COURTESY WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (often simply referred to as Laugh-In) is an American sketch comedy television program that ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968, to March 12, 1973, on the NBC television network, hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. It originally aired as a one-time special on September 9, 1967, and was such a success that it was brought back as a series, replacing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on Mondays at 8 pm (ET). It quickly became the most popular television show in the United States.

The title of the show was a play on the 1960s hippie culture “love-ins” or the counterculture “be-ins“, terms that were derived from “sit-ins” that were common in protests associated with civil rights and antiwar demonstrations of the time. In 2002, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In was ranked number 42 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.^[1]

Laugh-In had its roots in the humor of vaudeville and burlesque, but its most direct influences were Olsen and Johnson‘s comedies (such as the free-form Broadway revue Hellzapoppin’), the innovative television works of Ernie Kovacs, and the topical satire of That Was The Week That Was. The show was characterized by a rapid-fire series of gags and sketches, many of which were politically charged or contained sexual innuendo. The co-hosts continued the exasperated straight man (Rowan) and “dumb guy” (Martin) act which they had established as nightclub comics.^{[2][page needed]} The show featured Gary Owens as the on-screen announcer and permanent castmember Ruth Buzzi; longer-tenured cast members included Judy Carne, Henry Gibson, Goldie Hawn, Arte Johnson, Jo Anne Worley, Alan Sues, Lily Tomlin, Johnny Brown, Dennis Allen and Richard Dawson.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Question of the Day

I have some old vegetable seeds I’m not sure will still grow. How can I test them?Arrange a small group of seeds on a double layer of paper towels. Mark the top of the arrangement with a stick pin and then draw a diagram of which seeds you placed where, if you are testing more than one type. Top the seeds with a double layer of moistened paper towels and cover the whole thing with plastic wrap or a plastic bag. After the seeds germinate, lift the towels and record on your diagram how well each seed type sprouted.

Advice of the Day

Gently rub a small, moistened, cloth bag of iodized salt on your windshield to prevent the ice and snow from sticking.

Home Hint of the Day

Beeswax candles tend to drip less than paraffin candles, won’t smoke, and hold their shape well during hot spells. A 12-inch beeswax candle will burn for 10 to 12 hours — several hours longer than a paraffin candle of the same size.

Word of the Day

Horse latitudesEither of two belts of latitudes located over the oceans at about 30° to 35° north and south, having high barometric pressure, calms, and light, changeable winds.

Puzzle of the Day

Why is coffee like an ax with a dull edge?It must be ground before being used.

Born

• Ivan III (Ivan The Great) – 1440
• Sir Francis Bacon (writer, philosopher) – 1561
• Richard Upjohn (architect) – 1802
• August Strindberg (playwright) – 1849
• D. W. Griffith (film director) – 1875
• Ann Sothern (actress) – 1909
• U Thant (United Nations Secretary General) – 1909
• Sam Cooke (singer) – 1931
• Piper Laurie (actress) – 1932
• Bill Bixby (actor & director) – 1934
• Joseph Wambaugh (writer) – 1937
• Steve Perry (singer) – 1949
• Linda Blair (actress) – 1959
• Diane Lane (actress) – 1965
• Balthazar Getty (actor) – 1975
• Christopher Masterson (actor) – 1980
• Beverley Mitchell (actress) – 1981

Died

• Queen Victoria (Great Britain, died after the longest reign of any British monarch and was succeeded by her son, Edward VII) – 1901
• Lyndon B. Johnson (36th U.S. president) – 1973
• Telly Savalas (actor) – 1994
• Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (matriarch of the Kennedy family) – 1995
• Stanley Marcus (chairman of department store Neiman-Marcus) – 2002
• Jack Shea (gold medal-winning speedskater and patriarch of family of Olympic finalists, including grandson who won gold medal at 2002 games) – 2002
• Ann Miller (dancer & actress) – 2004
• Patsy Rowlands (actress) – 2005
• Heath Ledger (actor) – 2008
• Jean Simmons (English actress who later also became an American citizen) – 2010
• James Mitchell (actor & dancer) – 2010
• Hank Aaron (baseball player) – 2021

Events

• Uranium atom was first split by cyclotron– 1939
• Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In debuted on TV– 1968
• George Foreman knocks out Joe Frazier for world heavyweight boxing title– 1973
• Macintosh computer commercial ran during Super Bowl XVIII– 1984
• Politician R. Budd Dwyer committed suicide on national television– 1987
• Roberta Bondar became first Canadian woman in space– 1992
• Madeleine Albright became the first female secretary of state after confirmation by the U.S. Senate– 1997

Weather

• In Spearfish, South Dakota, the temperature rose from -4F to 45F in 2 minutes, due to chinook– 1943
• Meteorologists said that 75 percent of North America was covered by snow– 1982
• Mountain Lake, Virginia, recorded a low temperature of -30 degrees F– 1985
• Snow fell in Jordan– 2008

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