Behind The Scenes

"Behind the scenes," during my days on the Dean Martin Show, my pal Jim Mahoney, neighbor and former publicist for Sinatra, Dino, and Carson relates that in an L.A. meeting NBC affiliates cited a Life Magazine article (prudes) that an increasing number of viewers expressed concern that Dean's Show was "too suggestive and lacked taste." Dean was probably thinking, Che cazzo dici?NBC took the article seriously. They CC'd Greg Garrison and he told the show's writers and staff to clean up scripts for the upcoming season. Supposedly negative letters were from "young people!"  My view, it was BS!  Typical NBC censor crap! Probably some NBC "big wigs" goofy wife. Another negative review was "The Dean Martin Show," was a "cheap, disgusting production."  Dean was a "dirty old man" (BS),  one viewer stooped to describe the show as "a disappointing display of garbage." Some viewers, claimed that Dean's jokes about sexual orientation, ethnicity  and the opposite sex had become to "risque to enjoy!" This all happened on our watch. So, 14 to 16 million watched the "The Dean Martin Show," every Thursday night, and a  handful" of "stunads" wrote letters of objection and steered the show in another direction. In my view, these were the  seeds, of what we call now, Political Correctness. Jim Mahoney's stories about his days working for Dean, Sinatra, and Carson we'll cover in future posts.