During the late 1960s war and hippie era, the public needed comic relief, and they found it in Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. The variety show, created by Ed Friendly and George Schlatter, began as a one-time special that aired on September 9, 1967. The special was such an immediate hit with the audience, that in less than five months NBC had created and aired a comedy show that ended up spanning 140 episodes and ran until 1973. With such a great reception, it became the number one television show during its first two seasons.
Casting turnovers occurred with regularity, which proved to be the show’s ultimate demise, but during the show’s lengthy run, it produced many stars, catch phrases and popular skits.
Some of the more popular performers were the hosts of the show, Dan Rowan, who played the straight man role, and Dick Martin, who played the brainless one. Their routine always ended the show with Rowan coaching Martin to “say goodnight Dick.”
Goldie Hawn, Judy Carne, Chelsea Brown, Ruth Buzzi and Teresa Graves were the hilarious go-go dancing, one-line speaking, water-drenched or otherwise clobbered, “Sock It to me Girls.” Other famous phrases to come out of the show include “you bet your sweet bippy,” “and that’s the truth, “what you see is what you get,” “the devil made me do it,” “here come de judge,” and “look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls.”
Many of the popular skits featured Ruth Buzzi as the spinster Gladys Ormphby, drunken Doris Swizzle and celebrity gossip maven Busy Buzzi, and Lily Tomlin as the precocious Edith Ann, Ernestine the busy-body telephone operator and the haughty Mrs.
Earbore, who thought she was “Miss Manners.”
Gary Owens was the announcer for the show and Flip Wilson’s Geraldine must have been the original drag queen. Henry Gibson, aka Henrik Ibsen, was a flower-holding poet and The Parson. Goldie Hawn was the proverbial dumb blond who giggled her way through the show and could never keep her lines straight.
One of the more memorable shows had Presidential-hopeful Richard Nixon saying, “sock it to me,” which he later attributed to his winning the election. Guest performers on the show often received a career boost, and such was the case with the infamous falsetto-singing Tiny Tim and the indomitable Zsa Zsa Gabor, among others.
In my opinion, Laugh-in was just what its’ name implies—a chuckle-worthy and laugh-out-loud familiarity, week after week, that I believe helped inspire America to smile through those unstable “make love, not war” days.
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