“Laugh-In.”  All by itself, the word conjures a cascade of 1960s images and memories.

Even more specifically, this incredibly popular television show has for decades been a stand-in for 1968– or perhaps better, “1968″: the pervasive mythologizing of the Sixties’ most notorious single year, a required clip in every “Sixties montage” (or even lampoons of “Sixties montages,” as can be seen on The Simpsons.)

1968’s Top-Rated TV Show

Conveniently launching at the beginning of the year (January 22) as NBC’s mid-season replacement for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.–the spy-caper series that had run out of steam–Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In soon rocketed to the top of the ratings charts and stayed there for the rest of the season and again for the next (1968-69). (Amazingly, two other shows–both on CBS–that overlapped with Laugh-In on Monday nights were also in the top ten that year:  Gunsmoke and Here’s Lucy.)

“Revolutionary”?  Maybe not.

With its vibrant, pulsating colors; the raunchy or topical joke-making; the blindingly quick cuts (over 300 separate segments in each one-hour show, according to Steven Stark’s 1997 book, Glued to the Set), Laugh-In certainly looked and sounded revolutionary and transgressive, at least on the surface.  But down deep (if that’s not an oxymoron in this context), it adhered to formulas familiar to anyone who had been watching TV since its Milton Berle beginnings 20 years earlier.  It was a variety show, with a strong stock company of players (Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin being the show’s most famous alumnae); a pair of urbane, tuxedoed hosts; musical acts (the “psychedelic” band Strawberry Alarm Clock appeared in the opening night’s lineup); comic sketches that were long on slapstick and pratfalls; and a boatload of guest stars doing embarrassing things.

A record of zaniness

In the absence of home VHS or DVDs, how were the producers going to keep the show’s fans pumped up, beyond the expectation of summer re-runs?  This record album, issued as the show’s first half-season ended, was one solution. The colorful cover features cut-outs with the show’s stars peeping through–just like the trademark “Joke Wall” that ended every episode.   ”Dan and Dick” (i.e., Rowan and Martin) provide the rationale, such as it is, for the album in the liner notes:  ”Since we are constantly being stopped on the street by the people who tell us that ‘Laugh-In’ moves to fast they don’t get all the jokes, we decided to put out this album to further confuse them. . . . Here, then, at last for home consumption is some of the madness for you to play and replay until you figure it out.”    The 1960s were the heyday of comedy record albums–one only has to think of “The First Family,” or Bill Cosby’s records, or Bob Newhart’s, or — on the smuttier side– the records put out by black comics Moms Mabley and Redd Foxx.  But a Laugh-In record?  Even the show’s producer, George Schlatter, was quoted in a magazine interview that Laugh-In was “all visual.  You can listen to other TV shows and get the drift, but you have to watch this.”  (Glued to the Set, p. 144)

Do you have a favorite Laugh-In moment?

What does Laugh-In have to do with the Sixties?