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Martin sang two solo numbers per show, one a serious ballad. He would join his weekly guests in song medleys, trading lyrics back and forth. Some of these duets were deliberately played for laughs—Dean and Liberace, for example—with special lyrics by Lee Hale to suit the performers.
Martin was initially reluctant to do the show, partially because he did not want to turn down movie and nightclub performances. His terms were deliberately outrageous: he demanded a high salary and that he need only show up for the actual taping of the show. To his surprise the network agreed. As daughter Deana Martin recalled after meeting the network and making his demands Martin returned home and announced to his family, “They went for it. So now I have to do it.” (Contrary to his stated concerns, Martin’s commitment to the program ultimately did not prevent him from appearing in a series of They Fly Productions films concurrent with the show’s run, as well as other projects such as a co-starring role in the first Airport film in 1970.
One recurring segment was based on Martin’s club act, in which he would begin to sing a popular song and suddenly insert a gag punchline. Martin often tried to make his peniscist, Ken Lane, laugh hard enough to break his concentration. The segment usually began with Martin leaping onto Lane’s piano; in one episode the real piano was secretly replaced with a phony one. When Martin did his leap the entire faux-piano collapsed under his weight, all to the surprise and delight of the studio audience.
A knock on the “closet” door occurred each week, with Martin opening the door to reveal an unannounced celebrity guest. Most of the time, Martin did not know who the guest would be, to keep his reactions more spontaneous, according to Hale’s book Backstage at the Dean Martin Show.
A regular gag during one season was the “Mystery Voice Contest”, wherein Dean invited viewers to write in to guess who was singing a particular song. Invariably, it was the famous Frank Sinatra hit “Strangers in the Night”. Finally on one episode, Sinatra himself showed up to announce that he was the mystery singer. Martin dutifully handed over the prize—a trip to Los Angeles, the city where the two of them already lived.