The Dean Martin Show

Nielsen Ratings

The series was a staple for NBC, airing Thursdays at 10:00 for 8 years, until its move to Fridays at 10:00 for the final season and change in format.

The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, a series of specials spun off from the final season, generated solid ratings for 10 years on NBC.

Development

Martin was initially reluctant to do the show, partially because he did not want to turn down movie and nightclub performances. His terms were deliberately outrageous: he demanded a high salary and that he need only show up for the actual taping of the show. To his surprise the network agreed. As daughter Deana Martin recalled after meeting the network and making his demands Martin returned home and announced to his family, "They went for it. So now I have to do it." (Contrary to his stated concerns, Martin's commitment to the program ultimately did not prevent him from appearing in a series of Matt Helm films concurrent with the show's run, as well as other projects such as a co-starring role in the first Airport film in 1970.)

Martin believed that an important key to his popularity was that he did not put on airs. His act was that of a drunken, work-shy playboy, although the ever-present old-fashioned glass in his hand often only had apple juice in it. The show was heavy on physical comedy rather than just quips (he made his weekly entrance by sliding down a fireman's pole onto the stage.) Martin read his dialogue directly from cue cards. If he flubbed a line or forgot a lyric, Martin would not do a retake, and the mistake—and his recovery from it—went straight to tape and onto the air.

The Dean Martin Show was shot on color videotape beginning in 1965 at Studio 4 inside NBC's massive color complex at 3000 West Alameda Avenue in Burbank, California. The same studio was used for Frank Sinatra's yearly TV specials in the late 1960s, and Elvis Presley's 1968 "Comeback Special". Studio 4 is currently one of two used in the production of the soap opera Days of Our Lives.

Regular segments

Regulars and recurring guests

In later seasons, many regular performers were added, such as Dom DeLuise and Nipsey Russell in sketches set in a barber shop; Kay Medford and Lou Jacobi in sketches set in a diner, and Medford also pretending to be the mother of Martin's pianist, Ken Lane. Leonard Barr, Guy Marks, Tom Bosley, Marian Mercer, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Rodney Dangerfield were also featured on multiple occasions, while bandleader Les Brown was a regular.

During the inaugural 1965-1966 season, The Krofft Puppets were seen regularly. Their stint, however, only lasted 8 episodes. Sid and Marty Krofft were fired because Martin felt he was being upstaged by their puppets.

Summer replacement series

For Martin's Thursday night time slot, the network and Martin's production crew created original summer programming (without Martin) to hold his usual weekly audience. Rowan and Martin hosted one of Dean Martin's summer series in 1966, which proved so successful that it spawned one of television's most memorable series, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.

From July to September 1967, the summer show was co-hosted by Martin's daughter Gail Martin, Vic Damone and Carol Lawrence.

In 1968, Martin's staff came up with a new format: a salute to the 1930s, with a variety show performed as if television existed at that time. Producer Greg Garrison recruited a dozen chorus girls, naming the group "The Golddiggers" after the Warner Brothers musicals of the 1930s. The series, Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers, starred Frank Sinatra, Jr. and Joey Heatherton as musical hosts, with comedy routines by Paul Lynde, Stanley Myron Handelman, Barbara Heller, comic impressionists Bill Skiles and Pete Henderson, and neo-vaudeville musicians The Times Square Two.

The summer show was a hit, returning the following year with a new cast. Lou Rawls and Gail Martin took over for Sinatra and Heatherton, and six-foot-six dancer Tommy Tune was featured.

The Golddiggers also toured the nation's nightclubs as a live attraction. Some of the members grew tired of traveling and dropped out, to be replaced by other hopefuls. After the summer series ran its course, the Golddiggers were seen on Martin's own program, and four of them were used in another group, the Ding-a-Ling Sisters.

Toward the end of the Thursday-night run, the summer series was devoted to European comedians. Marty Feldman was featured in Dean Martin's Comedy World, hosted by Jackie Cooper.

Awards

Emmy Award Nominations

Golden Globe Award Wins

Golden Globe Award Nominations

DVD

From 2003 until August 2007, a 29-volume Best of The Dean Martin Variety Show collection was sold by direct marketing firm Guthy-Renker via infomercials and a website.

In mid-2007, NBC Universal filed suit in U.S. District Court against several parties, including Guthy-Renker, claiming copyright infringement, forcing G-R to temporarily withdraw the DVDs from sale. The lawsuit was in regard to a dispute over rights to footage used in the DVD series, material to which NBC claimed it still held the copyright. The conflict was discovered when NBC Universal looked into plans to release its own DVD set.

Also named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit was longtime Dean Martin Show producer Greg Garrison, who, NBC claims, had rights to use only excerpts from selected episodes of The Dean Martin Show for the DVDs—episodes which, according to NBC, Garrison purchased years earlier from the network for a syndicated run of The Dean Martin Show that aired worldwide from 1979 to 1981. Garrison died in 2005, before the lawsuit was brought forward.

A settlement among all of the parties to the suit was reached on January 2, 2008. As a consequence, the Guthy-Renker website once again began selling the collection, and infomercials advertising it returned to the small screen.

There remain two other lawsuits pending over rights to material used in the Best of Dean Martin Variety Show series, but neither of those suits affected sales of the home video collection.

Unaffected by legal disputes were the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast specials, which continue to be marketed on DVD by Guthy-Renker. Total revenues from Dean Martin DVD sales have been rumored to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The Martin shows have not been on television since their original telecasts.

On February 3, 2011, it was revealed that a brand new package of DVDs featuring footage from The Dean Martin Show would be released on May 24, 2011 by Time-Life Video. Unlike the earlier Guthy-Renker collection, which was marketed via mail order subscription, these new sets would be aimed largely at the retail sector.

On March 21, 2011, NBC Universal TV Consumer Products Group issued a press release disclosing its participation with Time-Life on the project.

In an online report posted July 9, 2011, Deana Martin, one of Dean's daughters, reported to columnists Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith that the first sets of Dean Martin Show DVDs released by Time-Life in the late spring had sold so well that a second collection was already being planned, and that she (Deana) would be contributing commentary to it. This information has been independently confirmed by officials at both Time-Life and NBC Universal.

By the end of the summer of 2011, release dates were disclosed for the second wave of Dean Martin Show DVDs produced by Time-Life and featuring footage supplied by the series' originating network, NBC. Entitled King of Cool: The Best of The Dean Martin Variety Show, the new collection would be made available in 1- and 6-disc configurations.

Full List of Guest Stars

Note: only the first appearance by the guest star is listed

Season 1 (1965-1966)

Season 2 (1966-1967)

Season 3 (1967-1968)

Season 4 (1968-1969)

Season 5 (1969-1970)

Season 6 (1970–1971)

Season 7 (1971-1972)

Season 8 (1972-1973)

Season 9 (1973-1974)