Sunday Evening Video: The Subversive Comedy Of Dean Martin

Hey pallies, well our Dino-winter-month celebration is nearin' the end...'nother great year of lovin' our Dino draweth nigh. But, likes pallies today's Dinopost is goin' heat thin's up as much of the earth is turnin' colder.

Today we turn to a post shared by Mr. Rudy Panucci in his cyber column "PopCult" at the Charleston Gazette web pad. Pallie Panucci shares some quality Dino-commentary and stellar Dino-clip-examples on his Dino-themed essay "The Subversive Comedy Of Dean Martin."

Our pallie Rudy really 'gets Martin' and speaks insightfully of our Dino and his amazin' show by sayin' "how progressive and subversive the comedy on the show was."
Mr. Panucci reminds us that our Dino is a man way ahead of his time and leadin' way to new ways of bein' and thinkin' and doin'.

It is truly such a thrill to find columnists like Mr. Rudy Panucci liftin' up the name of our Dino and sharin' such amazin' insights into the life, times, and workin' of our great man.

Deep Dino-thanks to pallie Panucci for helpin' other to growin' in their Dinoknowledge and Dino-appreciation. His post is such a wonderful gift in spreadin' the Dino-word and a great way of startin' to bring this ol' Dino-year to a close.

To view Mr. Rudy Panucci's Dino-prose in it's original format, please clicks on the tagg of this Dino-gram. Dino-psyched, DMP

Sunday Evening Video: The Subversive Comedy Of Dean Martin



The Dean Martin Variety Show was one of the highest-rated shows on TV in the 1960s, but people forget how progressive and subversive the comedy on the show was. Martin introduced American audiences to Monty Python and Marty Feldman, and at a time when the racial divide in this country was rarely breached, the Dean Martin show regularly featured stand-up comedy from the then-young Bill Cosby and Flip Wilson. The show also addressed what could have been touchy social issues in the patented Rat Pack “who cares as long as nobody gets hurt” manner.

In the above clip, a recurring bit where Nipsy Russell and Dom DeLuise played the “NBC Barbers” who would be cutting the hair of that week’s guest, the guest is Peter Sellers, who discovered earlier in the day that he could reduce Martin to tears by doing a campy “gay” voice. Without any prior warning, he began the sketch, in which he was supposed to be speaking normally as himself, using that voice. You can see how it caught Russell and DeLuise off guard, but when Dino enters the sketch it really takes off.

The cool thing about The Dean Martin Show was that Martin never rehearsed. He’d walk in at the last minute and read his lines off the cue cards, often ad-libbing just to mess with his well-rehearsed co-stars. After the jump check out some more clips from The Dean Martin Show, featuring Goldie Hawn, Don Rickles, and more. This was the heyday of the show, not the last few years when the show was reduced to cranked-out celebrity “roasts.” These are examples why, in the history of comedy, Dean Martin matters.











Finally, here’s Dom DeLuise and Orson Welles on The Dean Martin Show, doing a sketch originally written by Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor for “At Last, The 1948 Show” for the BBC.



This entry was posted on Sunday, December 27th, 2009 at 12:50 pm