Several people were responsible for the success of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, but a major contributor was Paul Keyes, who died last Friday. Keyes was a writer and later a producer and after he left, the show took such a downswing that Rowan and Martin finally threw down an ultimatum: They would not come back for another season unless Keyes was re-hired as producer and given vast amounts of control. This was done, and it helped. Keyes was a funny man who often said very funny things. He was also one of Hollywood's most active Republicans. Any time you heard something funny come out of the mouth of Richard Nixon, the odds were good that it was put there by Paul Keyes. In the '76 presidential race, recognizing his value, handlers for both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter enlisted comedy writers to do for their guys what Keyes had done for Nixon.
Naturally, Keyes was responsible for arranging Nixon's famous Laugh-In cameo. He also did his buddy Dick a favor by keeping Laugh-In relatively free of the kind of Nixon jokes that might wound his boy. He claimed he'd put anything on the show if it was funny but he never found any joke at Nixon's expense funny. Jokes about Nixon's opponents were, however, all hysterical. Despite this, he was widely respected in the business. If you'd like to know more about his career, which included writing for Dean Martin, Jack Paar, Frank Sinatra and many others, here's a link to an obit.