Ghost Town (1988)

 

Dean Martin Christmas Special (1980)

    I have two upfront warnings on this one: firstly the recordings I have access to always vary a lot in quality, ranging from Blu Ray restorations to nth-generation VHS rips, and this is by far the worst transfer I’ve had to work with, and secondly there is a non-zero amount of Erik Estrada contained in this special.

That's Estrada on the left, keep your eye on him.

    This episode aired on December 16^th, 1980 on NBC. Martin was 73 at the time of recording. He was less than a year away from something of a visibility resurgence with his participation in ‘Cannonball Run.’ His final album was ‘The Nashville Sessions’ released in 1983 and was relatively well received. He would still intermittently tour with Sinatra and The Rat Pack but would stop in 1990 as he disliked playing stadiums. He passed away in 1995 from emphysema stemming from lung cancer. This would be his last Christmas special.

    I will say he’s a sprightly 73 as he opens the special bounding down a set of stairs with his trademark loose energy. Seemingly having dropped the drunk act he launches into ‘It’s a Most Unusual Day,’ quickly joined by his panel of guests including Andy Gibb, Mel Tillis, Beverly Sills, and as previously mentioned an inexplicable Erik Estrada. The other three are at least singers, but Estrada? Dude was in ‘CHiPS’ and as he proves as he enters to join in he is no singer.

    It’s weird to see Martin play the elder statesman, solemnly shaking everyone’s hand as they join him on stage. The old habits are still there as his hands try to bounce along to the music and start faux-conducting and he keeps having to bring them back under control. He’s even going through the choreographed motions without openly mocking them.

That's a full-on grandpa face right there.

    Crosby had ‘White Christmas,’ Martin has ‘A Marshmallow World,’ which I think is a pretty good nutshelling of the difference between the two. He’s got a little bit of the old bounce back to him while he sings it to Beverly Sills as she sits in a sleigh but he’s still playing it remarkably straight. He doesn’t even play up the “pumpkin-head” line. After maybe his first joke of the evening they throw to Andy Gibb who sings ‘Time is Time.’ I don’t care about Andy Gibb so moving on, although I will note a wailing guitar line, even a lame one, in the same time and space as Dean Martin is deeply discomfiting.

    Martin comes out to join Gibb and the two of them tell a joke so bad that I’m actually going to look up the writer for this thing: Bill Fox. Fucker wrote for ‘Love, American Style’ and ‘Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure.’ He has some other credits as well but those are the two most embarrassing and screw him, he wrote that joke. They launch into a joke song about famous Italian singers and trade some more terrible jokes.

    Next Estrada tortures some children by singing a song at them about a toy. It involves a bunch of random noises, I dunno, it’s like a lesser version of whatever Dennis Weaver was doing back in 68.

    

I told you to keep an eye on him!

    All five of them are onstage now singing something called ‘Everybody’s Got a Little Song.’ They then take turns breaking into awful impersonations of people who I’m pretty sure weren’t famous enough to impersonate in 1980, much less now. Who does Marlene Dietrich and Jimmy Stewart impressions in the 80’s? It’s just sad and vaguely embarrassing, and I will point out that Dean doesn’t even attempt to pull off an accurate Sinatra. And it goes on for over seven minutes! Although Mel Tillis does do a killer Johnny Cash.

    After the break Tillis does a completely acceptable country number before joining Martin in a computer dating service sketch. In 1980. Within ten seconds of the start of the sketch I’ve decided the punchline will be that they thought they were set up to meet women but they were actually set up to meet each other and it’ll be funny because of all the not-gay. It takes about a minute before this is confirmed as they make a Liberace joke, which is odd considering he was still denying he was gay at the time and the Scott Thorson suit was still two years away. And oddly enough it doesn’t end with gay panic but instead, after comparing notes in what they want in partners, a sudden tango. That’s ... pretty good for 1980, actually. Huh.

Ok, I'll take not-terrible.

    The five of them once again join up for that Christmas classic ‘Hey Good Lookin’’ and before I know it we’re in a medley spiral, although at least they’re not Christmas songs. I may be spared those but this is the oddest grab bag of songs I have just about ever heard.

    Then the reality of the show splits briefly as Martin shows us home movies of his horses while he sings ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’ on top of the footage. I ... don’t know what’s going on.

    For the record I do not, in any way, need to hear any version of ‘Escape (The Pina Colada Song)’ ever again even if I’m spared a version containing Martin. That is rather entirely offset by hearing one that does contain Estrada, though. Because, apparently, that is the song to sing after random horse footage. Then Sills comes on to do some opera because Christmas, obviously, and then we close out with all five singing ‘Here’s To You.’ Martin then closes with a simple “Goodnight, everybody” and his final special is in the can.

Go on, explain the horses, I'll wait.

    Other than arguably Estrada’s warble about that toy the only actual Christmas song in this Christmas special was Martin’s signature tune ‘A Marshmallow World.’ I know I said the previous special contained the least amount of Christmas but it was covered in tinsel and candy canes compared to whatever this was. There was a shocking amount of not-Christmas in this and the guests could not have been more random and such obvious strangers to Martin except for possibly Mel Tillis, the one performer he shared any kind of warmth with. Their interplay contained the only hints of the older, looser Dean. I never thought I’d miss the drunk womanizer shtick but if you took that away at this point in his career there wasn’t much left. You can see it leaking out at times but he keeps it mostly sealed up.

    I can see why he never did another special, he wasn’t as checked out as he was in previous specials and was clearly being a professional but he looked like he wasn’t allowed to have fun anymore. As the capper to his television career at least it wasn’t embarrassing but he clearly wasn’t going out on top. He did a couple more movies, a few more tours, and then I have no doubt he just stayed on his ranch and rode his horses.

    I feel a bit conflicted about Dean Martin, his comedy persona rode the edges of that old misogynistic energy but he seemed to use it more to undercut himself than seem a credible threat. What it really makes me want to do is track down some live shows he did back in the 50’s with Jerry Lewis and his earlier nightclub career when he was still all the way sharp. I will credit him with being far more interesting that either Como or Crosby. This makes me remember I have quite a few of his old vinyl records squirreled away somewhere, maybe I’ll dig into those to see if there are any live recordings. If nothing else it’s been forever and a half since I listened to ‘That’s Amore.’