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You Bet Your Bippy We Miss Dick Martin
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If you think SNL stars like Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, and Mike Meyers got their start from Lorne Michaels, think again. Anyone whose career started in sketch comedy owes a huge debt to Dick Martin. The comedy pioneer died Saturday of a respiratory ailment at 86.
In 1968, Martin and his stand-up comedy partner Dan Rowan created a one-time TV special of political satire, non-sequitur jokes, and general psychedelic mayhem. They assembled an ensemble of the hottest young comedians of the era and let them do their thing.
The show was ‘Laugh-In.’ Rowan & Martin’s timing couldn’t have been better. They hit the hippie zeitgeist right in its free-loving bell-bottoms. The one-time special turned into 140 episodes and jumpstarted the careers of stars like Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin.
The show also marked other firsts like the first music video on network TV and then-presidential candidate Richard Nixon shouting an awkward, “Sock it to me!” His opponent Hubert Humphrey refused and later said it might have cost him the election. It was also eerily prescient, joking about “President Ronald Reagan” in its News of the Future segment.
The show gave a shot in the arm to one writer in particular: Lorne Michaels, creator of ‘Saturday Night Live.’ The format and edgy humor heavily influenced SNL’s style, and the Laugh-In Looks at the News segment was a director precursor to SNL’s Weekend Update.
Many celebs today wouldn’t even be celebs without Dick Martin. And if you don’t believe me, look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls.
