User Reviews

It's interesting, when Dean Martin presented his Celebrity Roast of Frank Sinatra in 1977, he (Sinatra) was honored as Man of the Year. Back in 1973, Kirk Douglas got the star treatment as Man of the Week, which is OK, but it certainly didn't have the feel of the celebrity roasts I was used to watching back in the day. This one had lesser known personalities on the dais, and the presentations seemed rushed and less than professionally produced. You didn't have headline presenters like (George) Burns or (Bing) Crosby, but instead had to rely on second stringers like Jack Burns and Norm Crosby - anyone remember them? Even Don Rickles seemed flat with his delivery, and way too long to eat up the clock. Rich Little doing Kirk Douglas had to go a bit over the top to achieve the desired result, so again, another example of a presenter seeming forced instead of spontaneous. Not only that, but the entire show seemed to blow by in not much more than a half hour. Fortunately, this isn't one of the 'Roasts' that I remember seeing back in the Seventies, otherwise I might have avoided some of the really great and fun ones that I can still recall with fondness - Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, and Muhammad Ali just to name a few.