Time Life Releasing “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In: The Complete Series” for 50th Anniversary

May 9, 2017 Farid-ul-Haq

Laugh-In Time Life complete series release

Time Life will be releasing Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In: The Complete Series for its landmark 50th Anniversary. The show ran from January 22, 1968 to March 12, 1973.

I was introduced to Laugh-In back when I was a kid. It was mostly due to my parents being fans of Goldie Hawn. Of course, back then I couldn’t understand much about what was going on in the show but I do remember the physical comedy making me laugh.

As I grew older, I rewatched sketches from the show on YouTube and started doing some reading on the show’s queer cast.

The actors couldn’t be publicly out back in the day or play obviously queer characters, but you can find undertones of queerness during some of the jokes. One of the cast members was Lily Tomlin who played a variety of characters on the show. I personally love her as Ernestine.

The other cast member was Alan Sues whose over-the-top mannerisms while playing characters on the show served as an inspiration for the young audience as he was “the only gay man they could see on television at the time.”

And though we now have Saturday Night Live, it’s fun to watch old TV jokes that can still make you laugh. If you’re a fan of Laugh-In you can soon own the complete series in a single comprehensive set (that includes bonus content) being released for the very first time!

Time Life’s release includes a DVD set that has all 140 episodes from the series (remastered from Original Broadcast Masters), specially-produced extras, a 32-Page Collector’s Book, and more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1PoQrTHUMw&feature=youtu.be

You can pre-order Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In: The Complete Series for $250. The set has 38 discs and promises more than 150 hours of hilarious entertainment. The 32-page memory book includes archival photos, classic jokes, show images, “liner notes” from George Schlatter (creator/producer) along with an exclusive bonus DVD.

The exclusive bonus content (over 6 hours) includes the complete 25th Anniversary Cast Reunion and interviews with Lily Tomlin and George Schlatter that are only available in this complete collection.

Other exclusive bonus features include:

  • Interviews with Dick Martin, Ruth Buzzi, Gary Owens, Arte Johnson, and Alan Sues.
  • The Laugh-In Pilot Episode.
  • Still Laugh-In: A Tribute to George Schlatter.
  • Laugh-In Bloopers
  • How We Won the Emmys…and more!

Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In: The Complete Series does look like a must-have for collectors. Furthermore, you can easily find numerous sketches from the show on YouTube. So, do check them out. I’m sure they’ll make you laugh along with allowing you to see how queerness (actors and characters) was handled back in the day.

Are you a fan of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In? Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

Twitter


Help support independent journalism. Subscribe to our Patreon.

Copyright © The Geekiary

Do not copy our content in whole to other websites. If you are reading this anywhere besides TheGeekiary.com, it has been stolen.
Read our policies before commenting. Be kind to each other.

Related posts:

Tags: , ,

5 thoughts on “Time Life Releasing “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In: The Complete Series” for 50th Anniversary”

  1. I’m a huge fan of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In!

    It’s interesting that you write, “The actors couldn’t be publicly out back in the day,” and mention Saturday Night Live. In all my years of watching SNL they’ve only had one publicly out person, back in the mid-eighties. Seems on SNL you still can’t really be publicly out., can you? Do they (Lorne Michaels) ever hire out cast members or is that purposely avoided? I don’t know, I am wondering.

    1. I didn’t write SNL to relate it to actors not being able to be out back then ^^ …I wrote it in the sense that now SNL is big, but shows like Laugh-In are still enjoyable…but yeah, you do bring up a good point…don’t think any of the current main cast is publicly out…I’m not sure if they purposely don’t hire out actors but they have had out actors host, like Kristen Stewart, and a lot of their skits are queer-based so at least that’s progress I guess ^^

      1. Oh, very true, thanks for replying. By the way, a new book about Alan Sues was released this month.

  3. The 6 episodes from the reboot/revival in 1977-78 are not included in the set. I’d like to see them myself, but I’ve no idea where they might be found. Does anyone know if the Paley Center for TV & Radio has them?

Comments are closed.