“My agent made a deal with The Dean Martin Show for me to appear on twenty-eight shows. I signed on to do some short skits—just me and Dean—and I would write all the material.
Dean only came in once a week to tape his show—no rehearsal. (The set for our bits was always the same—me, Dean, a table, and two chairs.) For our first show together, it took Dean and me just three or four minutes to film our routine and we were done. ‘Okay, great, see ya next week, right?’ Wrong. That was the last time I saw Dean. For the next seven Sundays, I flew from New York to California, went into an empty studio, sat down at that table by myself, and did four skits while talking to an empty chair. Later, the crew filled in shots of the audience laughing, and they filled in Dean Martin, too.
After the taping, it was back to the airport and back to New York. Many times I thought, ‘Is this show business? Doing jokes to nobody, piped-in laughter, no audience?’”
Rodney Dangerfield
“My agent made a deal with The Dean Martin Show for me to appear on twenty-eight shows. I signed on to do some short skits—just me and Dean—and I would write all the material.
Dean only came in once a week to tape his show—no rehearsal. (The set for our bits was always the same—me, Dean, a table, and two chairs.) For our first show together, it took Dean and me just three or four minutes to film our routine and we were done. ‘Okay, great, see ya next week, right?’ Wrong. That was the last time I saw Dean. For the next seven Sundays, I flew from New York to California, went into an empty studio, sat down at that table by myself, and did four skits while talking to an empty chair. Later, the crew filled in shots of the audience laughing, and they filled in Dean Martin, too.
After the taping, it was back to the airport and back to New York. Many times I thought, ‘Is this show business? Doing jokes to nobody, piped-in laughter, no audience?’”
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