Guest stars for the six episodes of the misleadingly-titled The Dean Martin Variety Show: Uncut include Sid Caesar, Jackie Mason (who is a hoot as always, but is even funnier when you watch him try to sing and dance in the closing medley!), Leslie Uggams, Allen & Rossi, the aforementioned Eddie Foy, Jr., Buddy Ebsen, Cyd Charisse, Dom DeLuise, Bob Newhart, Orson Welles (yes!), Joey Heatherton (oh, mama!), Zero Mostel, and Jackie Vernon. Many of the performance pieces are genuinely entertaining, and the "closeted" cameos include Pat Boone, Phil Harris, and Robert Wagner. There's also one particularly bizarre muscleman routine (by David and Goliath) that brings to mind a completely different definition of "closeted."
As I said earlier, this set is not uncut. There are multiple noticeable cuts in the programs (they may have been edited down for syndication or some such nonsense), with one standout moment involving a guest, Professor Backwards (James Edmondson, Sr.) — a feller who could write and read any word in reverse. During this particular sketch, an audience member shouts out to spell "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." He jokes that he won't do it, and suddenly the presentation cuts to him working on something else — to wit we can now plainly see the abovementioned Mary Poppins expression has in fact been spelled out on the blackboard behind him. Frown. Another interesting bit of disconcert for me occurs with the discs' menus, wherein we see four of Dean's beautiful chorus girls (the Golddiggers) performing an introductory number — an opening that is taken from another show entirely and not included on either episode here.
One wonders if Time Life — who brought us this fun but inappropriately-named release — only had access to a few episodes, or assigned the production of the disc to someone who had absolutely no idea what he or she was doing. There's also an episode that is missing a song from guest singer, Buck Owens; fortunately, there is a disclaimer about that one in the set's insert booklet. Oh, well: it's still a fun set to watch, and is good fun for the whole family — even if we don't get to find out how to spell "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in a contrary manner.
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Article comments
1 - dino martin peters
Hey pallie, likes Adam dude, likes loves your purely passionate pontifications on The Dean Martin Show: Uncut. Never was, never will be anyone as cool as the King of Cool...oh, to return to the days when Dino walked the earth. Know that your ruminations are bein' shared this very day with all the pallies gathered 'round ilovedinomartin.