Bill Schenley
2005-09-22 05:22:34 UTC
Historic TV Show's Genteel Comic;
Dan Rowan Of 'Laugh-In,' Dies
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FROM: The Los Angeles Times (September 23rd 1987) ~
By Burt A. Folkart, Staff Writer
Dan Rowan, the more genteel of the maitres d' mirth on television's
historic and hysterical "Laugh-In" comedy series, died Tuesday of
cancer at his home in Manasota Key, Fla. He was 65.
Rowan, who teamed with Dick Martin on the No. 1-rated TV show of
1968-70, learned he had lymphatic cancer nine months ago, said Valerie
Douglas, a family spokeswoman.
With him when he died were his wife, Joanna, and daughter, Mary. His
son, Patrick, was en route to Florida.
With a 40-character assemblage of some of the most unusual, bizarre
and talented comics ever placed on a single TV show, Rowan and Martin
quickly became household names after their innovative show first aired
on Jan. 22, 1968.
It not only spawned and enhanced the careers of such wispy characters
as Goldie Hawn, Jo Anne Worley, Lily Tomlin and Arte Johnson, but
placed into the American idiom such phrases as: "You bet your sweet
bippy," "Sock it to me," "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls" and
"Here come the judge." And of course all the phraseology emanated from
"beautiful downtown Burbank."
If TV shows have parents, "Laugh-In"' was sired by "Helzapoppin" (the
Olson and Johnson variety show) out of the Keystone Kops (of
silent-picture fame.)
The show, first seen as a one-shot special in September, 1967, was a
series of fast-paced one-liners, accompanied by pratfalls, sexual
innuendo and, in general, old-fashioned shtick.
The characters included Tomlin's nasal and incompetent telephone
operator, Ernestine; Johnson's German soldier peering from behind a
potted plant and mewing, "Verrrry interesting," Henry Gibson, bouquet
in hand, spouting poetry, and Ruth Buzzi, the hopelessly plain
spinster being pursued by the quintessential Dirty Old Man ("Do you
believe in a hereafter?" Pause. "Then you know what I'm here after!")
And then there was the mystery man furiously racing about on a
tricycle predestined to overturn.
They all became part of a lighthearted oasis that gave Americans some
respite from the seriousness of Vietnam, the civil rights movement and
the counterculture of the young.
Rowan was born in Beggs, Okla. At 4, he was dancing and singing in a
touring carnival with his parents. He was orphaned at 11 and placed in
an orphanage in Colorado, where he was eventually adopted.
After graduating from high school, Rowan hitchhiked to Los Angeles and
at 19 found a job as a junior writer at Paramount Studios. He quit to
become a pilot in the Army Air Corps during World War II and was shot
down over New Guinea.
When he was discharged from the service in 1946, Rowan returned to Los
Angeles to sell used cars. He met Martin, a Los Angeles bartender, and
together they began working on a nightclub act.
Their first job as a team came in 1954 on a Channel 5 television show
called "Bandstand Revue."
After that they moved into the better nightspots across the country --
the Copacabana, Chez Paree, Sands and the old Coconut Grove in Los
Angeles.
In 1967 they hosted the "Dean Martin Summer Show" for NBC, and that
job eventually was to lead to the Emmy-award winning "Laugh-In." Rowan
appeared as the pipe-smoking, comparatively calm counterpart to the
lecherous Martin, whose dimwitted interpretations of what Rowan was
trying to tell him became the show's signature segments.
"I'm the authority, settled, steady, sober, reasonable square,
indignant at the life he leads," Rowan had said.
On "Laugh-In" they were the perennial hosts of the cocktail party
where scantily clad girls danced to Martin's delight while knockabout
comics cavorted behind them. Other devices involved "Letters to
Laugh-In," "The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award," "Laugh-In Looks
at the News" and "Hollywood News" with Miss Buzzi where the gags were
written on the undulating body of a bikini-clad Hawn, the giggling
dumb blonde, now of film fame.
Nixon Appearance
The series proved such an outrageous delight that the rich and famous
often appeared in guest roles -- Richard M. Nixon once intoned "Sock
it to me" with all the solemnity later associated with his presidency.
George Schlatter, who was executive producer of "Laugh-In," said
Tuesday after learning of Rowan's death:
"I think that anybody who was a part of that big of an event is never
really gone. Those shows are still being seen on cable. That must have
been very gratifying to Dan. It's a kind of immortality."
Rowan and Martin remained close friends even after "Laugh-In" went off
the air in May, 1973. Rowan moved to Florida and essentially retired,
although he did make some TV spots for charitable causes and appeared
in guest roles over the years. Martin, on the other hand, kept a
nightclub act together and did some TV directing. Most recently he has
directed some segments of the "Newhart" show."
'Enough's Enough'
"It's nothing dramatic . . . nothing childish," Martin told The Times
in 1976 when the two parted professional company. "It's just that,
hey, after 25 years, enough's enough. We've done everything."
Although dozens of future stars passed through "Laugh-In's" many
doors, only four characters remained with the show from beginning to
end -- Rowan, Martin, Buzzi and announcer Gary Owens, who cupped a
hand over his ear as he over-modulated into a microphone.
The programs themselves never really ended each Monday . . . just
drifted away into a station break. At show's end, the night's
characters appeared in the windows of a "joke wall," throwing either
one-liners or buckets of water at each other.
The laughter wound down until finally only a single clapping of hands
could be heard; a dim echo signifying that the fun was over.
---
Photo: Loading Image...
---
Dan Rowan, 65, A Comedian And A 'Laugh-In' Host, Dies
FROM: The New York Times (September 23rd 1987) ~
By Jeremy Gerard
Dan Rowan, co-host and co-producer of ''Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,''
the nation's most popular television variety series in the late
1960's, died of lymphatic cancer yesterday at his home in Englewood,
Fla. He was 65 years old.
''Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,'' which aired on NBC from 1967 through
1973, mixed the frantic low humor of vaudeville with freewheeling
political satire and scattershot, psychedelic topicality. Its
blitzkrieg format - sight gags careening off one another like bumper
cars, overlapping sketches, bold graphics, a seeming determination not
to leave the screen each Monday night when the allotted 60 minutes
were up - appealed to a generation that had been weaned on ''The Ed
Sullivan Show'' and raised on the music of Bob Dylan and the Jefferson
Airplane.
''The show was new and fast,'' Dick Martin, Mr. Rowan's partner, said
yesterday in a telephone interview from his office in Los Angeles.
''We had people doing cameos who just had no idea what they were
getting into.'' Among the cameo performers were former President
Richard M. Nixon, Billy Graham and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. More
prominent was a regular supporting cast of nascent comedy stars, among
them Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Ruth Buzzi,
Pigmeat Markham, Eileen Brennan, Richard Dawson and Judy Carne.
Critical Success and No. 1
''Laugh-In,'' which Mr. Rowan and Mr. Martin co-produced with George
Schlatter, benefited in part from the popularity of ''The Smothers
Brothers Comedy Hour,'' which ran on CBS from 1967 through 1975
despite continuing battles with television censors over its political
and social humor. The Rowan and Martin show was introduced by NBC as a
special on Sept. 9, 1967. ''The special was not an enormous success,''
Mr. Martin said, ''except with the critics. So NBC booked 13 shows and
put us on opposite 'Lucy' and 'Gunsmoke.' By the eighth week, we were
the No. 1 show in the country.''
The weekly show was introduced on Jan. 22, 1968; the last ran on May
14, 1973. The No. 1 television show during its first two seasons,
''Laugh-In'' won 28 honors and awards, including seven Emmys. Often
repeated catch phrases such as ''You bet your bippy,'' ''Look that up
in your Funk & Wagnall's,'' ''Here come de judge'' and ''Sock it to
me'' - the last inevitably followed by a bucket of water poured on the
person delivering the line - quickly became common usage. The show's
format laid the groundwork for the success of ''Saturday Night Live,''
which picked up the ''Laugh-In'' generation when it became old enough
to stay up late.
Mr. Rowan was born on July 22, 1922, in Beggs, Okla., the only child
of a pair of carnival workers. During the 1940's, he was a junior
writer at Paramount Studios and, during World War II, served with the
Air Force in New Guinea. He met Mr. Martin, a radio comedy writer, in
1952, and the two put together a nightclub act. ''We were just two
guys who wanted the same thing,'' Mr. Martin said - ''success in show
business.''
'Maltese Bippy'
In 1958, they made a film, ''Once Upon a Horse,'' that was a
commercial failure. In 1960, the pair recorded a successful comedy
album, ''Rowan and Martin at Work.'' After years of performing in
clubs, they were invited to appear on Dean Martin's variety show, a
1966 engagement that ultimately led to the development of their own
program. In 1969, they made a second film, ''The Maltese Bippy.'' In
1980, Mr. Rowan and Mr. Martin won a $4.6 million lawsuit against Mr.
Schlatter for producing a reprise of ''Laugh-In'' without their
approval.
Notwithstanding the public's tendency to confuse them, Mr. Rowan and
Mr. Martin were a classic follies team, Mr. Martin the comic foil to
Mr. Rowan's straight man. ''He was professorial, always trying to
teach me about something,'' Mr. Martin said. ''I was like Eliza
Doolittle.''
''The only thing outsiders might not have known about Dan,'' Mr.
Martin added, ''was his honesty. We never had a contract. We just went
and did it.''
Mr. Rowan is survived by his wife, Joanna, of Englewood; two
daughters, Mary, of Englewood, and Chrissie, of Hawaii, and a son,
Thomas, of Los Angeles.
CORRECTION:
An obituary of Dan Rowan on Sept. 23 incompletely described the
outcome of a lawsuit brought by Mr. Rowan and his partner, Dick
Martin, against George Schlatter, co-producer of their television
program. Although a jury awarded Mr. Rowan and Mr. Martin $4.6
million, the decision was later overturned by the judge, Kenneth J.
Gale of the California Superior Court.
---
Photo:
Loading Image...
(w/Dick Martin)
Dan Rowan Of 'Laugh-In,' Dies
Photo:
Loading Image...
FROM: The Los Angeles Times (September 23rd 1987) ~
By Burt A. Folkart, Staff Writer
Dan Rowan, the more genteel of the maitres d' mirth on television's
historic and hysterical "Laugh-In" comedy series, died Tuesday of
cancer at his home in Manasota Key, Fla. He was 65.
Rowan, who teamed with Dick Martin on the No. 1-rated TV show of
1968-70, learned he had lymphatic cancer nine months ago, said Valerie
Douglas, a family spokeswoman.
With him when he died were his wife, Joanna, and daughter, Mary. His
son, Patrick, was en route to Florida.
With a 40-character assemblage of some of the most unusual, bizarre
and talented comics ever placed on a single TV show, Rowan and Martin
quickly became household names after their innovative show first aired
on Jan. 22, 1968.
It not only spawned and enhanced the careers of such wispy characters
as Goldie Hawn, Jo Anne Worley, Lily Tomlin and Arte Johnson, but
placed into the American idiom such phrases as: "You bet your sweet
bippy," "Sock it to me," "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls" and
"Here come the judge." And of course all the phraseology emanated from
"beautiful downtown Burbank."
If TV shows have parents, "Laugh-In"' was sired by "Helzapoppin" (the
Olson and Johnson variety show) out of the Keystone Kops (of
silent-picture fame.)
The show, first seen as a one-shot special in September, 1967, was a
series of fast-paced one-liners, accompanied by pratfalls, sexual
innuendo and, in general, old-fashioned shtick.
The characters included Tomlin's nasal and incompetent telephone
operator, Ernestine; Johnson's German soldier peering from behind a
potted plant and mewing, "Verrrry interesting," Henry Gibson, bouquet
in hand, spouting poetry, and Ruth Buzzi, the hopelessly plain
spinster being pursued by the quintessential Dirty Old Man ("Do you
believe in a hereafter?" Pause. "Then you know what I'm here after!")
And then there was the mystery man furiously racing about on a
tricycle predestined to overturn.
They all became part of a lighthearted oasis that gave Americans some
respite from the seriousness of Vietnam, the civil rights movement and
the counterculture of the young.
Rowan was born in Beggs, Okla. At 4, he was dancing and singing in a
touring carnival with his parents. He was orphaned at 11 and placed in
an orphanage in Colorado, where he was eventually adopted.
After graduating from high school, Rowan hitchhiked to Los Angeles and
at 19 found a job as a junior writer at Paramount Studios. He quit to
become a pilot in the Army Air Corps during World War II and was shot
down over New Guinea.
When he was discharged from the service in 1946, Rowan returned to Los
Angeles to sell used cars. He met Martin, a Los Angeles bartender, and
together they began working on a nightclub act.
Their first job as a team came in 1954 on a Channel 5 television show
called "Bandstand Revue."
After that they moved into the better nightspots across the country --
the Copacabana, Chez Paree, Sands and the old Coconut Grove in Los
Angeles.
In 1967 they hosted the "Dean Martin Summer Show" for NBC, and that
job eventually was to lead to the Emmy-award winning "Laugh-In." Rowan
appeared as the pipe-smoking, comparatively calm counterpart to the
lecherous Martin, whose dimwitted interpretations of what Rowan was
trying to tell him became the show's signature segments.
"I'm the authority, settled, steady, sober, reasonable square,
indignant at the life he leads," Rowan had said.
On "Laugh-In" they were the perennial hosts of the cocktail party
where scantily clad girls danced to Martin's delight while knockabout
comics cavorted behind them. Other devices involved "Letters to
Laugh-In," "The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award," "Laugh-In Looks
at the News" and "Hollywood News" with Miss Buzzi where the gags were
written on the undulating body of a bikini-clad Hawn, the giggling
dumb blonde, now of film fame.
Nixon Appearance
The series proved such an outrageous delight that the rich and famous
often appeared in guest roles -- Richard M. Nixon once intoned "Sock
it to me" with all the solemnity later associated with his presidency.
George Schlatter, who was executive producer of "Laugh-In," said
Tuesday after learning of Rowan's death:
"I think that anybody who was a part of that big of an event is never
really gone. Those shows are still being seen on cable. That must have
been very gratifying to Dan. It's a kind of immortality."
Rowan and Martin remained close friends even after "Laugh-In" went off
the air in May, 1973. Rowan moved to Florida and essentially retired,
although he did make some TV spots for charitable causes and appeared
in guest roles over the years. Martin, on the other hand, kept a
nightclub act together and did some TV directing. Most recently he has
directed some segments of the "Newhart" show."
'Enough's Enough'
"It's nothing dramatic . . . nothing childish," Martin told The Times
in 1976 when the two parted professional company. "It's just that,
hey, after 25 years, enough's enough. We've done everything."
Although dozens of future stars passed through "Laugh-In's" many
doors, only four characters remained with the show from beginning to
end -- Rowan, Martin, Buzzi and announcer Gary Owens, who cupped a
hand over his ear as he over-modulated into a microphone.
The programs themselves never really ended each Monday . . . just
drifted away into a station break. At show's end, the night's
characters appeared in the windows of a "joke wall," throwing either
one-liners or buckets of water at each other.
The laughter wound down until finally only a single clapping of hands
could be heard; a dim echo signifying that the fun was over.
---
Photo: Loading Image...
---
Dan Rowan, 65, A Comedian And A 'Laugh-In' Host, Dies
FROM: The New York Times (September 23rd 1987) ~
By Jeremy Gerard
Dan Rowan, co-host and co-producer of ''Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,''
the nation's most popular television variety series in the late
1960's, died of lymphatic cancer yesterday at his home in Englewood,
Fla. He was 65 years old.
''Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,'' which aired on NBC from 1967 through
1973, mixed the frantic low humor of vaudeville with freewheeling
political satire and scattershot, psychedelic topicality. Its
blitzkrieg format - sight gags careening off one another like bumper
cars, overlapping sketches, bold graphics, a seeming determination not
to leave the screen each Monday night when the allotted 60 minutes
were up - appealed to a generation that had been weaned on ''The Ed
Sullivan Show'' and raised on the music of Bob Dylan and the Jefferson
Airplane.
''The show was new and fast,'' Dick Martin, Mr. Rowan's partner, said
yesterday in a telephone interview from his office in Los Angeles.
''We had people doing cameos who just had no idea what they were
getting into.'' Among the cameo performers were former President
Richard M. Nixon, Billy Graham and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. More
prominent was a regular supporting cast of nascent comedy stars, among
them Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Ruth Buzzi,
Pigmeat Markham, Eileen Brennan, Richard Dawson and Judy Carne.
Critical Success and No. 1
''Laugh-In,'' which Mr. Rowan and Mr. Martin co-produced with George
Schlatter, benefited in part from the popularity of ''The Smothers
Brothers Comedy Hour,'' which ran on CBS from 1967 through 1975
despite continuing battles with television censors over its political
and social humor. The Rowan and Martin show was introduced by NBC as a
special on Sept. 9, 1967. ''The special was not an enormous success,''
Mr. Martin said, ''except with the critics. So NBC booked 13 shows and
put us on opposite 'Lucy' and 'Gunsmoke.' By the eighth week, we were
the No. 1 show in the country.''
The weekly show was introduced on Jan. 22, 1968; the last ran on May
14, 1973. The No. 1 television show during its first two seasons,
''Laugh-In'' won 28 honors and awards, including seven Emmys. Often
repeated catch phrases such as ''You bet your bippy,'' ''Look that up
in your Funk & Wagnall's,'' ''Here come de judge'' and ''Sock it to
me'' - the last inevitably followed by a bucket of water poured on the
person delivering the line - quickly became common usage. The show's
format laid the groundwork for the success of ''Saturday Night Live,''
which picked up the ''Laugh-In'' generation when it became old enough
to stay up late.
Mr. Rowan was born on July 22, 1922, in Beggs, Okla., the only child
of a pair of carnival workers. During the 1940's, he was a junior
writer at Paramount Studios and, during World War II, served with the
Air Force in New Guinea. He met Mr. Martin, a radio comedy writer, in
1952, and the two put together a nightclub act. ''We were just two
guys who wanted the same thing,'' Mr. Martin said - ''success in show
business.''
'Maltese Bippy'
In 1958, they made a film, ''Once Upon a Horse,'' that was a
commercial failure. In 1960, the pair recorded a successful comedy
album, ''Rowan and Martin at Work.'' After years of performing in
clubs, they were invited to appear on Dean Martin's variety show, a
1966 engagement that ultimately led to the development of their own
program. In 1969, they made a second film, ''The Maltese Bippy.'' In
1980, Mr. Rowan and Mr. Martin won a $4.6 million lawsuit against Mr.
Schlatter for producing a reprise of ''Laugh-In'' without their
approval.
Notwithstanding the public's tendency to confuse them, Mr. Rowan and
Mr. Martin were a classic follies team, Mr. Martin the comic foil to
Mr. Rowan's straight man. ''He was professorial, always trying to
teach me about something,'' Mr. Martin said. ''I was like Eliza
Doolittle.''
''The only thing outsiders might not have known about Dan,'' Mr.
Martin added, ''was his honesty. We never had a contract. We just went
and did it.''
Mr. Rowan is survived by his wife, Joanna, of Englewood; two
daughters, Mary, of Englewood, and Chrissie, of Hawaii, and a son,
Thomas, of Los Angeles.
CORRECTION:
An obituary of Dan Rowan on Sept. 23 incompletely described the
outcome of a lawsuit brought by Mr. Rowan and his partner, Dick
Martin, against George Schlatter, co-producer of their television
program. Although a jury awarded Mr. Rowan and Mr. Martin $4.6
million, the decision was later overturned by the judge, Kenneth J.
Gale of the California Superior Court.
---
Photo:
Loading Image...
(w/Dick Martin)