Rowan & Martin\'s Laugh-in Playing Cards 1960s Full Deck W/ Box TV Nostalgia Deck for Sale

On eBay Now...

Rowan & Martin\'s Laugh-in Playing Cards 1960s Full Deck W/ Box TV Nostalgia Deck For Sale

$Rowan & Martin\'s Laugh-in Playing Cards 1960s Full Deck W/ Box TV Nostalgia Deck$
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Rowan & Martin\'s Laugh-in Playing Cards 1960s Full Deck W/ Box TV Nostalgia Deck:
$26.00

Cards in good shape box is pretty sun bleached. All cards are present.

These Laugh-In playing cards were produced by Brown & Bigelow (Stancraft) in 1969. The face cards feature Rowan and Martin and the Aces and pip cards have famous "one liners" from the show in a hand-written font. The Jokers feature the Fickle Finger of Fate award and the unnamed “character in a raincoat on a tricycle.” The backs are decorated with a groovy design in bright pink, orange, yellow, red, green and blue. So much fun! A great gift for a fan of the show or card collector. There are 52 cards plus two Jokers in original box.

As we all know, today there are hundreds of television programs and lots of time-shifted viewing so the days when a large chunk of television viewers (or even the public) tuned in to watch the same show at the same time are long gone. Even big events like the Superbowl no longer get half of the viewing audience. Long ago, it wasn't like this.

Question: What was the last regularly scheduled television program to regularly win over half of the TV viewing audience?

Answer: Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In which ran on Monday nights, from 1968-1973

I remember when my family bought a color TV primarily so we could watch the Laugh-In in color.

The term "Laugh-In" was a play on the "love-ins" or "be-ins" of the 1960s hippie culture, terms that were, in turn, derived from "sit-ins", common in protests associated with civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the time.

I think I bought my Laugh In deck of playing cards in a store in the early 70s. It is dated 1969. I have the full deck but of course, my real interest in these two jokers.

Fickle Finger of Fate Award

One joker commemorates the Fickle Finger of Fate Award, an award that salutes actual dubious achievements by the government or famous people, It became one of the many catchphrases of the show.

The other joker features (and I'm quoting Wikipedia) an unnamed "man in a yellow raincoat" and hat, riding a tricycle, then tipping over and falling, frequently used between sketches.

Note. I did cite some info that I learned from Wikipedia. I have no source for the point about this being the last program to get over half of the audience. Wikipedia does report that it was the number one show for two seasons. I suppose I could look up somewhere the size of the viewing audience and the share that the program had for its two hit seasons