Crap. Rest In Peace, Tim Conway.

Thank you for some of the most uproariously wonderful moments of television and comedy we’ll ever get to experience.

When I was a kid, watching The Carol Burnett show was a mixed bag. Some of the Mama’s Family stuff I didn’t get. But, oh man, when it was time for another Mr. Tudball and Mrs. Wiggins sketch, I was on board.

Tim Conway and Carol Burnett were amazing to watch and they showed younger me the possibilities of the power of comedy.

So flash forward to six years ago, and their seed planting had long since taken its effect. I was headlining at the Orleans Casino in Las Vegas at (the now defunct) Big Al’s Comedy Club.

Amy Pittle, the club’s general manager, told me that Jerry Lewis would be playing in the casino’s theater on my final night at Big Al’s, and asked if I wanted to rush over after my show was over to catch Jerry. How could I say no?

I was too young and had missed Jerry Lewis’ heyday. All I knew of him was as the host of the Labor Day telethon every year, which involved a lot of lecturing in a tuxedo. But I knew that he was a comedy legend so I went along.

The show turned out to be, surprise, a lot of lecturing in a tuxedo with some songs and reminiscing, but his audience (most of them in their late late 90s) politely applauded after every tune, tale and TedTalk that Jerry cranked out.

Now the show had reached its end, as did a lot of the audience members, and Jerry opened the floor for some Q&A. A stagehand was roving the crowd, microphone in hand to field the queries of the elderly. A question about Dean Martin, a question about France, so on and so forth.

Then the mic is placed in front of a guy who opens his question with, “Hi Mr. Lewis, my name is Cuba Gooding Jr.” And the place comes to life, because it’s actually Academy Award-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. from Jerry Maguire. These people are applauding now like they mean it, even though it is also Cuba Gooding Jr., star of Snow Dogs.

Some fawning and complimenting is done on the part of Cuba, with Jerry graciously accepting and moving on.

The audience could have left happy at that point, but then the final question arrives as the audience settles down from their brush with a celebrity. The question began with six simple words before a theater full of geriatric people suddenly lost their shit (probably figuratively and literally): “Hi, my name is Tim Conway…”

People were screaming and hooting and hollering like they had not been the entire evening. Because they hadn’t. I swear it took a full five minutes for people to stop cheering for Tim Conway at the Jerry Lewis concert.

And that, my friends, is how using fewer words than there are days in the week you can steal a show from a comedy legend whom people paid a princely percentage of their reverse mortgage payment to see.

And that, sadly, is why the world is poorer for having lost Tim Conway today.