally sit — only to realize he’s in the wrong row. Every movement is deliberate torture: he lifts a foot, holds it in the air for three full seconds, then gently places it down like he’s defusing a bomb. Korman’s face is the real star — his eyes widen, his lip quivers, and by minute two he’s visibly fighting for his life not to corpse.
The audience is already howling when Conway pulls out a sandwich the size of a briefcase, unwraps it with glacial precision, and offers half to a terrified Lawrence. But the knockout blow comes when he tries to stow his luggage overhead — lifting a suitcase that appears to weigh 400 pounds, inch by agonizing inch while Korman’s pilot loses the battle and turns away, shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Burnett, off-camera, can be heard wheezing. The crew is useless. Even the boom mic dips as the operator succumbs.
Conway later admitted the entire bit was improvised on the spot. “I just decided to go slower than humanly possible,” he told Archives of American Television in 2008. “Harvey hated me that day — but he loved me too.” Korman famously said it was the only time in 11 years he completely lost control on camera, later joking that Conway “should’ve been charged with assault.”
Fifty years on, the sketch remains untouchable. It’s been inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame, inspired countless “slowest man alive” memes, and still trends every time someone rediscovers it. Modern comics like Ryan Reynolds and Bowen Yang cite it as “comedy scripture.” And every rewatch? You laugh exactly like it’s the first time — because perfection never gets old.
Stream the full sketch on YouTube or the Carol Burnett Show official channel. Just don’t blame us when your stomach hurts tomorrow.
