6/10/08: Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1969-1973)We thought someone else would cover this one after Dick Martin’s
recent death. Maybe some wise conservative site has; we’re as lazy about reading them as we are about writing one. Anyway, it’s time to note that
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In was more than just a parade of great gags in a liberated era. The show was also a complicated celebration of turbulent times. Vacant-eyed Goldie Hawn looked like she was straight from a San Francisco strip joint, but there was plenty of content that spoke to the Silent Majority.
Here are a few examples of
Laugh-In slogans you could sport on buttons at the end of the '60s: “Ho Chi Minh is a pain in the East;” “Ban the Catapult;” Lester Maddox eats soul food;” “Adam Clayton Powell for Resident,” “Crabgrass Is A Communist Plot.” We’d proudly wear any of those buttons today.
Now let’s take a rambling look at the Emmy-winning episode of March 25th, 1968. Regular announcer Gary Owens intones that the show is being broadcast from the Rehab Room of Burbank General Hospital. The show then opens with the usual quick succession of gags, including guest Sammy Davis, Jr. shattering a glass with a high note: “Now, that’s black power.”
At one point, they cut to John Wayne intoning, “I’ve shot men for less than that.” You’d see a lot of John Wayne on
Laugh-In. We once interviewed Henry Gibson, and he told a story about how certain members of the
Laugh-In cast once conspired to refuse to work with Wayne at one taping. Gibson mentioned Lily Tomlin, so this had to be sometime after the second season started.
The day of that taping, Gibson arrived early to find Wayne was already on the set. Wayne was set to do a parody of one of Gibson’s poems. “Henry,” he said, “show me how you do that little sissy walk.” Gibson was instantly won over as a fan.
Back to the episode at hand: The opening gags finish, and our hosts walk out. Dan Rowan and Dick Martin were a great comedy team, and perfect archetypes for the time. Rowan played the slightly intellectual kind of smooth operator you’d find at a Connecticut cocktail party. Martin was the blathering suburban clown trying to look hip. You’d find him at the Playboy Club wondering when the orgy was going to break out.
The two banter for a while, and hot young model/actress Pamela Austin comes out. That leads to a magic-trick sketch culminating in Sammy making an
Amos & Andy joke. You never hear people quoting
Amos & Andy nowadays. Then it’s off to more quick gags at the weekly cocktail party. This segment includes Larry Hovis in redneck drag, saying, “I’ve got nothing against minorities—but what happens when there’s more of them than there are of us?”
There’s also this exchange between a visiting Brit and Dan Rowan:
“How do you Americans feel about Cassius Clay?”
“Well, some people say that if Mohammed won’t go to the army, let the Army go to Mohammed.”
Another joke’s about the NRA, but it’s not political. And, of course, there’s Ruth Buzzi as feminist Gladys Ormphby. She complains about guys groping her (or the lack thereof), and notes that she appeared in
Beach Blanket Bingo as a wet blanket.
Then it’s time for the News of the Past, Present and Future. The first gag is a Polish joke. The second one is about a skywriter who’s arrested for spelling out some sex education. Then we get to the jokes from the past, which reference Catherine the Great, early trade routes to the East, and Field Marshall Montgomery. Nowadays, people think
The Daily Show is smart just for referencing events that happened the same day.
John Wayne shows up again: “That was about as funny as an Indian raid.” That leads to a genuinely Leftist skit. Rowan announces an examination of the credibility gap, as illustrated by Sammy and Joey Bishop as White House employees rewriting a press release on an accidental attack on a Russian sub. It’s pretty funny, but the two end up revising the event to sound just like the ending of
The Hunt for Red October—which was more realistic than this skit.
Then it’s a series of “Here Come The Judge” gags, which reminds us that
Laugh-In was also vaudeville’s last stand. That point’s further made by a series of wholesome sight gags. The raciest thing is a series of set pieces with Pamela Austin in a bathtub. We’ll get back to those.
Regis Philbin shows up for a “Sock It To Me” gag, Sammy signs an autograph for a Klansman, and there’s more of those
Laugh-In buttons—including “Stamp Out First Marriages.” That’s another one we’d proudly wear today. The one that says “Make Love, Not War” has an upside-down peace symbol.
Then we get a talent-show spoof with Arte Johnson as a Russian who escaped from behind the Iron Curtain. It seems this character was on an earlier show. Now, he proudly announces that his twin brother has also escaped from the Soviets. Out comes Sammy in an identical ill-fitting suit. They’re both doing the awkward-foreigner routine Andy Kaufman made famous—with the same ending, too. Arte and Sammy start with a stiff rendition of a Soviet folk tune, and end with a fabulously American song-and-dance routine.
Sammy does a lot of racially themed jokes (“They don’t make us sit in the back of the bus anymore—they found out most of the accidents happen in the front”). Then it's The Duke with a nursery rhyme:
Hickory dickory dock The mouse ran up the clock The clock struck— Man, those unions are getting in everywhere.The rest of the show is taken up with a look at the Olympics in Mexico City. It includes a gag about the Indian/Pakistan conflict, and a skit about the Russian female athletes turning out to be men.
Throughout the show, we’ve seen more gags with Pamela Austin in the bathtub. This next part isn’t political, but it shows how Rowan & Martin were a true class act. They actually stop the show to discuss how all those bathtub gags were ripped off from Ernie Kovacs, and what a debt they owe to the guy. There’s a long list of acts who should do the same for Rowan & Martin.
And that’s the end of the show—except, of course, for the usual Joke Wall segment. Folks pop out of psychedelic patterns and make quick gags—and, as always, Jo Anne Worley shows up to be offended at the possibility of a chicken joke. If shows like
Laugh-In were allowed on the air today, they’d have bigger problems than Ms. Worley.
Make it your own: There are a few
Laugh-In DVD compilations out there. They’re kind of skimpy. Sadly, there are no commercially available collections of
Laugh-In outtakes. You can get a collection of
Dark Shadows goofs, but not
Laugh-In. Somebody should fix that.
Laugh-In outtakes are brilliant. There are some on
YouTube—along with regular clips from the show.
