‘Laugh-In’ veterans gather to honor Lily Tomlin
Jo Anne Worley belted out an old standard love song with a heavy Brooklyn accent. Gary Owens cupped his hand to his ear, vintage broadcaster style, and let loose with quips straight out of 1968. And George Schlatter read letters from NBC censors that warned phrases like, “Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls,” and tongue-twisters like “the Farkle family” would never fly on network TV.
It was a mini-reunion of “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” luminaries at West Hollywood’s Comedy Store on Thursday night, assembled to honor Lily Tomlin, an animal activist receiving an award named for her from Voice for the Animals Foundation. The event also was a fundraiser for the animal welfare nonprofit, which has focused lately on rescuing animals displaced by home foreclosures.
Against a flower-power mural and with “Laugh-In” musical director Billy Barnes at the piano, the former cast mates talked about 200-page scripts for the weekly variety show -- each page had a single gag on it -- and its unexpected influence on pop culture.
“It was dangerous TV -- it was TV without a net,” said Schlatter, one of the show’s producers. “And 50 million people watched.”
Even so, the censors “hovered around us like bees,” he said, trying to rein in the skits, which had bits of vaudeville, doses of burlesque and overtones of hippie. Sometimes, the humor was completely nonsensical.
“I stood up for chickens,” Worley said. “It started as a rant and it became a regular bit.”
Tomlin, who joined “Laugh-In’s” third season, called it “a little circus every week,” and said the censors picked through the shtick so carefully they told her the snorting telephone operator, Ernestine, couldn’t dial with her middle finger.
“It was always political, always against the [Vietnam] war,” Tomlin said. “But there was a playfulness to the show. And the pace was incredible. Has there been anything like it since?”
Tomlin, who has since won multiple Emmys, Tonys and Peabodys, launched ringy-dingy Ernestine, pint-sized philosopher Edith Ann and other characters on “Laugh-In.” She’d been honing her multiple personalities in small clubs and said the leap to TV was terrifying.
“I liked to rehearse too much, so I was scared of TV,” she said. “But George understood me, so I joined the show having no idea what it would all mean.”
Owens was one of the few performers, along with Ruth Buzzi, to be in every episode of the show’s six-year run. “Everybody just frolicked all the way,” he said.
Though it was built around successful Vegas performers Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, the show introduced young stars like Goldie Hawn and Richard Dawson while featuring A-list guests such as Rock Hudson, Liberace, Sonny & Cher, Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis. A clip montage that Schlatter made for Thursday’s event included Richard Nixon’s cameo, where he butchered the show’s “sock it to me” catch phrase.
“The show was never dirty, it was bawdy. It was sexy,” Schlatter said. There’s been talk of reviving the “Laugh-In” format for a current series, he said, but he’s not sure it would work because it wouldn’t have the same level of freedom.
Kate Flannery, from NBC’s “The Office,” helped run an auction that sold ride-alongs with the Los Angeles Police Department, a session with spiritual medium James Van Praagh, and customized voice mails from Tomlin to raise money for the foundation.
In presenting her with the award, Ed Begley Jr. called Tomlin “an extraordinary lover of animals and a great humanitarian.”