Lord Dalek
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2005
- Messages
- 7,105
- Real Name
- Joel Henderson
Prime Video doesn't support 60FPS at all. Not the best reference period.
I loved the episode with Three Dog Night at the cocktail party. It's one of my favs.
True season 6 was different than the other seasons but it sure stayed colorful! They really seemed to favor Greens in particular.
Lily Tomlin is such a classic on this series. Her work ranks right up there with anything Lucy or Carol Burnett ever did on their shows. The characters! I only wish she had gone on to have her own weekly series like the other two, but alas it was not in the cards. Still she has had an impressive career since Laugh In.
Since Prime has been reported as not being a representative source, perhaps the next best thing might be to just buy the R&MLI Season 1 Time-Life DVD set, as it is less expensive than the rest. That way, you're not out many $ if its visual presentation proves a deal breaker for you, and you can use it as a trade in towards the complete series if you find the visuals pass muster. It's just a thought.I'm very sensitive to video that has been fiddled about with/badly encoded. If this is on Prime, I can take a look at it there, but I suspect I'm not going to like how this looks.
Season 6 Episode 24
Cameo Guests: Ernest Borgnine, Sammy Davis, Jr., Rip Taylor, Robert Goulet
Returning to the show: JoAnne Worley, Lily Tomlin
I did watch the final episode of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In as I described in one of my posts above! It was a step up from the previous episode having several cast members all together from the best years of the show on this one program, JoAnne Worley, Lily Tomlin, Ruth Buzzi, Dennis Allen, Richard Dawson, Dan & Dick and Gary Owens. It was a step down in that Lisa Farringer had even more spots in this one than the previous one (thanks for your perspective on her nobajoba) and also that Donna Jean Young was back, too. She was on most of Season 6, but not entirely. It always seemed to me that she was supposed to fill a role on the show much like Goldie Hawn. She did the same kinds of line readings with mistakes and then giggled etc., except when Goldie Hawn did it, the mistakes always seemed honest and her laughter genuine. She made it enjoyable. When Donna Jean Young does it, it just seems like she's stupid and it's annoying. Plus, the eye make-up she wore, coupled with her slightly bug-eyed look, just wasn't appealing. It was like a silent movie actress. I believe I read in the Hal Erickson book that Dan & Dick worked with her in a hotel or nightclub someplace in Florida and that Dan liked her and is probably why she was hired for Season 6.
JoAnne's presence was quite welcome as well as Lily Tomlin reprising some of her most famous characters--Edith Ann and Ernestine. (Ernestine calls up Clifford Irving. If you don't know who that is, look it up in your Funk & Wagnall's.) I'm guessing by the time they taped this episode in January of 1973, it had been decided to end the series, but the final episode plays like an average Season 6 episode more than something to take note of or a raucous send-off. Rowan & Martin themselves get the Fickle Finger of Fate award from the City of Cleveland for making so many jokes about them. In Dan & Dick fashion they still amusingly insult the city while accepting it. A finale send-off doesn't seem so momentous, either, when they have previews for the next week's episode, a rerun of Season 6 Episode 7 with Guest Star Jean Stapleton.
To be fair, though, back then TV series didn't end their seasons with cliffhangers or special episodes nor wrap them up with a big finale. Only The Fugitive had done something like that in 1967 and I recall the producer said that doing that lost them a lot of syndication money.
For me there was always some excitement or intrigue in that there was nearly a whole season of Laugh-In out there that I'd never seen. And the Complete Series release has finally allowed me to view Season 6 in its entirety after all these years. (It ended 45 years ago yesterday as I'd mentioned!) And I very much enjoyed doing so on its own terms.
So OMG, now what? I guess I could hold out some hope for seeing the "Laugh-In '77" episodes that I've never seen or maybe someone'll discover another episode of "Letters to Laugh-In" around somewhere!
In the meantime, I have the entire six season series at my fingertips!
Like you said, we have the whole series...ANY episode we want is available to pull out and watch anytime. That is something we've been waiting so long for. Now we can enjoy.
That's exactly why, in the late 60s, I started a music collection and the reason I started collecting TV shows and movies with the advent of DVD.That's one of the reasons I like home video, the ability to watch whatever you want to watch when we want to. R,I.P. "Appointment TV".
Well, after watching the entire run on-almost-a daily basis, I figured that would be the best place to share my thoughts at.
Dated? yes.
Some of it wouldn't fly today? for sure.
But I'll take even the worst of the sketches today over the current humour.
First, the things I've disliked:
On the technical side - as one who counts on subtitles because English isn't his native language, I feel obligated to ask: was the person responsible to the subtitles hard of hearing himself? it seemed so at least half the time.
The Lisa Farringer sketches - obsolete would be the best word for those. For some reason IMDB credits her with 60 appearances, even though I doubt she's gone beyond 7-8 of those.
The water - what was it good for?
Alan Sues - very talented despite camping it up at times, yet I couldn't tolerate his sports' report.
The "Funny, so was/am I" quote - often repeated despite being quite unfunny.
The "Fickle Finger of Fate" section - should've ended within 2 seasons at best and held on for way longer than it should've.
Lily Tomblin's "rambling and getting to nowhere" character - while being decent to very good at anything else, this character simply shouldn't have been created.
Now for the positive (if I'm not remarking over someone's performance, I probably have nothing to say about him/her or can't remember anything special:
Rowan & Martin - got the comic timing down to a tee.
Gary Owens - great voice.
Ruth Buzzi - the veteran of the crew and always seemed onwards with her comedy.
Henry Gibson - very amusing.
Jo Anne Worely - loaded with charisma & could always carry a tune and a sketch.
Dennis Allen - don't let the somewhat glum-face fool you, as he's actually quite good.
Goldie Hawn - cute & charming. Loved the occasional duck-face.
Arte Johnson - very good. Great with accents.
Richard Dawson - good. Loved his Groucho & Fields impressions.
Johnny Brown - very talented.
Byron Gilliam - OK as a performer & great as a dancer.
Jud Strunk - Reasonable. Was sad to read about his death.
Patti Deutsch - Also quite good. Loved her impressions.
Perhaps it's just me, yet I've also loved the outside Gorilla sketches.
The show in general picks up steam quite fast and the crew seem to blend together very quickly and do their best until the third season ends. This is where the decline is very noticable with jokes which aren't too amusing or just very predictable.