6.02.2016

TFTP Game Shows: "Letters to Laugh-In" from NBC (Sep. 30, 1969)



Posted to YouTube by user 'Million Colors of Light 2'

Perhaps one of the most curious spin-offs ever, "Letters to Laugh-In" was spun off of the #1 hit "Laugh-In" that had taken the country by storm in 1968 (and which TFTP featured in a post a couple weeks ago). "Laugh-In" of course was a revolutionary program for its time, both in terms of content (the mainstreaming of the "counterculture") and in terms of form (quickly edited blackout spots assembled in post-production). "Letters to Laugh-In" was somewhat more traditional in format as a game show, although the game play of using applause meters to measure the audience response to jokes sent in by "Laugh-In" viewers was nonetheless unorthodox.

Not that "Letters to Laugh-In" ever got anywhere near the popularity of its progenitor--it lasted only a few months between September and December of 1969 on NBC's daytime schedule. It's interesting to watch now simply for its gaudy production design (borrowed from its parent show), for the lame humor evident both in the jokes that are competing and in the cringe-worthy banter between the celebs, and for the fact that it was ever on the air at all. The fact that it was is a sign of just how big "Laugh-In" was in the late-1960s.

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