Classic TV: The Dean Martin Show (1965)

For someone who didn't like to rehearse, Dean Martin had to be the luckiest guy on the planet.

Five years after his first variety show came to an end, Martin was back, anchoring NBC's Thursday night lineup for most of the run of The Dean Martin Show. This time, Martin presented himself as a lovable goofball. As Paul Lynde famously put it when Martin was roasted on his own Celebrity Roast a few years later, The Dean Martin Show was "television's first family hour----if you come from a broken family". In all seriousness, while his show was formatted similarly to, say, Andy Williams, Martin's brand of sketch comedy skewed toward the more mature audience that tuned in around 10 pm (ET). The series shifted to Fridays in 1973, built mostly around the roasts, as we have previously discussed. In all, Martin managed to hang around at NBC for nearly 20 years between his shows and his annual golf tournament, which NBC also carried. Said tournament has either been discontinued or the PGA found a different sponsor, I forget which.

The guests were mostly the usual suspects, friends of Dean's like Frank Sinatra, Dom DeLuise, Orson Welles, John Wayne, Jonathan Winters, etc.. And, then, there are the sketches where you find some unlikely talents, such as, in this clip, Lee J. Cobb (The Virginian) and Buddy Ebsen (Beverly Hillbillies) doing a song and dance number with Dean, plus Jackie Vernon and Charles Nelson Reilly.......



I'm begging Get TV to pick up this show to add it to its collection. Since they have Andy Williams, Jim Nabors, and Judy Garland already on the schedule, why not Dean, too?

No rating.