Original subtitles

The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, coming to you from the MGM Grand Hotel in the

entertainment capital of the world, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ladies and gentlemen, from the beautiful Siegfeld Room, tonight's star -studded

roast has brought together some of the world's greatest entertainers.

They've come from all over the world to be here tonight, here in Las Vegas, in

person.

The Man of the Week!

Your Roastmaster, Dean Martin.

And my very best man of the week, William Hunrad.

Well, tonight...

Our man of the week is Mr. William Conrad, which gives you an idea of the

of week it's been.

We were originally going to honor Howard Cosell, but he's been confined to bed

with a faulty toupee.

We're also considering Mr. Danny Thomas. We had a little accident while taking

his daily walk on the water. He was hit by a fishing boat.

Tonight we're paying tribute to a very fine actor, the star of a great series

called Cannon, which is my favorite detective show. And I tell you, last

they had a really thrilling episode.

Cannon single -handedly wiped out a whole crime syndicate. He sat on them.

I don't know whether you know this, but Bill played Matt Dillon on the radio

version of Gunsmoke.

It's true. When they made the TV version of Gunsmoke, they couldn't use Bill.

They had a little problem.

They couldn't fit his horse with a truss.

Even when Bill served in the war as a fighter pilot, he had problems. He was

heavy. Once he got in the plane, they couldn't get it off the ground.

He had to drive it to Tokyo.

There's a lot of friends at Mars who couldn't be here tonight.

However they sent you telegrams, I'd like to read some. This first one is

President Nixon.

Dear Bill, I watch you on Canon every week.

It's how I reassure myself there's no beef shortage in America.

The next one is from the Gay Liberation Movement. Dear Bill, we just love your

show, but of course we admire anyone who always gets his man.

Finally...

Here's one all the way from Rome, from the Pope himself.

Which translated means, may good fortune ever shine upon you, fatso.

Ladies and gentlemen, a tremendous talent, Miss Phyllis Diller.

Thank you very much.

It was so sweet of you to drop in on me the other night so unexpectedly, Dean.

Of course, I'll never know what he was doing on the roof.

Now, we're here tonight to honor William Conrad, better known as Cannon.

And that's because he's always shooting off his mouth.

How would you describe Conrad?

A fat Robert Goulet with mumps.

When he runs, it looks like a mattress moving.

When

he

clears that wonderful voice, it sounds like a motorboat that won't start.

I signed the code card, found him in the Pacific Ocean, and just his head and

shoulders were sticking out of the water. They said, can we help you? He

no, I'm on my boat.

Now, this man turned down gun smoke on television, and now he has the

guts to say that this turkey cannon is going to run five years.

That's because they show.

He couldn't have done Gunsmoke, because one time he got on a horse. It's now a

big, hairy pancake.

I've never really met Bill, and I think I want to keep it that way.

Phyllis, you were great. Incidentally, this is the first time I've seen you

since you had your face lifted.

I hope the guy who lifted it doesn't bring it back.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr.

Russell.

Thank you, Dino. May I? Oh, you're going to drink to thee.

Yes, sir. Well, that's all right. I know, Dean, if the Ku Klux Klan will buy

booze, you'll drink to slavery.

Bill, we spent the entire week discussing the suave, the great, the

detectives in history, and your name never came up.

You see, in the black community, we feel that you are like a mosquito in a

nudist camp.

Opportunity everywhere, and you can't figure where to start.

I feel that you have usurped a province that is rightfully ours.

All of the legendary private eyes were Thor brothers.

Boston Blackie.

How soon you forget.

crime, you'll never become proficient driving through Beverly Hills.

You gotta come to Harlem and walk through the hospital zone.

Any way you walk in that zone, you wind up in the hospital.

You see, you would never have known the mistake. You would never have committed

that atrocity and judgment that you did in Watts. What did he do?

He gets out of the car in Watts, looking like a bale of hay with the middle band

busted.

What? He walks over to his old brother in a dark doorway and throws the black

power sign.

He said, right on, brother.

The brother said, put that other hand in the air, whitey, this is a sticker.

On the series, Shannon, he's depicted as a man of

impeccable intelligence, a man who is quite adept at...

scientific analysis.

He asked one of the dumbest questions in the annals of crime.

It was at the height of a riot.

He saw a brother coming through the window of a furniture store with a sofa

his back and asked the guy, are you a looter?

He said, no, I'm a psychiatrist on a house call.

I don't want you to be made of that aspect of your talents and aspirations.

He is a dumb singer.

I heard him a few times on the Dean Martin Show last year, and as a result

his virtuosity, he made a command performance in England.

Got excited and sang, God Save the Weasel and Pop Goes the Queen.

No doubt some of you saw him on the Sonny and Cher Show, and you know the

excellence of his musical bass voice.

He is really a basso profondo.

This bastard sang a song.

On the Sonny and Cher show.

The song was so sensitive, sad, and appealing that a man in the audience

to commit suicide while he was singing.

A bullet from the man's gun.

I guess people don't know that he had his spine fractured in an air accident.

The girl's husband flew in town unexpectedly and fractured his...

Well, they say that all detectives suffer with flat feet, and I guess they

caught his feet in the wrong flat.

But as a file seal... You want a minute to work on that?

We need you, Bill.

We need Bill Conrad and we need Cannon to catch the criminals and catch the

spies and keep mischief out of our government and keep our government out

mischief.

Some of the most beautiful things in England are finding their way into our

country, like the London Bridge and the Queen Mary, but I think the nicest thing

that ever came over is the lady I'm about to introduce, the beautiful and

-talented Mrs. Petula Clark.

Well, I'm sure some of you may be wondering why I, an English...

Songstress and present at a ceremony honoring William Conrad, the answer you

is very simple.

I'm his mistress.

He's only kidding, honey.

Well, Mr. Woodley, I have been ever since I stole him away from the Supreme.

It's not easy, of course, with him living in Los Angeles and me in London.

We meet once a year in a shack in Bermuda.

Yes, that's where we shack up.

You're telling everything, huh? Please, it's one of those meetings. We had such

fun together last year.

I was a Red Cross nurse and he was a Japanese colonel.

I'm only kidding, of course. Bill is a truly fine person and devoted husband.

And as much as I regret it, there is no hanky -panky between us. We can arrange

something.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Dean. And thank you, Colonel

Noguchi. Our story.

You've all seen the Bob Newhart show.

It gives the viewers a chance to calm down after the Mary Tyler Moore show.

Ladies and gentlemen, the crinkle in the CBS eye, Mr. Bob Newhart.

As is true in most of these roles, people get up and they say really

things about...

And you might get the idea that the man is an ogre. And I would like to set some

things straight about our guest tonight.

No one has mentioned his distinguished war record.

Unfortunately, he was on the German side, which is probably why no one

it.

There have been rumors that he is not a bright man.

There's a story going around.

That's not true.

Well, now, you can deny this. There's a story going around.

Things were not going that well in the acting profession, and Bill decided to

take a civil service examination.

It was an oral examination, and he studied for a full year.

And he went before the examiner, and the examiner's first question was, what has

five fingers is made of leather, and you wear on your hand.

And Bill shook his head.

And the examiner said, it's a glove.

Then he presented the second question. He said, what is made of leather has ten

fingers and fits on both hands.

And Bill pondered that for a while.

And finally shook his head. And the examiner said, two gloves.

Then the examiner said, let's change the category. We'll go into civics.

Who was president of the United States from 1924 to 1928?

And Bill said,

Three gloves?

Thank you,

Robert. You know, Bob started as a comedian in Chicago.

When the wind shifted, they didn't know who to blame it on, Bob or the

stockyards.

real funny guy. I'm talking about Jackie Gale. He was so funny when we roasted

Mr. Hugh Hefner that we painted a star on his dressing room door.

Jackie was real happy about it because it covered the word gentist.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jackie Gale.

Welcome again.

Thank you, Dean.

Thank you.

It's really wild.

Distinguished looking man. I love your mustache.

You look like the owner of a chain of Taco Bells.

You're my kind of man.

That's right.

You know, he's a beautiful man. And there's a conspiracy here against fat

people. There's definitely a conspiracy.

And you know why? Because they're jealous of us. Because we enjoy food. We

enjoy it eight, nine times a day.

What have they got to look forward to? Love affairs?

That's all. Love affair.

And believe me, it's not eight, nine times a day.

That's the truth.

It's been 15 minutes since you had a bite. Relax, we'll get this right.

You're my kind of man. You're the kind of guy who knows where to get fried

chicken after Colonel Sands is closing.

You know, when I said fried chicken, Nipsey Russell woke up. I did.

I remember.

I know that.

Keep going, you'll punch. We'll get your own show like Red Fox.

I want you to feel at home. After the show, you'll come up to my house. I got

some aspirin bottles you can pick the cotton out of.

I want to... You know, Nick, you always

bug me. How come when you pull up to a car with black people in it, they got

great jazz music on their radio, we can't get on our cars?

And we got a lovely lady with a two -lift car. When I first heard that name,

thought it was a gasoline station.

What do you want, the ethyl up a tool? I said, I don't care, fill it up.

And she made a record that really bugged me, Downtown.

I loved it so much, I took her advice, I went downtown, I got mugged.

You know what he told me about English singers?

The great groups come from England, the Beatles, the Animals, the Rolling

Stones. They're born in Liverpool, Blackpool, London, they come here, they

contemporary American songs.

And of course, we've got Phyllis Diller. I love Phyllis Diller. And I love your

laugh, Phyllis. When you laugh, wild geese all over the world are changing

directions.

And I want to say now... Getting hot, Gene. We're getting hot, baby.

We got him, Gene. I'll get him back for you.

I'll get him back.

That's right, Phyllis. I hear all that talk about the facelift. It's not true.

She didn't have a new facelift. She had the old one ironed.

that commercial, Phyllis, where you say milk gives you elasticity.

What kind of commercial? I can't believe that.

Elasticity. I've yet to see a glass of milk hold up a pair of old jockey

And of course, we've got Bob Noir. Bob, it's good to have you back on

television. I mean that.

We haven't had that much excitement since Ozzie Nelson left.

That show. Did you watch that show, Dean?

Bob, if you watch his show, great dialogue.

Hi, honey, I'm home. Any calls?

Not anybody can handle that kind of dialogue.

Your show should get an Emmy for yawning.

And his home life's not that much more exciting either. The other day, a

Tom looked through his window and fell asleep.

And I know Bob tells everybody he's a modest man, he's quite... And believe

underneath all that's a vain man.

Believe me, he's a vain man. He's got four children all named Bob Jr.

And two of them are girls.

We came here to pay tribute to this wonderful man.

Everybody thinks that this man is just an actor. This man was a great director.

You know what kind of movies he gave us? He directed a picture called Two on a

Guillotine.

Remember that, Biggie? Two on a Guillotine. You forgot it already, Dean.

Then he gave us another big one you all remember, Brainstorm. How about that

one?

Everybody forgot Brainstorm.

And the big one, My Blood Runs Cold, which the Academy Award gave you an

for. I know a lot of people are saying, why do we honor?

Bill, and I say to you, I don't know.

But in conclusion, I would like to say, this is a great man because you don't

understand about this man spent many years at Warner Brothers, where he made

movies, 200 television shows, and a couple of starlets.

And I want to say, and I would like to say in conclusion, Bill, and I mean this

in the bottom of my heart, you're a great actor, a great star, and fat is

beautiful.

Now it's my pleasure to introduce our guest of honor, Mr.

Bill Conrad.

Well, before we get popular...

Before I present our award to Bill, I'd like you to know that we're paying him

thousands of dollars to be here tonight, and it's really a bargain because it

works out to about $1 .49 a pound.

Bill, this plaque is for you, and it's inscribed, the Dean Martin Comedy Hour

Man of the Week Award presented to William Conrad. Thank you very much.

okay.

Really, I'm so pleased to have been asked to come here this evening.

As you know, I'm not used to telling jokes in public.

And it's obvious that nobody else around here is either.

But I'm really glad you showed up tonight, Dean.

I hated to tear you away from your New Year's Eve party.

Now about Nipsey Russell.

I'd like to thank you, Nipsey.

As you know, Nipsey has always been behind civil rights.

Yes, sir. About ten years behind.

lot for the movement. He makes Steppenfetchit look militant.

And I was really surprised seeing Jackie Gale here tonight, considering he

wasn't invited.

And of course, you all know Mr.

Bob Newhart.

Carol Burnett's warm -up.

Bob used to be an accountant, and from what I hear at CBS,

it's sure a good thing that you've got something to fall back on.

So, thank you, one and all.

And borrowing a phrase from Maude, I'd just like to say, God'll get you for

this!

I want to thank my guests tonight, and especially the guest of honor, our man

the week, Bill Conrad.

Everybody thinks Bill is terrific in canon because every week he knocks off a

case. That's nothing. I knock off three.

Bill is starting a new paper. He's going to track down the guy who wrote his

speech tonight.

Good night, everybody. I'm on my way home, Captain. Warm up the hot