Laugh-In (TV Series) Sandy Duncan, Joe Namath, Jo Ann Pflug, Charles Nelson Reilly, Jean Stapleton (1972) User Reviews

This last ep of "Laugh-In" for season five marked Jean Stapleton's first appearance as well as the last for several cast members

[tavm · 7/10 · 24 September 2019]

This ep of "Laugh-In" marks Jean Stapleton's first time on the show. She appears in skits as the wife of Dan Rowan who she can't satisfy with her cooking. Sandy Duncan also appears reprising her bank teller role from a previous show. Joe Namath returns making comments about his love life. Charles Nelson Reilly comes back to do sketches in which he plays various foreigners selling cars. I don't think those particular skits were funny. And Jo Ann Pflug-after also appearing the previous week-does another bathtub sketch. A running balloon sketch involving Dan & Dick has them seeing men in white sheets but Dick's comment about them has the audio cut off, for some reason, on the DVD disc I watched it on. I'll just say that I found most of the show funny except for that Charles Nelson Reilly sketch I just cited. This ep of "Laugh-In" marked the last appearances of Johnny Brown, Ann Elder, Larry Hovis, and-after four seasons-Alan Sues. Barbara Sharma's final appearance was in the previous one. This also marked the last one for creator/executive producer George Schlatter as he fell victim to a behind-the-scenes battle for less controversial material between NBC, fellow producer Paul Keyes, and stars Rowan & Martin themselves. For the five seasons he helmed the show, CFG, his nickname, managed to keep it topically relevant and very entertaining most of the time. But President Richard Nixon didn't like the shots at him through most of the run and since he was friends with Keyes and the two hosts, Schlatter had to go. He would try to revive this show without Dan & Dick several years later but that's another story...