September 16, 1965…”The Dean Martin Show” Debuts On NBC

September 16, 1965…”The Dean Martin Show” Debuts On NBC

This video goes to the heart of why the show was such a big success. It was as spontanious as a taped, network variety show could be, thanks to the unique relationship that Dean and director Greg Garrison had.

The great open secret of The Dean Martin Show was that Dean barely showed up for work. He did for its first season, but the program wasn’t working, and Dean was unhappy with how hard he was working. That was when Greg Garrison, who’d been hired as director only, came up with an idea. To make the show more spontaneous, and to keep Dino interested in doing it at all, he would arrange the schedule so Martin only had to come in one day a week, and not even for the entire day. Rehearsals were done with a stand-in, and everything that didn’t involve Dean was taped when he was nowhere on the premises. There were people who appeared on The Dean Martin Show without ever meeting Dean.

On tape day, Dean would come in, watch a run-through with the stand-in, then go out and replicate the stand-in’s actions. Everything was configured for maximum speed. Dean almost always wore a tuxedo, thereby minimizing costume changes and making it possible for any segment to be edited into any other show. The lines were all on cue cards and the songs, which were performed live, were all tunes that Dean already knew. If something went wrong, Garrison would usually not start over. He’d work some kind of paste-up edit, often inserting a freeze-frame in a manner that made other TV directors wince. Once in a while during a musical number, Dean wouldn’t be able to hear the orchestra and if you watch, you can see him rubbing his ear to signal Garrison to have the audio cranked up a notch. Anyone else would have restarted or edited…but Garrison promised his star he’d be done by 10 PM, and did whatever was necessary to make that happen.

In this particular segment, you’ll see everything you just read demonstrated, but given how this ends, this is one of the few times taping had to stop for a few minutes. Enjoy! -Bobby Ellerbee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLwHtOzq2M4

with Anna Moffo and Lloyd Bridges and Dean rips his pants LOL

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