Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In

Trivia
It was Producer George Schlatter's wife Jolene Brand who, after listening to Aretha Franklin's "Respect", thought that "Sock It To Me" would be a good bit for the show.

Quotes
Dan Rowan: [as the News of the Future anchor] Item: Washington, DC, 1988. President Ronald Reagan today denied once again that he is a candidate for the office of Governor of California.

Crazy credits
The early episodes' closing credits happen while the cast tells jokes from the joke wall.

Alternate versions
Many of the original one-hour shows were re-edited into two half-hour programs in the early 1980s for syndication. Often, bloopers and outtakes were used to fill out a segment, especially during the joke wall sequence which occurred at the end of each show during the closing credits. New graphics were generated for credits on re-edited endings and run in the same sequence as the originals, but were in a different font. In a few instances, there was some overdubbing, specifically where Judy Carne's "NBC, beautiful downtown Burbank" was overdubbed with, "'ello, 'ello, beautiful downtown Burbank" when she played a switchboard operator on some of the earlier shows.

Connections
Edited into Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in: 25th Anniversary Reunion (1993)

Thank God for the Trio cable network! They air classic "Laugh-In" episodes weekday afternoons and that's how I first came upon this hilarious gem from the golden age of television.

Headed by longtime comedy partners Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, "Laugh-In" was an hour-long barage of madcap tomfoolery. Short sketches, one-shot gags, "Quickies," as they were called, and guest appearances by everyone from Sammy Davis, Jr., to Johnny Carson to soon-to-be President Richard M. Nixon. It was the springboard for the careers of such stars as Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Henry Gibson and Ruth Buzzi.

If you have a taste for the weird and the wacky, with an undertone of political commentary (the remarkable thing was how they always presented both sides of any issue they were mocking) or just want to see classics like "The Cocktail Party" or "The Joke Wall," do yourself a favor and check out "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" for hilariosin-entartaina-wonderfulations! (Boy! Look THAT up in your Funk and Wagnall's!)