AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!! I am so fucking tired of ads for the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts DVD series. In bullet points, since I don’t trust myself to cobble together coherent paragraphs at this juncture:
Ruth Buzzi hitting everyone in sight with her goddamn purse. When was this EVER funny?
And who the hell was/is Ruth Buzzi anyway? I recognize literally every other old, fat, alcoholic, washed-up or dead star on this program, but not Ms. Buzzi.
Rich Little (“hosting” the ad) smugly proclaiming that he thinks this was the Golden Age of Comedy and has never been surpassed. Right, Rich. A bunch of drunk fiftysomethings, unloading zingers on each other that are slower and more obvious in coming than a right hook from Butterbean. Nope, we’ve never topped that.
Tim Conway standing in a hole in the ground, wearing his Dorf suit and swinging a sawed-off pitching wedge. See comment #1, multiply by fifteen.
Everyone making fun of Dean Martin’s singing. Everyone making fun of Ruth Buzzi’s ugliness. Ruth goes all Jet Li with her purse. Everyone making fun of Ronald Reagan’s movies. Everyone making fun of Frank Sinatra’s purported ties to organized crime. Lather, rinse, and repeat. How did they make a series out of this shit?
Who thought this was a good idea (to re-release on video)? Even at the time they originally aired, this was canned nostalgia. Most of those people’s heyday was the 50s and maybe the early 60s. By the time the show aired, it was for people in their 40s and 50s to see these old stars make fun of each other.
Who’s going to watch it now? People who are now in their 70s and 80s, if not older. Yep, and that’s why they sell it the way they do: that crooked old bilk-the-geezers trick in which they send you the first one free (after taking your credit card number), and then “two more every two months or so. If you decide to keep them, pay just $19.99 plus shipping and handling. You can cancel at any time [by returning the two DVDs at your expense and receiving a refund less s+h].”
Has anyone else seen this godawful ad? It’s been running for years.
Well, FWIW, this company sells everything that way, including stuff aimed at other ages.
Oh, you can cancel by just calling on the phone. You just have to remember you did that later, as you can’t place the order at that price point without being in their recurring order club.
Guthy-Renker, isn’t it? They really deserve a Pit thread all their own. It’s like Ronco, only without Smarmy Leatherface Ron to leaven the proceedings.
Believe me, the guy who would have been most contemptuous of the whole shebang would have been Dean Martin himself, who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about anything (especially the opinion of some putz forty years down the line.)
It was funny in the late 60s, when it was part of Ruth Buzzi’s schtick on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In. Arte Johnson played a dirty old man who always tried to pick up Ruth Buzzi while they both sat on a park bench. For his efforts, she would always clobber him with her purse.
It was repetitive and predictable, but then, so much sketch comedy was. Think of SNL and repeating lines like, “I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not,” and “Jane, you ignorant slut.” Or SCTV with Bob and Doug Mackenzie doing the same “Take off, you hoser” stuff each week. People expected to see and hear these people doing something they had seen umpteen times before–even Bart Simpson became known as the I Didn’t Do It Kid in one episode, and had to say “I didn’t do it” repeatedly during his fifteen minutes of fame.
I’m old enough to remember the Dean Martin Roasts. I just ignore their commercials now.
I loved these roasts. I was 12 or so when they aired them. The best was a guy named Foster Brooks who pretended (I think) to be drunk off his ass, but he would still be funny as hell. Ah the good old days.
Possibly some of us who watched it then. These were funny damned shows in the day, and I’ve thought about getting them on dvd just to relive part of my childhood. Most of the people in them are dead now (also true of “The Muppet Show”), but that doesn’t make them less funny. It makes them history.
Foster Brooks used to crack me up, but my grandmother hated him…as well as Jonathan Winters (who I liked), for some reason.
Spoons and Eve are right about Ruth Buzzi.
Part of what was so funny was watching Dean. He would drink through the entire thing, so that by the end of the show he was barely conscious.
Another famous company who sells stuff on TV is Time-Life. And I found something surprising about them today- they’re not even the real Time-Life! There was an advertisement in one of the newspaper supplements for the Hee Haw DVD collection (yet another unusual one), and the fine print read something to the effect of “Time and Life are registered trademarks of Time Warner and are used with permission. This company is not affiliated with Time Warner.” Apparently, someone is trying to sully the good name of two famous magazines (granted, one of which is no longer published) by attaching them to bizarre DVDs and CD compilations. Coming soon- The Smithsonian Institution presents Milli Vanilli’s Greatest Hits!
Time-Life was owned by Time Warner a while ago. They sold it to somebody else. Obviously, part of the deal is that TW would license the trademarks, or it would be rather pointless for anyone to buy the company in the first place.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Dino drank apple juice most of the time according to close friends.
From Wikipedia. I also saw that on some sort of “Inside Hollywood” type show. They even knew the brand of apple juice he drank. I guess it looked the most like whiskey when on ice.
I loved those roasts. I saw one again just a little while ago, and it was still funny. Jonathan Winters, Johnny Carson, Don Rickles, Bob Newhart, Jack Benny, Milton Berle… These guys were comedy masters. Those roasts were always entertaining, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them again.
I grew up on the Dean Martin roasts & while I have so far not succumbed to temptation, I know I’ll eventually order them. And Ruth Buzzi beating Frank Sinatra with her purse still makes me giggle.
Possibly, possibly…of course, you realize that your cite only claims that he was sipping apple juice for his own show (“The Dean Martin Show”), and doesn’t substantiate that he was faking drunken stupor on the roasts in question.
Sure, he could have been, but your cite doesn’t prove that.
He sure looked shit-faced by the end of those roasts, I’ll give him that.
I recently bought a DVD of the old Jack Benny TV that was aired before i was born, and you know what? That’s some damn funny stuff!
I’m 45 and I’d buy the roast DVD’s. What I’d really like to see are films of the unedited Friar’s Club roasts, I heard that they were like The Aristocrats.
