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)

Ver-r-r-r-r-y Interesting...and FUNNY.

Sketch comedy 60's style.

This pre-dates most of the SNL and In Living Color style shows that dominated TV in the 70's, 80's & 90's.

Rowan and Martin made an excellent team. Rowan's straight delivery with a hint of exasperation mixed greatly with Martin's sarcastic, deadpan quips.

My personal favorite was Arte Johnson. Anything he did made me laugh like a banshee. And Henry Gibson's poetry was a close second. But there were no duds at all in this show.

Guest watching also made this a fun trip. The psychedelic decor dates it a little, but it doesn't hurt. A lot of the humor seemed off the cuff.

And when Goldie Hawn picked up her Oscar while on the show, the whole cast kept dropping asides about it during that week's filming. They all made several comments about it.

I saw this during it's brief Nickelodeon run in the late 80's. Bring it back.