Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (2016)

Part of the TV Milestones Series, Ken Feil's little book (5” x 7”) on this iconic variety show is packed full of useful information, especially in regards to the series's place in the pantheon of late 60s/early 70s television comedy, including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (CBS, 1968–1969) and The Flip Wilson Show (NBC, 1970–1974), which were its main competitors during the five years of its broadcast life. Feil insists that Laugh-in (NBC, 1968–1973) made significant contributions in the areas of video-editing, political satire (and how to be so ambiguous and ambivalent so as to avoid too much scrutiny and/or censorship), and ensemble comedy.We viewers may remember that Laugh-in was characterized by a preponderance of rapidly edited segments, which Feil aptly describes as “abrupt and questionably tasteful glimpses of countercultural figures: sexual swingers (women and men), stoned hippies, empowered African Americans, feminists and flamboyant nellie men” (3). Within and among these “glimpses,” the show reflected upon and reacted to the day's most controversial events, including Vietnam, racial discrimination, birth control, gay and female liberation, among others. The fast editing, what Feil calls avant-garde editing in Marshall McLuhanist style, gave (and gives) the show its pop-culture credibility. In fact, Feil mentions writer Joan Barthel's suggestion that the show exhibited borderline taste. In other words, it fell somewhere between high and low culture. Time magazine termed this condition reverse sophistication, in which younger audiences could enjoy the show's subtle subversion of the network's usual conservative ideology. Laugh-in was able to achieve this through its use of irony, camp, and hip ambivalence.Chapter 1 investigates the show's ambiguous commentary on taste. The viewer had to figure out whether or not the show was supporting or lambasting “the tastelessness and vulgarity of various countercultures and avant-gardes, the broader youth culture, and even members of the Establishment” (27). Chapter 2 decodes the word camp and the ways in which the term could be used to describe the show's modus operandi. Camp, being that which is affiliated with the vulgar, perverse, or malfunctioning, found its way into the show through the tried and true performance strategy known as the put-on. This strategy, in which the dominant or accepted is parodied in such a way that the parodied thing or person is not clearly identified, proved the perfect tool for allowing Laugh-in to remain ambiguous and, therefore, nonthreatening. Feil reports, in fact, that this ambiguity allowed the hipster youth and older establishment squares to sit side by side on the davenport and enjoy the show together in a phenomenon that effectively bridged the generation gap like no other show at the time.In chapter 3, Feil investigates Laugh-in's use of the strategy of the open secret in order to succeed in its exploitation of both high and low culture. The show's open secret was that it utilized taboos of taste, social behavior, and identity in its cultural references that were both openly suggested and rife with double entendres. Audiences could thereby partake of the counterculture without committing to it or becoming even slightly involved in it.Exploring Laugh-in's identity politics in his final chapter, Feil begins with the show's African American contingent. Through its frequent employment of celebrities such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Flip Wilson in sketches, as well as regulars like Chelsea Brown and Johnny Brown, the show was able to present “an integrationist attitude of sameness” and yet also allay fears of the white bourgeois regarding Black power groups (88). These African American performers, Keil asserts, “punctuated the program's hipness by reflecting diversity, distinguishing their blackness, satirizing racism, and (ostensibly) mocking derogatory stereotypes” (88). Likewise for both the feminist and gay elements of the show. While Feil suggests that Laugh-in did nothing to show support for gay liberation or feminists, its exposure of stereotypes, such as Alan Sues's “unself-consciously queeny man” or Lily Tomlin's sexually predatory feminist, was a first for television, an exposure that amounted to some important first steps toward acceptance and understanding (107).Ken Feil's book is a well-researched study in which he provides both critical and artifactual support for his claims. Clearly Feil's investigation of the comedy-variety series Laugh-in demonstrates the show's particular brilliance in addressing disparate audiences on contentious subjects at a time when America was seemingly unable to do the same on its own streets. In addition, the show must, with this book, be considered foundational in the canon of television sketch comedy, for without it, how can we attempt to analyze shows like today's Portlandia (IFC, 2011–) or Little Britain (BBC, 2000–2006)?