The Dean Martin Show

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The Dean Martin Show was a weekly US television show produced by NBC . The host was the entertainer Dean Martin . The show was on the program from 1965 to 1974 - last year under the name The Dean Martin Comedy Hour - and was one of the most successful TV shows of the 1960s in the USA.

prehistory

Dean Martin

Born in 1917, Dean Martin worked as a night club singer since 1939. He gained worldwide fame in the post-war period through a ten-year collaboration with comedian Jerry Lewis , whose straight man , cue-maker and serious - "cool" - counterpart he was. The Martin & Lewis program had been primarily a stage act; in addition, they made 16 films with comparable roles. Occasionally, however, there were also television appearances; so both performed several times at the Colgate Comedy Hour in the early 1950s . Parallel to these comedic joint appearances, Martin pursued a solo career as a serious singer through record productions at Capitol .

After separating from Martin & Lewis in the summer of 1956, Martin initially concentrated on his stage work. The new beginning proved difficult, his successes with the audience and in the reviews were initially limited. Critics compared Martin with Lewis, whose films and records were immediately successful, and said that without Lewis, Martin was at best an average entertainer "with little humor and limited charm." Based on his work as a singer and his stage presence, Martin succeeded in the late 1950s, however, to build up an independent profile that he consolidated over three decades. In addition to record successes, some serious film roles also helped.

From 1957 to 1961 NBC first brought out a television program called Dean Martin Show , which had the character of a special, was broadcast twice a year and had a total of nine issues.

From 1965 NBC reissued The Dean Martin Show with a changed concept. It stayed in the program until 1974.

content

Frequent guest on the Dean Martin Show: Dom DeLuise

The Dean Martin Show was designed as a weekly broadcast. It was broadcast on Thursday evening, in the last season on Friday. Greg Garrison was the producer and director .

The regular content of the program included Martin's monologues with humorous contributions reminiscent of his stage appearances; he also sang some songs solo.

In each show Martin presented various “more or less prominent guests” who, in addition to solo performances, brought one or more common numbers with him. Some of them were well-known show and film greats such as Paul Anka , Tony Bennett , Milton Berle , Bing Crosby , Peggy Lee , Gina Lollobrigida , Julie London , Johnny Mathis , Louis Prima , Peter Sellers and James Stewart . For the most part, however, the guests were familiar with the season. Occasionally, European stars also appeared, among them Elke Sommer and the Kessler twins . Martin also repeatedly put his children on the show. Dino, Desi & Billy , the beat band of his son Dean Paul , appeared in its first season; later Martin's daughters Gail and Deana also performed with him. While most of the guests were only engaged once, individual artists appeared repeatedly on the show. They included Martin's uncle Leonard Barr , Tom Bosley , Rodney Dangerfield , Dom DeLuise , Lou Jacobi , Guy Marks , Kay Medford , Charles Nelson Reilly, and Nipsey Russell . They were often used in recurring sketch formats or running gags .

From 1968 the female ballet formation Gold Diggers (from 1971: Ding-A-Ling-Sisters ) added to the show. Martin's long-time pianist Ken Lane , who acted as the Straight Man , was also a regular guest . Martin's assistant, Mack Gray , was eventually run as the musical coordinator.

production

The special thing about the Dean Martin Show was a very high level of improvisation, which was justified by Martin's lack of time and his desire not to have to spend more than an eight-hour working day for each program. To implement this requirement, Garrison produced the shows in strictly separated sequences. All scenes in which Martin could not be seen were filmed without him; if necessary, a double stepped in. Martin's scenes were created completely independently of this; they were later edited together with the prepared recordings . Even dialogues were recorded separately. Some guests on the Dean Martin Show didn't see Martin at all. As with his feature films, Martin almost completely dispensed with rehearsals. He had Garrison explain his operations; he improvised the details with the help of cue cards , which were positioned next to a camera. The guests usually found this way of working unprofessional; the country singer Loretta Lynn as described the work on The Dean Martin Show as "mess" (chaos). Martin and Garrison exploited the host's lack of preparation. The cue cards repeatedly appeared in the picture. Martin included them in his jokes, for example by pretending to have reading difficulties, and thus openly relativized the seriousness of the show. The multi-layered nature of Martin’s role became a part of the program that was valued by the audience.

Achievements and Awards

The Dean Martin Show was one of the most successful television productions of the 1960s. After a short period of time it achieved outstanding switch-on results - studies showed an average value of 38 percent - and was sold worldwide. From 1965 to 1974 there were 264 episodes of the show.

Initially, NBC only signed a one-year deal with Martin. In order to tie Martin to the station after the successful first year, NBC increased Martin's fee sevenfold for the following three years to US $ 283,000 per show. With this contract, which made Martin the best-paid entertainer in the world for years, NBC's parent company RCA got into financial difficulties. In the inner circle, Martin expressed the assessment that he was not worth such a high fee.

In 1967, Dean Martin received the Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star. Further nominations followed in the years 1968 to 1970. Director Greg Garrison, who directed and produced many episodes, was honored with an Emmy for his work on a 1968 episode . From 1966 to 1974 inclusive, the series was nominated 15 times for the Emmy. Garrison also received three Directors Guild of America Award nominations .

Reviews

Martin made the show "for ordinary people" in his own words. Over the years, the Dean Martin Show became increasingly vulgar. In the 1970s, the press often criticized Martin's “drinking jokes, girl jokes and ambiguities” as being out of date, sexist and humiliating and gave Martin the title “King Leer” (for example: King of the Zote). Christian press organs recently advised against following the broadcast.

continuation

From October 1974 to December 1984 NBC brought out 20 editions of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast , with a modified format , in which comedic contributions with celebrities were shown.

literature

  • David M. Inman: Television Variety Shows: Histories and Episode Guides to 57 Programs, McFarland, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7864-2198-5
  • Vincent Terrace: Television Specials: 5,336 Entertainment Programs , 1936–2012, McFarland, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4766-1240-9
  • Nick Tosches: Dino. Rat-Pack, the Mafia and the big dream of happiness . Heyne Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-453-40367-3

See also

Web links

Commons : The Dean Martin Show  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank Krutnik: Sex and Slapstick. The Martin & Lewis Phenomenon In: Murray Pomerance (Eds.): Enfant Terrible !: Jerry Lewis in American Film , NYU Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8147-6705-4 , p. 109.
  2. ↑ Deana Martin, Wendy Holden: Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin Through His Daughter's Eyes , Crown / Archetype, 2010, ISBN 978-0-307-53826-0 , p. 57.
  3. ^ Ricci Martin, Christopher Smith: That's Amore. A Son Remembers Dean Martin , Taylor Trade Publications, 2004, ISBN 978-1-58979-140-4 , p. 36.
  4. ↑ Vincent Terrace: Television Specials: 5,336 Entertainment Programs , 1936–2012, McFarland, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4766-1240-9 , p. 123 (entry no. 612).
  5. ↑ a b Nick Tosches: Dino. Rat-Pack, the Mafia and the big dream of happiness. Heyne Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-453-40367-3 , p. 555.
  6. ^ A b Ricci Martin, Christopher Smith: That's Amore. A Son Remembers Dean Martin , Taylor Trade Publications, 2004, ISBN 978-1-58979-140-4 , p. 104.
  7. ^ A b c Mark Evanier: Greg Garrison, RIP . Obituary for Greg Garrison. www.newsfromme.com, April 1, 2005, accessed February 15, 2016 .
  8. ↑ a b Michael Althen: Dean Martin. His films - his life . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich, 1997, ISBN 3-453-13676-4 , p. 76.
  9. ^ A b c David M. Inman: Television Variety Shows: Histories and Episode Guides to 57 Programs , McFarland, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7864-2198-5 , p. 242.
  10. ↑ Bruce Williamson: Dino's breezy way to easy Money . Life Magazine, May 26, 1967, p. 18.
  11. ↑ Nick Tosches: Dino. Rat-Pack, the Mafia and the big dream of happiness . Heyne Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-453-40367-3 , p. 517.
  12. Jump up ↑ Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter , Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010, ISBN 978-0-307-74268-1 , p. 177.
  13. ^ David M. Inman: Television Variety Shows: Histories and Episode Guides to 57 Programs , McFarland, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7864-2198-5 , p. 249.
  14. ↑ Nick Tosches: Dino. Rat-Pack, the Mafia and the big dream of happiness . Heyne Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-453-40367-3 , p. 519.
  15. ↑ a b R.M. Reed, MK Reed: The Encyclopedia of Television, Cable, and Video , Springer Science & Business Media, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4684-6521-1 , p. 336.
  16. ↑ Nick Tosches: Dino. Rat-Pack, the Mafia and the big dream of happiness . Heyne Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-453-40367-3 , p. 531.
  17. ↑ Guinness Book of Records . German edition 1982, ISBN 978-3-550-07705-0 , p. 273.
  18. ↑ Nick Tosches: Dino. Rat-Pack, the Mafia and the big dream of happiness. Heyne Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-453-40367-3 , p. 562.
  19. ↑ Cyclops: The witless rein of King Leer . TV Review in: Life Magazine, April 7, 1972, p. 14.
  20. ↑ To empty means, among other things, a stupid grin; the noun empty describes u. a. a suggestion.
  21. ↑ Vincent Terrace: Television Specials: 5,336 Entertainment Programs , 1936–2012, McFarland, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4766-1240-9 , p. 121 (entry no. 611).
  22. ↑ Nick Tosches: Dino. Rat-Pack, the Mafia and the big dream of happiness. Heyne Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-453-40367-3 , p. 573.