Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 6, 1993 TAG: 9302060315
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JERRY BUCK ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A LOOK AT `LAUGH-IN' - VERRRY INTERESTING!
The genesis of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In," Dick Martin says, was a cartoon he and his late partner Dan Rowan spotted in a magazine.Verrrry interesting!
"The New Yorker, Esquire, Punch ran those great one, two, three-panel cartoons," he said. "We saw one of two guys hanging on a dungeon wall about two feet off the ground. One says to the other, `Now, here's the plan.'
"Dan and I were doing our act and we had a wall built for us to stretch out on. The writers thought up all kinds of things for us, and we did one-line blackout skits. That's the concept we wanted to bring to `Laugh-In' - short and fast."
You can look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls!
"Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" celebrates its 25th anniversary with a two-hour special Sunday on NBC.
The show had a profound effect on television when it debuted in January 1968. It was so different that it took the audience a while to get used to it. But by the eighth show, it was first in the ratings, and it stayed first through the next two seasons. It left the air in 1973, and an attempt to revive it in 1979 without Rowan and Martin was a quick failure.
You bet your sweet bippy.
"Laugh-In" changed the audience's attention span with rapid-fire skits and one-liners that helped pave the way for the MTV generation. It made stars of such performers as Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin.
The pace was nonstop. Ruth Buzzi hit the old man over the head with her umbrella. Arte Johnson peered out from behind the palm tree. Lily Tomlin was the telephone operator. Gary Owens kept one hand cupped behind his ear. Henry Gibson recited poetry. And Richard M. Nixon said, "Sock it to me" (that's right, Richard M. Nixon. In his defense, he only said it once).
"Laugh-In" had a big effect on the language. Not long after its debut, just about everybody was repeating such lines as "Sock it to me," "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" and "Here come de judge."
The special will reprise many "Laugh-In" routines from the past, and new bits were filmed at an anniversary party in mid-January.
Martin, who now directs situation comedies, said he didn't know if he would do anything new, since he didn't think it would work without Rowan, who died in 1987.
"Dan was a used car salesman and I was a bartender when a mutual friend introduced us in 1952," Martin said. "I don't think Dan ever wanted to be a nightclub performer. He wanted to be an actor. We tried out our ideas about short skits on `The Dean Martin Summer Show' in 1966. That's what got us `Laugh-In.' "
Before "Laugh-In" came on the air, the show's guests didn't know what to expect. They were asked to say a line that didn't make sense to them. But when all the lines were put together, it not only made sense, it made television history. Everyone wanted to be on the show.
Many people claimed to be the father of the `Laugh-In' concept. Its fast pace, repeated one-liners, knockabout routines, unstructured format and topicality all had been done before, but the show was the first to put them all together.
"The real fathers of `Laugh-In' were the 13 writers," Martin said. "They never had the freedom to write that way before. On a variety show, you had the monologue, the skits, the chat with the guests, and the good night. Each segment was usually written by different teams.
"Our writers could write anything they wanted," he said. "They had enormous creative freedom. It's funny you don't find that today, except with `Saturday Night Live."'
Martin and Rowan did a couple of movies together - "Once Upon a Horse" in 1958 and "The Maltese Bippy" in 1969 - to capitalize on their "Laugh-In" fame.
Martin appeared earlier this season as a poker player on CBS' "Bob" and is scheduled to make another appearance. He occasionally directs the show for his old friend Bob Newhart, whose "Bob Newhart Show" Martin started as a sitcom director many years ago.
"Arthur Price, who ran MTM Studios and was Bob's manager, suggested I direct one of the shows," Martin said. "I said I didn't know how, but I sat in the audience for four weeks and watched every reading, rehearsal and taping. It's a common way to learn directing. Then I directed the next show."