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The Dean Martin Show
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The Dean Martin Show is a TV variety-comedy series that ran from 1965 to 1974, for 245 episodes. It was broadcast by NBC and hosted by legendary crooner Dean Martin. The theme song to the series was his 1964 hit "Everybody Loves Somebody."
in was initially reluctant to do the show, partially because he did not want to turn down movie and nightclub performances. His terms were deliberately outrageous: he demanded a high salary and that he need only show up for the actual taping of the show.
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The Dean Martin Show is a TV variety-comedy series that ran from 1965 to 1974, for 245 episodes. It was broadcast by NBC and hosted by legendary crooner Dean Martin. The theme song to the series was his 1964 hit "Everybody Loves Somebody."
Development
Martin was initially reluctant to do the show, partially because he did not want to turn down movie and nightclub performances. His terms were deliberately outrageous: he demanded a high salary and that he need only show up for the actual taping of the show. To his surprise the network agreed, and Martin had to comply.
Martin believed that an important key to his popularity was that he did not put on airs. His act was that of a drunken playboy, although the ever-present old-fashioned glass in his hand often only had apple juice in it. The show was heavy on physical comedy rather than just quips. (He made his weekly entrance by sliding down a fireman's pole onto the stage.) Martin took his dialogue direct from cue cards. If he flubbed a line or forgot a lyric, he wouldn't do a retake, and the mistake — and his recovery from it — would remain in the show.
The Dean Martin Show was shot on color videotape beginning in 1965 at Studio 4 inside NBC's massive color complex in Burbank, California. The same studio was used for Frank Sinatra's yearly TV specials in the late 1960s, and Elvis Presley's 1968 "Comeback Special". Studio 4 is currently one of two used in the production of the soap opera "Days Of Our Lives".
Regular segments
Martin sang two solo numbers, one of them a serious ballad. He would join his weekly guests (Petula Clark, Lena Horne, Bing Crosby, etc.) in song medleys, trading lyrics back and forth. Some of these duets were deliberately played for laughs (Dean and Liberace, for example) with special lyrics by Lee Hale to suit the performers.
One recurring segment was based on Martin's club act, in which Martin would begin to sing a popular song and suddenly sing a gag punchline. Martin often tried to make his pianist, Ken Lane, laugh hard enough to break his concentration. A continual gag on the show would have a knock from the closet door on the set, with Martin opening the door to reveal an unannounced celebrity guest. Often, even Martin did not know who the guest would be, to make it more of a surprise.
The finale of each program was a production number featuring Dean and the guest stars. Occasionally the finale was a musical sketch with Martin as Dino Vino, a disc jockey who played old records. A vintage record would then be heard, with Dean and his cronies mouthing the words and pantomiming outrageously for comic effect. During the show's last season, the finale was a selection of songs from a popular MGM film musical. Clips from the film in question would be shown, with Martin and the guests on the show singing a medley of tunes from the films. Among the films saluted were Easter Parade, Words and Music, Till the Clouds Roll By, and the 1951 film version of Show Boat.
When the show was cancelled in 1974, a series of Dean Martin celebrity roasts was produced in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Hotel (a tradition started on the variety series' last season).
Regular performers and frequent guests
In later seasons, many regular performers were added, such as Dom DeLuise and Nipsey Russell in sketches set in a barbershop (always ending with Dean and company singing "When You Were Sweet Sixteen"), Kay Medford and Lou Jacobi in sketches set in a diner, Guy Marks, Tom Bosley, Marian Mercer, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Rodney Dangerfield. Bandleader Les Brown was also a regular.
During the 1965 season, The Krofft Puppets were seen regularly. Their stint, however, only lasted 8 episodes. Sid and Marty Krofft were fired because Martin felt he was being upstaged by their puppets.
Summer replacement series
Dean Martin's Thursday-night time slot was valuable to the network, and Martin's production crew created original summer programming (without Martin) to hold Martin's usual weekly audience. Rowan and Martin hosted one of Dean Martin's summer series in 1966, which was so successful that it spawned a long-running series, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.
In 1968 Martin's staff came up with a new format: a salute to the 1930s, with a variety show performed as if television existed at that time. Producer Greg Garrison recruited a dozen chorus girls, naming the group "The Golddiggers" after the Warner Brothers musicals of the '30s. The series, Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers, starred Frank Sinatra, Jr. and Joey Heatherton as musical hosts, with comedy routines by Paul Lynde, Stanley Myron Handelman, Barbara Heller, comic impressionists Bill Skiles and Pete Henderson, and neo-vaudeville musicians The Times Square Two. The summer show was a hit, returning the following year with a new cast. Lou Rawls and Martin's daughter Gail Martin took over for Sinatra and Heatherton, and six-foot-six dancer Tommy Tune was featured.
The Golddiggers also toured the nation's nightclubs as a live attraction. Some of the members grew tired of traveling and dropped out, to be replaced by other hopefuls. After the summer series ran its course, the Golddiggers were seen on Martin's own program, and a select few were used in another group, the Ding-a-Ling Sisters.
Toward the end of the Thursday-night run, the summer series was devoted to European comedians. Marty Feldman was featured in Dean Martin's Comedy World, hosted by Jackie Cooper.
DVD
From 2003 until August 2007, a 29-volume Best of The Dean Martin Variety Show collection was sold by direct marketing firm Guthy-Renker via infomercials and a website.
In mid-2007, NBC Universal filed suit in U.S. District Court against several parties, including Guthy-Renker, claiming copyright infringement, forcing G-R to temporarily withdraw the DVDs from sale., The lawsuit was in regard to a dispute over rights to footage used in the DVD series , material to which NBC claimed it still held the copyright. The conflict was discovered when NBC Universal looked into plans to release its own DVD set.
Also named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit was longtime Dean Martin Show producer Greg Garrison, who, NBC claims, had rights to use only excerpts from selected episodes of The Dean Martin Show for the DVDs -- episodes which, according to NBC, Garrison purchased years earlier from the network for a syndicated run of The Dean Martin Show that aired worldwide from 1979 to 1981. Garrison died in 2005, before the lawsuit was brought forward.
A settlement among all of the parties to the suit was reached on January 2, 2008. As a consequence, the Guthy-Renker website once again began selling the collection, and infomercials advertising it returned to the small screen.
There remain two other lawsuits pending over rights to material used in the Best of Dean Martin Variety Show series, but neither of those suits affected sales of the home video collection., ,
Unaffected by legal disputes were the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast specials, which continue to be marketed on DVD by Guthy-Renker.
Further reading
- Hale, Lee. Backstage at the Dean Martin Show. Taylor Trade Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0878331700.
External links
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