50 Years Later, ‘Still Laugh-In: The Stars Celebrate’ Enduring Necessity Of Socking It To Society

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Watching Still Laugh-In: The Stars Celebrate, a tribute five decades later about the NBC series Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, the aforementioned stars hammer that point home, over and over, reminding us that everything they joked about on TV then still holds true today.

To which I say: “Verrrrrry in-ter-esting.”

You say, “Sock it to me,” and I’ll reply: “You bet your sweet bippy.”

Laugh-In socked it to us, all right. As silly as it was subversive, this sketch comedy series fronted by the nightclub act of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin tackled the socio-political messiness of the late 1960s and early 1970s. And it provided a star-making platform for the likes of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin.

Original cast members Ruth Buzzi and Jo Anne Worley returned for this all-star tribute, filmed before a live audience at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre. So did Tomlin.

The trio walks front and center 10 minutes in to toast Laugh-In creator and executive producer George Schlatter, sitting in the front row (two seats over: Norman Lear). If you didn’t know Schlatter as the original Lorne Michaels, he’ll gladly reinforce the idea for you, recalling in voiceover during a montage:  “I collected a group of people. They were people who didn’t fit into sitcoms. They were not variety performers. They were just charming personalities with a wonderful sense of humor. NBC didn’t understand it. They didn’t even really like it. But they had nothing else to put on opposite Lucille Ball and Gunsmoke.”

For all of the happy accidents caught on camera during Laugh-In, the show itself was one, too. NBC needed something cheap and frivolous to go up against the powerhouse CBS lineup (The Lucy Show and Gunsmoke were the #2 and #4 shows in America in 1967-68), and Laugh-In more than delivered, becoming the #1 show in both 1968-69 and 1969-70!

Laugh-In landed right in the middle of the zeitgeist, finding the seam between the broad strokes of The Carol Burnett Show and the scandalous satire of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (both also on CBS). It attracted all of the top celebrities, including 1968 presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon. Nixon’s “sock it to me?” cameo may have provided just enough difference with indifferent voters — just as Donald J. Trump’s Fallon hair-flip and SNL hosting on NBC may have 48 years later — to win the White House.

But it wasn’t just politics. As Michael Douglas, then a college student, recalled now for Netflix: “With its hilarious take on politics and cultural references — and I mean all types of cultural references — it hit the right note with my crowd.” So he talked his dad, Spartacus (aka Kirk Douglas), into doing Laugh-In, too.

Neal Patrick Harris and Tiffany Haddish host Still Laugh-In with a light touch, like the original duo of Rowan and Martin, even if Harris and Haddish had no previous reason for pairing up for this. For most of the hour, the writing and editing keeps it moving, just as the series had.

They go to the cocktail lounge and the joke wall, only now these set pieces are populated by the likes of Taye Diggs, Rita Moreno, Rita Wilson, Maria Bamford, Margaret Cho, Nikki Glaser, Lisa Ann Walter, Bobby Moynihan, Cheri Oteri, Jeff Ross, Tony Hale, Jon Lovitz, Natasha Leggero and Russell Peters.

Rob Riggle takes over the announcing duties from the late Gary Owens.

No matter where or when they’re throwing zingers, the targets remain the same. As introduced in montages by Jay Leno or Kenya Barris, Laugh-In had no shame in its game, going after the Ku Klux Klan, gay rights, police brutality, drug laws, the NRA, the Russians, and even manufactured news.

Of course, we’re not here so much for the montages as we are for the idea of reunions and nostalgia coming back to life.

So it’s a real treat to watch Tomlin bring back Ernestine, her telephone operator, now working a gig in the claims department of a health insurance company, denying any and all callers. “Your health is our business, not our concern,” she cracks.

We also get to see Hale and Haddish update the old recurring sketch between Tyrone and Gladys, where Tyrone (originally played by Arte Johnson, still alive at 90 but not present for this) habitually hits on Gladys on a park bench only to be rebuffed with a swift purse to his head. With a little help this time from original Gladys, Buzzi.

If anything is missing here, perhaps this tribute is a bit light on reminding us why it was called Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. But Rowan and Martin are no longer with us to celebrate. Schlatter is.

If that’s a little too heavy for you, man, then you can always dive into the old YouTube clips. All you have to do is say the magic words: “Sock it to me.”

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Still LAUGH-IN: The Stars Celebrate on Netflix