The professional union of nightclub comics Dan Rowan and Dick Martin was slow to catch on. Partnered in 1952, Rowan & Martin played Las Vegas gaming rooms before starring in a failed Universal-International Western comedy, Once Upon a Horse (1958). An early admirer was Dean Martin, who booked the team as regular performers on his Dean Martin Summer Show (1966). The gig led to their own comedy special in 1967; titled Laugh-In, the variety show hearkened back to vaudeville while broaching borderline objectionable material torn from the headlines in the spirit of the controversial Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Heartened by critical kudos, NBC ordered 13 episodes of Laugh-In, which was a hit with viewers in early 1968. Over the course of six seasons, the Laugh-In formula stayed the same, with Rowan & Martin reprising their standard straight man/fall guy shtick with an assist from a revolving repertory of stock comics, including Lily Tomlin, Jo-Anne Worley, Henry Gibson, Ruth Buzzi, and a 20 year-old Goldie Hawn. The Maltese Bippy (1969) was Rowan & Martin's second attempt at a feature film crossover; heralded by MGM as "an action-adventure-romantic-horror-melodramatic comedy," the lampoon was rife with Gothic monsters and unpardonable puns. Forfeiting the celebrity cameos that were Laugh-In's stock-in-trade, The Maltese Bippy relied instead on support from the more affordable likes of TV actor Robert Reed (who went from this to The Brady Bunch), Carol Lynley, and "Catwoman" Julie Newmar, as well as Edra Gale from Federico Fellini's 8½ (1960).

By Richard Harland Smith