Letters to Laugh-In
Letters to Laugh-In is a daytime game show and spin-off of NBC's nighttime comedy series, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, that aired on the network from September 29 to December 26, 1969. The show was hosted by Gary Owens, the announcer for Laugh-In.
Format
Home viewers mailed their jokes to the program, for which they were paid $2.00. Their jokes were read aloud by a panel of four celebrities - two of them Laugh-In regulars. Each joke was rated on a scale of minus-100 to plus-100 by a randomly selected audience panel."Morgul, the friendly Drelb" would hand Owens the categories for each round, in the form of a hand or puppet reaching through the top of the podium, usually with added sound effects.
For the program tapings, the show's band of three musicians, which included Laugh-In's musical coordinator, Russ Freeman, all wore the yellow rain jackets and hats which had been worn as costumes by various characters as joke links on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.
The highest- and lowest-rated jokes each day won the viewers a prize. Trips were awarded for the highest-rated Joke-of-the-Week, while the lowest-rated joke-of-the-week won a trip to "beautiful downtown Burbank". A grand prize was awarded for the highest-rated joke of the entire 13-week run.
One particularly notable joke from the program asked the question, "What's the difference between a sigh, a car, and a jackass?" When the other person answered that he didn't know, the questioner said, "A sigh is 'oh dear,' and a car is 'too dear.'" When pressed "What's a jackass?", the questioner responded, "You, dear."
The eventual Grand Prize-winning entry was a joke read by actress Jill St. John: "What do you get when you cross an elephant with a jar of peanut butter? A 500-pound sandwich that sticks to the roof of your mouth!"