Watching today, Martin’s fans will recognize his trademark sensibility more quickly than his appearance, since the clip predates both the white suit and the white hair. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh.” In this short set, he performs a number of deliberately botched or otherwise askew magic tricks, using his tone to generate the humor. “If I kept denying them the formality of a punch line,” as he writes more than 40 years later in B orn Standing Up, “the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. Still, it’s safe to say that its audience had never seen any performer – and certainly not any prop comic - quite like Martin before. Though the studio audience may look pretty square by today’s standards (or even those of the late 1960s), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour had already built a reputation for pushing the envelope of mainstream television comedy. While I’m waiting for me, I’d like to jump into kind of a socko-boffo comedy routine.” With his prop table ready, he then launches into “the fabulous glove-into-dove trick.” So introduced, the 22-year-old Martin begins his television debut by re-introducing himself: “As Tom just said, I’m Steve Martin, and I’ll be out here in a minute.
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