Summer Replacement Series
For Martin's Thursday night time slot, the network and Martin's production crew created original summer programming (without Martin) to hold his usual weekly audience. Rowan and Martin hosted one of Dean Martin's summer series in 1966, which proved so successful that it spawned one of television's most memorable series, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.
From July to September 1967, the summer show was co-hosted by Martin's daughter Gail Martin, Vic Damone and Carol Lawrence.
In 1968, Martin's staff came up with a new format: a salute to the 1930s, with a variety show performed as if television existed at that time. Producer Greg Garrison recruited a dozen chorus girls, naming the group "The Golddiggers" after the Warner Brothers musicals of the '30s. The series, Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers, starred Frank Sinatra, Jr. and Joey Heatherton as musical hosts, with comedy routines by Paul Lynde, Stanley Myron Handelman, Barbara Heller, comic impressionists Bill Skiles and Pete Henderson, and neo-vaudeville musicians The Times Square Two.
The summer show was a hit, returning the following year with a new cast. Lou Rawls and Gail Martin took over for Sinatra and Heatherton, and six-foot-six dancer Tommy Tune was featured.
The Golddiggers also toured the nation's nightclubs as a live attraction. Some of the members grew tired of traveling and dropped out, to be replaced by other hopefuls. After the summer series ran its course, the Golddiggers were seen on Martin's own program, and four of them were used in another group, the Ding-a-Ling Sisters.
Toward the end of the Thursday-night run, the summer series was devoted to European comedians. Marty Feldman was featured in Dean Martin's Comedy World, hosted by Jackie Cooper.
Read more about this topic: The Dean Martin Show
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