As everyone knows, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In was added to the NBC schedule as a mid-season replacement for The Man From U. N. C. L. E. when the spy drama was cancelled halfway through its 4th & final season. In those days, a sure sign of fall was when the network ran the Miss America Pageant, hosted by Bert Parks. Its lead-in in 1967 was the pilot episode of Laugh-In.
Not everyone's on board for this one. For example, Goldie Hawn had committed to CBS' freshman comedy, Good Morning, World, co-starring with Ronnie Schell, Joby Baker, & Billy DeWolfe. Gary Owens was inexplicably absent. The only holdovers from the pilot, aside from Dan Rowan & Dick Martin, of course, were Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson (familiar to Saturday morning audiences from NBC's Super Six), & Judy Carne. Joining the party: Ken Berry, fresh from F-Troop, Barbara Feldon (Get Smart), Monty Landis, a frequent guest on The Monkees, Larry Hovis (Hogan's Heroes), who would appear during season 1, since Hogan's Heroes had finished most of season 3 filming by the time Laugh-In went to series, and Pamela Austin.
If memory serves me, Landis was gone by the time the series began, but don't hold me to it.
So, in honor of April Fools' Day, here we go!:
Edit, 12/30/21: The pilot is back, courtesy of Shout! Factory:
2 comments:
Of all of Laugh-In's rotating cast of performers, only 3 (or 4) were on the show through its' entire run: Dan Rowan, Dick Martin, Ruth Buzzi and announcer Gary Owens (if one discounts this pilot).
Funnily enough, George Schlatter's original concept for Laugh-In didn't involve Rowan & Martin; the notorious one-and-done flop Turn-On (which started and stopped on the same night of February 5th, 1969 -- Goldstar and I missed it because we had just been born earlier that day and were still exhausted from the move) was, according to Schlatter, closer to his original concept of Laugh-In than Rowan & Martin's turned out to be.
I think if they kept most of the cast intact (i.e. if Judy Carne and/or Arte Johnson didn't leave as early as they did) for its 6 season run, it might've lasted a wee bit longer. After it ended, NBC was stuck for a hit for almost a decade.
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