This clip of Dean Martin is amazingly good. If only he was always this funny when drunk. If it’s an act, it’s a great act. Note his outfit: years before Miami Vice he is wearing Don Johnson’s trademark white jacket. Note also Bob Hope’s seeming indignation.
It’s hard to say whether Dean was truly in his cups. The drunk act was a staple of Rat Pack schtick, but there are plenty of stories indicating it wasn’t always an act. Henry Bushkin wrote in his Johnny Carson bio that Dean showed up drunk to Ronald Reagan’s inaugural ball, and Frank Sinatra, who produced the event, kicked him out.
If Bob Hope was indignant about anything, it was being upstaged, especially on the Tonight Show, which Hope considered his territory as an NBC star. Hope was the one person who could book himself on Johnny’s show whenever he wanted, a situation that irritated Johnny to no end.
And the two commercials in the middle are almost better than the clip. Such warm commercials, such great nostalgia…
