Martin Sans Rowan

Dan Rowan and Dick Martin were nightclub comedians who made it big—monster big—in 1968 with Laugh-In. They had been together maybe 15 years at that point. But Martin had a brief solo career as actor which was pretty much doomed from the start.

Lucille Ball wanted to move on from I Love Lucy so she bought the right to a book about a divorced woman raising her family, assembled a cast and began shooting The Lucy Show. The problem was TV viewers were accustomed to seeing—and, I suspect, wanted to see—Lucy get into and out of scrapes with her best pal and pull one over under the disapproving eye of the male authority figure. You know, just like on I Love Lucy.

So any similarity between Lucy’s show and Irene Kampen’s book soon disappeared. Before long, Lucy and Vivian Vance were pulling shenanigans while television’s most dour man, Gale Gordon, groused, burned or shouted. What else did the show need? Nothing. So Lucy and Viv’s kids disappeared. And so did the next door neighbour who kind of, may have been, sort of was, Lucy’s boy-friend. He was played by Dick Martin.

Why did he leave the show? “They obviously didn’t need me,” he told the Archive of American Television. And if you watch any of those first episodes, you may wonder why he was even there. (A notable exception was an episode where, silent-film style, Lucy played a 1920s flapper trying to mooch a meal in a restaurant/tavern, with Martin as the waiter).

But Martin never knew any of that was ahead when he talked about his new job, and his pairing with Rowan, in an interview with the King Features Syndicate. This feature story appeared in newspapers on February 26, 1963.

TV Keynotes
Comedian Plays Straight Role
By CHARLES WITBECK
HOLLYWOOD — "I'm really George Burns," says comic Dick Martin, talking about his role of Harry Connors, the next door neighbor on the Monday night CBS Lucy Show.
Martin gets all the punch lines for the comedy team of Rowan and Martin. He's the talkative drunk, the idiot diet expert, the fella with the two big eyes who won't shut up, as he pulls all the laughs in night clubs and on Ed Sullivan's Show, while his handsome partner, Dan Rowan, plays straight man.
On the Lucy Show, it's the reverse with Martin playing straight man for Gracie-Lucy. And what a straight man, he is—Harry gets one line every five shows so far. "The first six were written before Harry was cast," says Dick Martin who is not complaining a bit.
In episodes coming up this winter and spring Harry will have more to say. He does a couple of shows, and then goes to San Francisco for a hotel date with partner Rowan. When the two return to Hollywood a few weeks later, Martin shoots some more and takes off again with Rowan, so the Lucy Show isn't interfering with the Rowan and Martin comedy career.
Likes Character Switch
When the idea of a character like Harry Connors came up Lucy immediately thought of her old friend Dick Martin. Other names were tossed in the hopper, but Lucy could only see Dick Martin. He came in for a reading and Lucy said, "play yourself as I know you. Don't play your comedy character." Martin did and got the job.
"I like the switch in character," says Martin. "It's great for me not playing an idiot."

"There's not much you can really do with the part," says Martin. "I'm just the fella who is always around when Lucy needs him. I can't be brought in for the romantic interest—that would limit the show. Lucy has to have other dates. But none of that matters. I like doing another character and I should pay to just be with these people. You can't call it work."
Hard To Follow Script
The only work for Martin comes in saying lines as they're written. He's not used to it. "Dan and I have been working for nine years, and I don't think we've ever repeated a routine word for word," says Martin.
"Then I get a script on the Lucy Show and I'm supposed to do it exactly as written. That's a problem.
"We have a framework to work from," continued Martin. "In London's Palladium we were told 'we had a frightfully elastic script." When the two did "Babes in Toyland" and "The Red Mill" in the St. Louis Municipal Opera House, they rewrote both musicals. "We're used to working nose-to-nose," said Martin. "But in St. Louis the mikes were 8 feet apart and I felt all alone."
Summer musicals and parts like Harry Connors are efforts by the team to move out of the night club circuit if possible. The two have seen the country and Australia, and they would like to stay home and be able to work. "We carry golf clubs and a tuxedo on the circuit," says Martin. "Golf helps combat boredom, but in the wintertime life on the road is pretty dull. You can blow all the movies in a strange city in two days."
Golf is the big game among night club entertainers. They, at least, can get on a course during the week. Among all the courses Martin has played, one on the Fiji Island, a stop-over on the road to Australia, sticks out in his mind. "You have to hire three kids to caddy there," he says. "Kids pick up the balls with their feet and walk off, unless you ship them a quarter. And the fairways are narrow. One slice and you're in the oven."

Rowan and Martin have also learned from experience to play hotels rather than straight night clubs. From a financial point of view, of course. "You play hotels," says Martin "and your room is paid. That's a big saving. You can also go to your room between shows and read. Another plus. You can almost call it forced savings."
But there's no place like home, or work on a series like Lucy. Martin is getting some reading done on the set too. He's learning about self-hypnosis after watching hypnotists for half his life in clubs.
"I'm trying to learn how to sleep on planes." says Martin. "I think this book can help."
Maybe the book will help Martin on planes, but it really sounds like the basis for a pretty funny Lucy script.