Sit back and get ready to enjoy the shortest hour ever in
front of your television. Dean Martin was a very unusual guy, with very unusual
demands to be met if he were to even do the show that the network pitched at
him. He was not expected to rehearse, could choose his guests, and not even
sing if he felt so inclined. You would've expected the network to turn him
down, and you would have been wrong.
This was 1965, the year after Dino had boasted to his son
that “I’m gonna knock the Beatles off the charts” in the summer of
1964, as the country; indeed the world; was in the throes of Beatlemania. And
guess what? Not only did he make good on that promise; with the smash recording
“Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime”; but The Dean Martin Show was still on the air
5 years after the Beatles had released their last album in 1970.
In this fast paced collection of some of the finest moments
from the show Dean performs with old pal Frank Sinatra, Ann Margaret, Jack
Benny and more. But the best bit on here is the lesson provided by Victor Borge
on how to sing musical notations, using sounds for commas, colons, and
quotation marks to name a few. Now, this was Mr. Borge's original skit, and it's really
fantastic how quickly Dino adapts to the routine, even adding a few “notations”
of his own in the bargain.
If you are a Dean Martin fan; or even if you have never seen
him perform before; this will be one of the fastest hours you have ever spent
in front of your television. And, whether you are young or old, this will have you longing for the return of the old variety shows which used to dominate TV
land.
