Any comedian would be lucky to learn from the master, Tim Conway. A star of film and television, Conway became famous as a member of the ensemble cast that comprised The Carol Burnett Show.

But for Conway, the most important part of comedy didn’t have anything to do with humor at all. To Conway, the secret sauce of comedy was the element of surprise. “My idea of surprise is not necessarily the shocker opening or sudden punch line, though,” Conway wrote in a guest column for The Florida Times-Union. “It can also take the form of the unexpected piece of comedy business that stretches something out much, much longer than anybody would ever expect.”

Conway recalled one instance in which he used surprise to his advantage on the popular variety series. “I once did a sketch on The Carol Burnett Show in which I played an old man. Well, I’d never portrayed an old man before, and I wasn’t really quite sure what I was going to do. I rehearsed that sketch pretty much as it was written until the day of taping. With the audience seated and the cameras aimed, I decided to drag out my walk across the stage as long as possible.”

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Not only did the trick win Conway an immediate chuckle, but it kept the audience laughing in their seats in a better way than a one-note punch line ever could.

“The audience reaction was most interesting and illustrative of what I mean about surprise,” wrote the actor. “As I shuffled across the stage in what was almost slow motion, the audience laughed, then stopped and waited. When they realized that was as fast as I was going to move, the laughter built up again.”