Rant #2,376: Sock It To Me

After all the deaths that we have discussed this week, I wanted to relax a bit, I wanted to laugh, and I wanted to not turn off the thinking cap, but maybe, just maybe, turn it on the "low" mode, just for a little while, at least.

I had heard that Netflix was premiering this week the 50th anniversary "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" special, so I thought that I had the perfect tonic for the negativity that those obituaries and talk about death brought to the table.

Sorry to say, but "Still Laugh-In: The Stars Celebrate" pretty much misses the mark completely. Not only is the show two years late--the initial special on NBC was in 1967--but the repulsive nature of much of the show is a turn off to any fan of the ground-breaking show from way back when.

Based on what I saw on the show, the writers, actors, and sorry, even creator/producer George Schlatter, have no idea why this show hit it off with the public the way it did more than 50 years ago.

Beyond the special's filthy language and Trump bashing, the show does feature a few very good segments, and the editing between new segments and old--in particular in "The Party" sequences--is quite good.

Beyond that, you have people, many of whom were not around when the show was new, talking about the influence it had on them and on society, and I guess they read cue cards very well.

Hosts Tiffany Haddish and Neil Patrick Harris are interesting choices for that role that at one time was that of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, but although I will give them kudos for trying, they just don't capture the fancy as hosts of this show.

In fact, while Harris does appear to be giving it his all, Haddish appears to be kind of one foot in, one foot out in her role, and I read one response to her performance that was posted on Facebook saying that she appeared to be, well, let's say, a bit soused on the show--and later, she eats some supposedly marijuana-infused candy, so it could be true.

Lots of clips of the original show are used, and it looks like they went all the way into the fourth season of the show, since clips do show the likes of Dennis Allen and Barbara Sharma, but where is Alan Sues? Was he one of the troupe of actor/comedians who made the show so memorable? Of course he was, but I did not see him at all on this tribute show, which is a crime in itself.

And where were Joanne Worley and Ruth Buzzi?

Lily Tomlin was one of the top-billed stars of the show, and she was billed separately from Worley and Buzzi--in fact, she is listed as one of the three "stars" of the show, along with Haddish and Harris. I guess this was done because she is thought to be more "current" than the other two ladies are, and the fact is that Buzzi is pretty much retired after a long career and Worley is still active, but not as out front as Tomlin is ... and Tonlin is one of the stars of Netflix's "Grace and Frankie" show.

However, to separate Tomlin from the other two really is an insult to Worley and Buzzi, two of the original cast members on the show, and in particular, it is an insult to Buzzi, the only one of the troupe who was with the show from beginning to end (Rowan and Martin obviously were, as was Gary Owens, but they were not really part of the troupe of talented performers who helped make the show so memorable).

And where was Goldie Hawn? Has she gotten too big for her own boots, or did she pass on appearing on the show for other reasons?

Other than "The Party" segments, which with the editing were better than just about anything else on the rest of the show, the only segment that really stood out was the "Two Ritas" segment featuring Rita Wilson and completely ageless Rita Moreno. Interspersed with original cast members in performance, this segment was really electric, and since it was held early in the hour-long show, it gave great promise to the rest of the program, billed as a "Netflix Movie" believe it or not.

But it wasn't meant to be.

Another segment featuring Snoop Dogg and Michael Rappaport about--what else?--marijuana not only fell completely flat, but it was truly repulsive, as was the segment where Bill Maher gave the "Flying Fickle Finger of Fate" award to President Trump. Funny, in the original show, President Nixon was hit over the head repeatedly--beyond his famous "Sock It To Me" appearance--but it was done with a modicum of respect, at the very least for the office of president. Bill Maher dumps on Trump worse than an overloaded pigeon dumps on your car, and it, too, misses the point of the original show entirely:

Dump on everyone, and dump on them as equally as possible, and do it satirically and as nicely as possible.

Even some of the performers mentioned this very real aspect of the show, but on this special, I did not see it being applied.

The current performers that were featured were pretty weak, and I certainly didn't know who most of them were as the audience hooted and hollered when they came on screen, often drowning out what they were saying.

And short shrift was given to the likes of Judy Carne, Eileen Brennan, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, the aforementioned Sues, and yes, even Rowan and Martin themselves. Heck, even Robin Williams has a very short segment, and he was only in the failed revival of the show, not the original program.

And yes, the show even features revisionist history, voiced by Schlatter himself. In what could have been an interesting revelation if it were true, Schlatter claims on the show that one reason that the cast was assembled like it was was because he took "performers who couldn't do sitcoms" and placed them in the troupe of the show.

This is so untrue that it is ridiculous. Among the original cast members who appeared regularly with supporting or starring roles on sitcoms before Laugh-In were Buzzi, Hawn, Johnson, Carne, Dick Martin himself, and later, Larry Hovis and Richard Dawson were often billed on the show as "they guys from Hogan's Heroes," so what exactly is he talking about?

This show played out like a pilot for a new revival of the show, but based on what I saw, I hope it does not happen.

All in all, with a little bit of good mixed with a lotta bit of bad, I would give this a rating of a "D," so it barely passed the grade.

Watch it if you dare, but do not expect the original "Laugh-In." That appears to be a "lightning in the bottle" program, and clearly, it would be really difficult to do such a show in 2019, even though some of the same problems we as a society had in 1969 we still have now.

Again, watch it if you dare. I am glad I did, but boy, did I expect better.

Have a good weekend. I will speak to you again on Monday.