Dick Martin, best known for his cohosting of TV's irreverent and counter-culture Laugh-In, died Saturday night of respiratory complications. He was 86. Martin, who lost the use of one of his lungs as a teenager, "had had some pretty severe respiratory problems for many years," a family spokesperson tells the AP, and required supplemental oxygen for as much as 18 hours a day. "He had pretty much stopped breathing a week ago." As the hosts of Laugh-In, which debuted in 1968, Dan Rowan (also a veteran nightclub comic at the time) played straight man to Martin. The variety series for two years topped the Nielsens and bore such catchphrases as catchphrases as "Sock it to me" (once delivered by Richard Nixon, in a cameo) and "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall's." Rowan, who suffered from diabetes, died in 1987.Later in his career, Martin was convinced by Bob Newhart to try TV directing, and went on to call the shots on episodes of Newhart, Archie Bunker's Place and Family Ties. &mdas...read more
Question: Could you please tell me and my lunch buddies who played the guy in the yellow raincoat on Laugh-In who rode a tricycle that usually tipped over? My friends say it was Arte Johnson. I say it was just about anyone, since you couldn't see his/her face. Am I wrong — was this one of the ensemble players? Please let me know soon; my trivia kingdom may be crumbling.
Answer: Your trivia kingdom stands strong, B.D. For the definitive answer on this, I went straight to the source, former Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In executive producer George Schlatter, who said the wacky Johnson was but one of the people who donned the slicker for the oft-repeated tricycle pratfall. According to Schlatter, it was often Johnson, cast mate Alan Sues or one of a variety of assorted cameramen or crew members.
Schlatter said tread more