Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In was a ground-breaking show that ran on NBC from January of 1968 to March of 1973. It changed network television and launched a lot of careers and now somehow manages to look incredibly dated but also ahead of its time. The show was a co-production of its hosts, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, and George Schlatter's company. There was later much bad blood and squabbling between the hosts and Schlatter over proceeds and credit for the show.
Four years after Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In left NBC, Schlatter brought it back for a series of specials as Laugh-In with no mention of Mssrs. Rowan and Martin…or of anyone who'd been in the cast of the original version. Instead, he assembled a new cast of largely unknown performers, many of whom remained that way.
This is the first episode of that revival and it aired on September 5, 1977 to, as I recall, very mixed reaction and not-great ratings. The critics seemed to feel that the lack of any real host or hosts yielded a lack of focus and made the show seem way too disjointed. I thought it was a mistake to throw so many unfamiliar faces at us with no names attached. The performers were not identified until the cocktail party sketch near the end. It starts at 41:40 if you want to zip ahead to it. I can't match most of these people up to the roles they played throughout the show either.
The big guest star was Bette Davis. The cameo guests included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Garner, Henry Winkler, Ralph Nader, Rich Little and Barry Goldwater. And the troupe consisted of Sergio Aragonés, Antoinette "Toad" Atell, Nancy Bleiweiss, Ed Bluestone, Kim Braden, Claire Faulconbridge, Wayland Flowers (and Madame), June Gable, Jim Giovanni, Ben Powers, Bill Rafferty, Lenny Schultz, Michael Sklar and Robin Williams.
Robin Williams was obviously the breakout star but I'm more interested in the first name among the regular players: Sergio Aragonés. Could that possibly be my friend and partner, the world-famous cartoonist from MAD and Groo the Wanderer?
It could be and it is. Sergio did the cartoon graphics throughout the show and was a writer-performer in many of the pantomime blackouts. He's the guy with the Sergio Aragonés mustache, dressed as a Karate expert and a Mexican general among other guises. There's a bit in there with a cartoon Sergio studying the navel of a lady in a swimming pool and he not only drew himself but they shot that at the home he had back then in the Hollywood Hills. He was in all the other episodes of this Laugh-In and turned up on some other shows produced by George Schlatter. You can spot him here and there in the margins, too…
