Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In

The highest-rated network program during its first three seasons, comedy-variety show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (NBC, 1968¿1973) remains an often overlooked and underrated innovator of American television history. Audiences of all kinds¿old and young, square and hip, black and white, straight and queer¿watched Laugh-In, whose campy, anti-establishment aesthetic mocked other tepid and serious popular shows. In Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, author Ken Feil presents the first scholarly investigation of the series whose suggestive catch-phrases "sock it to me," "look that up in your Funk'n'Wagnalls," and "here comes the judge" became part of pop culture history. In four chapters, Feil explores Laugh-In's newness, sophisticated style, irreverence, and broad appeal. First, he considers the show's indulgence of "bad taste" through a strategy of deliberate ambiguity that allowed audiences to enjoy countercultural, anti-establishment transgression and,...