Obituaries.

Evidently this just came through the wire services: Comedian Dick Martin of Laugh-in fame has died of respiratory complications at the age of 86.

His partner, straight man Dan Rowan, died many years ago back in 1987.

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in (1968-1973) was considered a landmark television series, what with its topical humor and blackout sketches. It also made stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin, to name just a few of the many regulars.

This is from the NYT's Rowan obituary back in 1987:

''Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,'' which aired on NBC from 1967 through 1973, mixed the frantic low humor of vaudeville with freewheeling political satire and scattershot, psychedelic topicality. Its blitzkrieg format - sight gags careening off one another like bumper cars, overlapping sketches, bold graphics, a seeming determination not to leave the screen each Monday night when the allotted 60 minutes were up - appealed to a generation that had been weaned on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' and raised on the music of Bob Dylan and the Jefferson Airplane.

''The show was new and fast,'' Dick Martin, Mr. Rowan's partner, said yesterday in a telephone interview from his office in Los Angeles. ''We had people doing cameos who just had no idea what they were getting into.'' Among the cameo performers were former President Richard M. Nixon, Billy Graham and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. More prominent was a regular supporting cast of nascent comedy stars, among them Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Ruth Buzzi, Pigmeat Markham, Eileen Brennan, Richard Dawson and Judy Carne.

From the Encyclopedia of Television:

While Laugh-in lacks the satirical bite of later series such as Saturday Night Live, SCTV or In Living Color or of That Was The Week That Was (to which it was often compared by contemporary critics), Laugh-in brought many minority and female performers to mainstream audiences, helping to broaden the composition of television comedy. Its dependence upon stock comic characters and catch-phrases was clearly an influence on the development of Saturday Night Live, which by comparison, has a much more staid visual style and more predictable structure. Unfortunately, Laugh-in's topicality, even its close fit with 1960s aesthetics, has meant that the program has not fared well in re-runs, being perceived as dated almost from the moment it was aired. However, the on-going success of Laugh-in alums such as Hawn, Tomlin, or even gameshow host Richard Dawson point to its continued influence.

Here is an obituary of Martin:

In addition to a 25-year career in nightclubs and the success of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, Dick Martin began a second career as a television director in 1976, starting with The Bob Newhart Show. He was the chief director of the 1980s sitcom Newhart as well as the host of the short-lived Mindreaders game show in the late 1970s. By the time he retired from his second career, he had directed over 200 hours of television.

He married Britain’s first Playboy Playmate Dolly Read (Dolly Martin) in 1971. Dolly Read had starred in the cult classic feature film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Martin was formerly married to Peggy Connelly. He has two sons, Richard Martin and Cary Martin.

He lost the use of one lung when he was in his teens; only in his final years did he require oxygen. He lived a long time with that disability.