If you've never seen or heard Tim Conway, you've been missing out on a comedy legend. Now in his 70s, Tim Conway is still one of the funniest guys on the planet. After a long run as a regular on The Carol Burnett Show and then going on to play his own original character, Dorf, Conway makes a return to primetime television on April 17 on NBC's 30 Rock where he plays an older celebrity who's been recruited then rejected by Jack to serve as the entertainment for a John McCain fundraising event.

Earlier this week, The Deadbolt took part in a conference call with several outlets to talk to Tim Conway about his role on 30 Rock, how sitcoms have evolved, whether Republicans or Democrats are easier to entertain, and how he once pulled a light bulb on an fellow guard during his stint in the Army.

THE DEADBOLT: Since your character, Bucky, on 30 Rock shares a lot of old Hollywood stories with Kenneth, what’s one of your favorite memories from your early days?

TIM CONWAY: Well, in early television, we had a show in the morning on Channel 8 in Cleveland and we were supposed to show a movie and Ernie Anderson, who was the voice of ABC on The Love Boat, that guy, was the talent and I was the director. He had very little talent and I had never directed. And when we came out - we just talked this guy into doing a show at that place - and when we came on the first morning we didn’t have a guest because nobody had seen the show yet and they didn’t want to be on it because they didn’t know what it was about. And having never directed television, I didn’t know how to backtime a movie so that it would end at 10 o’clock.

So, for the first week we had no endings of movies. I mean, we would just show this movie and then it would just kind of fade away and they’d go into the news or whatever. And people would call up and say, "Hey, where’s the end of the movie?" And I would say, "Come on, it was Citizen Kane; it was a sled, leave us alone. We’re in enough trouble here trying to just do this show." And it got to be kind of an inside thing. And so that’s actually what got me to the first Steve Allen show because Rose Marie from The Dick Van Dyke Show was coming through town kind of publicizing The Dick Van Dyke Show. And she saw it and she said, "This is hysterical." And I said, "Well, we’re actually really just fighting for our lives here."

And [she] took me out to Steve, and the next thing you know I’m on McHale’s Navy and onward it went. So I’d never had any acting lessons or anything. I wasn’t looking to be in this business for some reason. But I always ended up doing something related to it.

THE DEADBOLT: On the show, since Jack is trying to find a celebrity for a John MCain fundraising event, who would you say is easier to entertain, Republicans or Democrats?

CONWAY: Wow! You know, I’ve never been in an entire room of just one of them; I’ve been in combinations. I think humor is funny. I think when you get them away from that microphone and that television eye, they become more relaxed and you can just sit down and [talk to them]. You know, some guys who are really vicious in front of that podium, you sit down and talk with them and they’re wonderful. They're just regular folks. And so they’re equally as charming, really, when you get them alone. Not that they’re bad men by themselves.

THE DEADBOLT: What was your sense of humor like in the Army? I heard that you once pulled a light bulb on a guy?

CONWAY: Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s what I mean by they had no sense of humor. I was guard duty one night and I had fallen asleep in the back of a truck and I realized that it was 2am in the morning and that the Lieutenant would be coming around to check to see if I was on duty. And so I jumped out of the truck and I went around to the front of the building. It was a service club and it was peace time and it was Arkansas, so I didn’t think it was really all that necessary to go through all the regiment of, you know, stopping people and saying, "Halt. Advance. Be Recognized." But I realized when I got there that I had left my rifle in the truck. And the Army is so touchy about having your rifle with you on guard duty.

And the Lieutenant came around the corner and I said, "Halt. Advance. Be recognized." And in the meantime I had gone to this trash bin and gotten out a long neon light tube. And I was holding that instead of my rifle. And I said, "Halt." And he came forward. And he said, "What is that?" And I said, "It’s a light bulb and if you come any closer I’ll turn it on." So, with his sense of humor, he allowed me to paint rocks for a week - paint them white and then wash them off and then paint them again and then wash them off and then paint them again. So I had a little bit of extra time added on to my duty. But it was worth it, I think.

Tim Conway Talks 30 Rock, Guard Duty, and Lightbulb Rifles Page 2