# "Laugh In" question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 14, 2001, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406 "2001-05-14T12:46:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 19\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ac91a4/32.png) [@Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knighted_Vorpal_Sword)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/1 "2001-05-14T12:46:57Z")

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Who was it that said. “You bet your bippy” on Laugh In? (I seem to remember it as “sweet bippy,” but my friend insists the word sweet was not said.)

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/2 "2001-05-14T13:03:53Z")

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I think it was Dick Martin. If I’m right, do I get the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate?

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/3 "2001-05-14T13:06:15Z")

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Oh, I also remember “You bet your **sweet** bippy.”

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**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/4 "2001-05-14T13:15:22Z")

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. . . Just look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls [exits behind joke wall to Jo Ann Worley shriek]

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**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/5 "2001-05-14T13:30:58Z")

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I walked through the family room a few weeks ago to find my daughter watching an episode of Sabrina. She was stuck in a magical insane asylum with the entire cast of the original Laugh-In (except maybe Goldie Hawn and Arte Johnson). The horror…

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/6 "2001-05-14T13:32:42Z")

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[This page](http://members.nbci.com/TVBreak/laugh-in.html) has _Laugh-In_ wavs.

You can here Dan Rowan and Dick Martin discussing “bippy” here: [You can’t say “bippy” any more.](http://members.nbci.com/TVBreak/laughin/laugh-42.wav)

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**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/7 "2001-05-14T23:03:40Z")

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I never figured out what a bippy was, I suppose they just made it up.

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**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/8 "2001-05-14T23:10:54Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Eve \*  
> . . . Just look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls [exits behind joke wall to Jo Ann Worley shriek]

**Eve** , honey, you made my day! 😃

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/9 "2001-05-14T23:26:32Z")

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_ACK_!!! I typed “here” whenI meant to type “hear”! I _hate it_ when that happens!

I think “bippy” is a euphamism for “ass”, which apparently was not allowed to be said on teevee back in the 1960s.

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**Author:** ![Sparteye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Sparteye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparteye)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/10 "2001-05-15T00:49:55Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> “ass”, which apparently was not allowed to be said on teevee back in the 1960s

You are so right. In fact, a good deal of what appears on current network prime time would not have been allowed, including almost any word pertaining to bodily functions other than eating. Use of the word “pregnant” was unusual, as was showing a woman pregnant.

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**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/11 "2001-05-15T01:00:08Z")

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[sub]Zis thread iss Vvverrrrry INterrezzting.[/sub]

**BUT SCHTUPID!!**

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**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/12 "2001-05-15T03:45:37Z")

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I’d just like to add that Rowan & Martin later appeared in a movie called “The Maltese Bippy.” I saw it for the first time a few months ago. It had something to do with werewolves, and was not particularly funny.

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**Author:** ![Kyomara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8edcca/32.png) [@Kyomara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyomara)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/13 "2001-05-15T03:47:55Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sparteye \*  
> \*\*In fact, a good deal of what appears on current network prime time would not have been allowed, including almost any word pertaining to bodily functions other than eating. Use of the word “pregnant” was unusual, as was showing a woman pregnant. \*\*

I always liked the story that Julie Andrews (British woman from the show) told on the 25th anniversary speacial about the show’s tensions with the censors. She had made an off-color but very hip (and thus indecipherable to anyone over a certain age) comment on the previous night’s show. The next day one of the censors approached her, furious, and said “I went home and asked my son about what you said last night and you are in big trouble, missy!”

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**Author:** ![Sylkyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/da6949/32.png) [@Sylkyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylkyn)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/14 "2001-05-15T04:19:55Z")

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**Eve** is hereby awarded the “Whoopee Award”! (Remember?? Similar to the FFFoF, but the index finger rotated around in a “whoopee” fashion?..God I loved that show!)

And **Bosda** … 😃 😃 😃

Now puff on your now politically incorrect stub of a cig and turn around away from the cameras…  
Oh yeah…I always remembered Dick Martin as saying the word “bippy” first. It later became a household euphemism. I had a t-shirt that had “You bet your **sweet** Bippy” on it and later, once I grew to maturity, I got another t-shirt emblazoned with, “Here come da Judge”. Anybody care to come up with who was famous for that one??

I was so cool.

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**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/15 "2001-05-15T04:29:04Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> I got another t-shirt emblazoned with, “Here come da Judge”. Anybody care to come up with who was famous for that one??
> 
> I was so cool.

Popularized by Flip Wilson but originally coined by Pigmeat Markham. - Jill

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/16 "2001-05-15T05:16:07Z")

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When I was in 4th grade in 1969, Scholastic Books Services actually sold me the autobiography of Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham. You’ll never guess what it was titled. That’s right—_Here Come Da Judge!_ Pigmeat was an old man by the time Laugh-In came along. He told of his family down in Georgia losing everything when his dad died, how he started dirt poor as a little kid in show biz, which meant vaudeville shows on the chitlin’ circuit down South before World War I. How eventually he invented the character of Da Judge which was his big vaudeville role back in the 1920s and 30s.  
_Da Judge is higher ‘n a Geawgia pine! Everybody’s gonna do time this mawnin’!_ Those were inflated pig bladders he was using to whup people upside the head with.  
He also took credit for inventing the dance called “Truckin’” (which many years later inspired R. Crumb and the Grateful Dead). He concluded by revealing that since Laugh-In was taped in bits and pieces which were then spliced together, “I have never even _met_ Rowan and Martin!” I remember seeing him recreate his role on Laugh-In a couple times, and then Sammy Davis Jr. was doing it.

I think the Englishwoman you meant was Judy Carne. The “Sock-it-to-me girl.” Lord, she took enough physical abuse in two seasons on that show to last a lifetime. And she kept asking for it!

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**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/17 "2001-05-15T05:46:04Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \*  
> \*\*  
> I think the Englishwoman you meant was Judy Carne. The “Sock-it-to-me girl.” Lord, she took enough physical abuse in two seasons on that show to last a lifetime. And she kept asking for it! \*\*

Sobering bio here:

[http://www.swinginchicks.com/judy\_carne.htm](http://www.swinginchicks.com/judy_carne.htm)

what was that about clowns always crying

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**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/18 "2001-05-15T07:52:12Z")

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I thought both Rowan and Martin said the bippy line. They made a movie called the **Maltese Bippy**.

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**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laugh-in-question/65406/19 "2001-05-15T12:08:25Z")

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Say “goodnight”, Dick.

“Goodnight, Dick.”
