The “Dr. Nose” Disaster That Made Harvey Korman Beg for Mercy, Broke the Studio in Half, and Created the Most Infamous Laugh Meltdown Ever Broadcast Live

It happened on March 28, 1977, on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The sketch was supposed to be a tidy three-minute bit: Harvey Korman as a pompous dentist, Tim Conway as his new, slightly dim-witted assistant “Dr. Nose.”

That was the plan.

What America got instead was the single greatest act of comedic terrorism in television history.

Tim wandered onto the set wearing a white coat two sizes too big, a surgical mask hanging off one ear, and carrying the most ridiculous prop ever smuggled past Standards & Practices: a giant, floppy, bright-red rubber nose with a bulb syringe attached to the nostril. No script called for it. Nobody in the control booth knew it existed. Even Harvey didn’t see it until the exact second Tim stepped into the light.

The moment the red nose flopped into frame, Harvey’s eyes widened like a man who just realized the parachute might not open.

Tim, deadpan as a corpse, leaned over the dental chair and delivered the line that ended civilization as the 1970s knew it:

“This might sting a little…”

Then he squeezed the bulb.

A jet of water shot straight up Harvey’s real nose.

Harvey made it exactly 0.8 seconds before his face collapsed. His shoulders started shaking like he was being electrocuted by joy. He tried to stay in character, tried to say his next line (“Open wide”), but it came out as a strangled squeak. Tears poured. His dental mirror clattered to the floor. The audience detonated.

Johnny Carson, watching from the couch, immediately put his head in his hands because he knew the show was over. There would be no recovery. There would only be chaos.

Tim never broke character once. He just kept going, calmly explaining to the “patient” (a straight-faced extra who was now openly weeping) that “sometimes the sinuses need a little irrigation.” Every time Harvey tried to pull it together, Tim would do something new and unholy:

He accidentally honked the nose like a clown horn.
He pretended the syringe was stuck and started yanking it like he was trying to start a lawn mower.
He looked directly at Harvey and whispered, “Don’t laugh, Doctor. This is serious,” which of course made Harvey laugh so hard he had to turn his back to the camera and bite his own hand.

At one point Harvey literally begged, on air, voice cracking: “Tim… Tim, please… I’m gonna wet myself…”

The camera cut to the audience: people were on the floor. One woman had her head buried in her husband’s shoulder, pounding his back like he was choking. The boom mic operator was laughing so hard the microphone dipped into frame. A stagehand behind the set could be heard screaming “STOP HIM!” between sobs.

And then came the kill shot.

Tim, still stone-faced, slowly lifted the giant rubber nose to his own face, attached it with a tiny piece of spirit gum nobody had noticed, and turned to Harvey wearing the exact same red honker.

Harvey lost the ability to produce human sound. He just opened his mouth and wheezed like a broken accordion. His legs buckled. He slid halfway down the dental chair, clutching his stomach, tears and mascara streaming. Johnny Carson gave up entirely and walked off camera, leaving the wreckage to burn.

The sketch that was supposed to be three minutes ran for almost eight. They never even got to the commercial break cleanly; the director just threw to a bumper card while the control room laughed itself unconscious.

To this day, it is the only Tonight Show sketch that Carson refused to ever re-air in its entirety during his lifetime. Not because it was dirty. Because every time they tried to watch it in the editing room, the entire staff broke down again and couldn’t finish the cut.

Comedy historians call it “The Day Television Laughed Until It Broke.” Harvey Korman later said it was the only time in his career he genuinely feared for his life, not from danger, but from the very real possibility he would laugh himself into cardiac arrest.

And Tim Conway? Tim Conway went home that night, ate a sandwich, and slept like a baby.

Because that’s what chaos agents do.

Search “Tim Conway Dr. Nose” on YouTube right now. I dare you not to cry.

You won’t win.

Nobody ever has.