STEVE MARTIN: COMEDY IS NOT PRETTY (TV)
Summary
This 1980 special features comedian Steve Martin in a series of sketches. In these skits, Martin performs in the following guises: a cowboy in a Western town inhabited by monkeys; a televangelist-cum-dry cleaner; a man who drinks alcohol and drives a steamroller (with Regis Philbin doing a mock public service announcement warning of the dangers of this act); a business executive who beat inflation by buying a haunted house; a self-styled lothario with an indeterminate European accent, who courts an embarrassed woman as performed by comedienne Joyce DeWitt; an Olympic diver with an unusual technique; an investigative reporter conducting an innocuous exposŽ of the television show "60 Minutes"; a crooner lip synching "Some Enchanted Evening"; the eponymous, doomed philosopher in the "Masterwork Theatre" presentation of "The Death of Socrates"; a callous insurance agent; the announcer for a public service announcement warning supermarket proprietors about the dangers of selling plutonium to terrorists; and the intrepid host of a goofy travelogue called "Bizarre Oddities of the World" who visits the following: a lost land that is stuck in the radical 1960s, a tiny wealthy Mideast country that has no oil but is filled with highly successful beggars, a part of Portugal where "trampoline dentistry" is still practiced, the great pyramids of Egypt (which are much smaller in person), and the nation of Borneo, where everyone is a hairdresser. The program concludes with Martin garbed in formal attire dancing to the "Lullaby of Broadway." Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: February 14, 1980 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:48:53
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:34797
- GENRE: Comedy; Specials
- SUBJECT HEADING: Comedy; Music, popular (songs, etc.); Satire
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV, 1980
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- William E. McEuen … Executive Producer
- Cates, Joe (See also: Cates, Joseph) … Producer, Director
- Jere Jacob … Associate Producer
- Michael Elias … Writer
- Carmen Finestra … Writer
- Bob Garland … Writer
- Jack Handey … Writer
- Connie Turner … Writer
- Steve Martin … Writer, Cast
- John McEuen … Music by
- Marty Allen … Cast
- Richard Deacon … Cast
- Joyce DeWitt … Cast
- Phil Foster … Cast
- Peter Graves … Cast
- Werner Klemperer … Cast
- Meredith MacRae … Cast
- Mule Deer, Gary … Cast
- Louis Nye … Cast
- Regis Philbin … Cast
- Dick Schapp … Cast
- Carl Reiner … Cast
- Will Alpert … Cast
- Paul Keith … Cast
- Michael McManus … Cast
- Carol Swarbrick … Cast