JohnMor
Senior HTF Member
Can't agree with all that, Joe. I saw a tribute to Laugh-In at the museum here in L.A. a few years back and it was packed and the audience had a great time. There was a lot of fine sketch comedy in there, along with oh-so-mod bits that are more entertaining as time capsules than anything else. But Mama's Family was to me nothing but an insult to the fine "Family" sketches done on TCBS. Not one laugh to be had in it for me.Joe Lugoff said:I don't like to refer to things as "dated" because to some extent, everything is a product of its times. But "Laugh-In" is incredibly dated. It bombed in syndication. I saw it a while back and sat there stone faced. It struck me as a bunch of very old jokes, going back to vaudeville and burlesque, done in a "mod" 60s style to make people think they were cutting edge and new.
Even in its day its popularity was short-lived. It was #1 for two seasons then dropped so fast it was gone only three years later. It was a fad. Only "Batman" did worse.
Add in the fact that it's 40+ years old, meaning those who look back on it nostalgically are getting up there in years -- and younger people probably never heard of it because it had no afterlife in syndication -- and I think it's fairly certain that it would not be a big success on DVD.
You'd be surprised how many fans of "The Family" from "The Carol Burnett Show" and the subsequent "Mama's Family" there are walking around loose out there. I happen to be one of them myself. I personally have never heard anyone reminisce nostalgically about "Laugh-In." Watching clips from it on YouTube makes me think, "What were we thinking?" It's pretty awful.