Growing up, I watched a lot of TV. I had a steady diet of The Flintstones and The Carol Burnett Show, thanks to TBS. This is how I was introduced to the comedic genius of Harvey Korman. As The Great Gazoo on The Flintstones, I simply knew him as a little green alien that had a wonderful way of calling Fred “Dum-Dum.” The droll way he let it roll off the tongue was masterful. Then I saw him on the Carol Burnett Show. It was there that he formed a real-life Mutt & Jeff team with Tim Conway. Much like Hardy and Abbott, Korman was the straight man to Conway’s Laurel and Costello.
As I got older, I saw Korman in Blazing Saddles and it was as if I was watching The Great Gazoo onscreen, with a little more villainy thrown in; I also enjoyed him in Radioland Murders. Sadly, there were not many on-screen performances from him over the past 20-25 years.
Hopefully he is on a cloud somewhere, hovering above the voice of Fred Flintstone, still calling him “Dum-Dum” while waiting for his buddy, Tim…