Juliet Prowse roasting Angie Dickinson

Series description:

Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts Cast:

Dean Martin ........... Roastmaster

And all 50 Roastees:

Hank Aaron            Joe Garagiola          Ed McMahon
Muhammad Ali          Jackie Gleason         Ralph Nader
Lucille Ball          Barry Goldwater        Joe Namath
Jack Benny            Dan Haggerty           Carroll O'Connor
George Burns          Monty Hall             Ronald Reagan
Truman Capote         Valerie Harper         Don Rickles
Johnny Carson         Hugh Hefner            Bobby Riggs
Wilt Chamberlain      Bob Hope               Rowan & Martin
Joan Collins          Hubert Humphrey        Telly Savalas
William Conrad        Gabe Kaplan            Frank Sinatra
Bette Davis           Jack Klugman           Suzanne Somers
Sammy Davis Jr.       Evel Knievel           Jimmy Stewart
Angie Dickinson       Ted Knight             Danny Thomas
Kirk Douglas          Michael Landon         George Washington
Leo Durocher          Mr. T                  Dennis Weaver
Red Foxx              Peter Marshall         Betty White
Zsa Zsa Gabor         Dean Martin          

Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts Trivia:

The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts aired on Thursday evenings. They were filmed in the Ziegfeld Room at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Roasts were originally conceived as "spoofs" of testimonial dinners. Instead of family, friends, and co-workers getting up in front of a crowd and heralding the man or woman being honored, roasters concentrate on the person's shortcomings. Often a roastee would act as if they were very upset about something being said but it almost always was just an act and in good fun. It was also extremely funny for fans to watch! The jibes were typically true to life so it's amazing that more roastees didn't get upset. If the roastee had a reputation of drinking, drugs, womanizing, gambling, being obese, being stupid, or anything else like that, you can be sure they heard about it during their roast! For example, Dean Martin said that Johnny Carson was a farm boy from Nebraska and he knew that because he saw him earlier in the bar with a couple of pigs!

Many celebrities that were never roasted served as regular roasters. Many of them were there because they had a close relationship with the roastee. One of the best examples of that is when sportscaster Howard Cosell appeared on the Muhammad Ali roast. There were also regular roasters who tended to be the celebrities that were comedians who excelled at making the roastees' life miserable! Some of those included Milton Berle ("Texaco Star Theater"), Foster Brooks, Ruth Buzzi ("Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In"), Dom DeLuise ("The Dom DeLuise Show"), Phyllis Diller ("The Pruitts Of Southampton"), and Rich Little ("Love on a Rooftop").

Several of the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts have been sold for years on video tape and are now available on dvd. Comedian Rich Little hosted a bunch of very entertaining infomercials for them.