The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts

When Lucille Ball appeared on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast of February 8, 1975, she was 15 years past being Lucy Ricardo. Having effectively closed the book on a career in which she became one of the most beloved and groundbreaking female actors in TV history, her time consumed less with acting than with gathering awards for her influential achievements in front of and behind the camera.

Ralph Kramden was Jackie Gleason's finest creation-the one for which he became a small-screen immortal. Although the original Honeymooners series ran just 39 episodes, it went out endlessly in reruns and Gleason stoked the legend with one-off specials.

Perennial roaster Milton Berle may have been "Mr. Television," but Betty White came to the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts' May 6, 1978, installment as an actress to the medium born-truly "Miss Television." In fact, she appeared on the small screen before television as we know it existed.

This episode puts Ted Knight in the crosshairs. Knight played Ted Baxter, the lovable buffoon anchorman on TV's popular Mary Tyler Moore Show. A

If Jimmy Stewart's nice-guy on-screen persona were but a facade, then don't look to The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast of May 10, 1978, to debunk it. The assembled roasters: Stewart allies as Lucille Ball, Mickey Rooney, Henry Fonda, Janet Leigh, June Allyson and Sen. Barry Goldwater, among others-don't even hint at the five-time Oscar nominee (one-time winner) having a dark side.

Valerie Harper (the memorable, earthy Rhoda Morgenstern of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and her own Rhoda sitcom, portrayals that earned her four Emmys and a Golden Globe). Milton Berle, Red Buttons, Phyllis Diller, Rich Little, Georgia Engel and others toss the barbs and jokes at Harper all evening, lead by fun-loving roastmaster Dean Martin.

This roast features beloved actor Danny Thomas, head of a TV household on Make Room for Daddy, where he played a striving middle-class nightclub entertainer with traditional '50s issues involving money, career opportunities, eager (and overeager) wives, and rambunctious children. Don Knotts, Lucille Ball, Howard Cosell, Gene Kelly and more celebs had fun making fun of Thomas all night long.

Dan Haggerty, the hirsute star of NBC's unlikeliest hit, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, based on the real-life exploits of mountain man/animal trainer James "Grizzly" Adams-was the "Man of the Hour" in this show. Evenings like this elevated The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts from a consistently hilarious skewering of celebrities to a timeless cultural blitz of the moment.

ABC's Three's Company had made a star of Suzanne Somers. At the time of the roast, Three's Company was in its second season, and topped its time slot in the ratings. Although Suzanne didn't know it, this was as good as it got.

Let's situate The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in Muhammad Ali's career. Billy Crystal performed startlingly dead-on impersonations of Howard Cosell and Ali at the Thrilla in Manila. Even Ali was tickled; clearly, Crystal was going places. The roast aired on February 19, 1976, one day before Ali took on Belgian heavyweight contender Jean-Pierre Coopman in a match he won easily.

There was the Redd Foxx who made under-the-counter party albums in the 1950s and '60s based on his X-rated nightclub act and there was Redd "PG" Foxx who starred in Sanford and Son. The Redd Foxx who appeared twice on the Celebrity Roasts was closer to PG, but his delivery was salacious even when his gags weren't.

1970's a motorcycle-jumping stuntman, Evil Knievel, from Butte, Montana, vaulted this tradition from its sideshow origins to unthinkable heights of popularity and influence. He invented himself and his business, jumping, crashing, and miraculously recovering to promise even more outrageous stunts to come.

When The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts honored George Burns on May 17, 1978, 18 roasters gathered to show their distinctive brand of respect to the octogenarian (he was 82, and would live to be 100).

As the guests took their seats to roast Dennis Weaver, it seemed as if Dean Martin and George Hamilton were competing for the most outrageous tan; both of them were several shades bronzer than usual.

Starring in Welcome Back, Kotter as a teacher who returned to the dysfunctional school where he'd been a student, Gabe Kaplan drew on his own experience as a student in remedial ed. These days, he's better known as a professional poker player, but in 1977 his passions were baseball and improv. The roast featured early television appearances of two young comics, Billy Crystal and Ed Bluestone.

This episode roasts Jack Klugman, one of the pioneers of TV in the 1950s and best remembered for his 1970s TV work as Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple (1970 - 75) and as the medical examiner on Quincy M.E. (1976 - 83).

When Joan Collins was honored as the Woman of the Year on the February 23, 1984, Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, the occasion was notable for marking the roast's return from a five-year hiatus and, as it happened, for being the antepenultimate of these illustrious gatherings. Collins turned up at the apex of her cultural clout, when her note-perfect portrayal of Alexis Carrington

The very last Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, broadcast in late 1984, was much like the 50 or so that had preceded it: a star-studded dais, plenty of laughs, lots of zingers. But the overall tone was a little different than usual-not because this was the last roast, but because the guest of honor was Michael Landon.