Laugh-In's Dick Martin, Comedian, Actor, Director, Dies at 86
Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" took television by storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catch-phrases as "Sock it to me!" has died. He was 86.
Martin, who went on to become one of television's busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday night of respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, family spokesman Barry Greenberg said.
I was eight years old when Laugh-In hit the air on NBC. I don't ever remember my parents telling me not to watch the very progressive comedy show and but I do remember me asking them sometimes what the jokes were about and to their credit, when the joke had some political or sociological bent that my tiny brain didn't understand, Mom would explain. That's how parents and children used to watch the same TV shows, that's also how a lot of us kids of the 60s and 70s learned to be critical observers of the media.
He's survived by his wife and two sons, one, Richard Martin, an actor.
A pastiche of Laugh-In clips after the jump.
