Verrry Interesting . . . But Wild

(4 of 10)

'We have dances.' He asks, 'How do nudists dance?' And I was to answer 'Very carefully.' Well, the censors didn't like that. What could we say? After some thought, they came back with 'cheek to cheek.' Well, the whole cast roared over that one, and that's the way we did it."

Often, Laugh-In has its own esoteric battles with the censor. "We're not trying to get a lot of dirty stuff on the air," explains Rowan. "About 90% of the stuff that's cut out of the script for being too blue, we take out ourselves. But our writers are normal, healthy guys, and they've got to have the freedom to throw anything into the pot. And then we discuss it." And discuss and rediscuss.

For example, the Laugh-In cast was taping a cocktail-party sequence at the NBC studios in "beautiful downtown Burbank."

Director Gordon Wiles: "O.K., let's tape it now . . . Roll tape! (Cast dances the boogaloo. Orchestra blasts two bars of rock music and chops off.)

Actor Dave Madden: "My fiancée just found out she's been taking aspirins instead of the Pill. She doesn't have a headache—but I do."

Head Writer Paul Keyes: "Held it! I think it should be 'Boy, does she have a headache!'" (Looks thoughtfully at NBC censor Sandy Cummings.) "Unless you think we could say . . . "

Censor Cummings (briskly); "Uh-uh."

Producer Schlatter: "How about 'At least she doesn't have a headache?' "

Cummings: "But the implication is that she has got something else."

Dan Rowan: "Gee, Sandy, you sure get to the root of the problem."

Cummings: "The assumption is she's knocked up."

Schlatter: "How about, 'Well, at least she hasn't got a headache—but I do?' " (Censor nods approval.)

Wiles: "O.K. . . . Roll tape!"

Scattergunning some 300 jokes and sight gags per show, Laugh-In offers something for—and against—everybody. One week it pelts a Republican: SPIRO AGNEW . . . YOUR NEW NAME IS READY. The next week it zeroes in on the President: "Texas produced some great men: Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin and Lyndon Johnson. Two out of three isn't bad." And the once risky subjects of race, religion and nationality are treated just as irreverently. "Who put the last seven bullets into Mussolini? Three hundred Italian sharpshooters."

The most topical digs are reserved for a cocktail-party sequence, featuring Laugh-In's regular cast of kooks, and a segment with hoked-up newscasts. On last week's show, for example, Rowan reported this bulletin of the future: "Vatican, 1988. The church today finally approved the use of the Pill. The announcement was made by Pope Le Roy . . . Junior. His father was not available for comment. His mother, the former Sister Mary Catherine reached at Gluck's Hillside in the Catskills, would only say, 'We like to think of the Pill as St. Joseph Aspirin For Children.' "

Stinging as some of the lines may be, the delivery is so whimsical, the targets so varied, that it is hard to be outraged by Laugh-In. Rowan and Martin take pains, in fact, to mask their personal views. The Smothers Brothers, on the other hand, tend to