I am sorry to hear Martin Mull has passed away at age 80, too soon! He was a comic genius from a generation of humorists and musicians we will never see again.
Of course, I first saw him on “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” in 1975 as Garth Gimble. Garth was an odious domestic abuser, and the audience really wanted him killed off. That’s how snarky Martin Mull was, that Garth was impaled on a Christmas tree. It was appropriately hilarious.
Mull was so good that they brought him back as Barth Gimble host of the local talk show, “Fernwood 2Night.” The legendary Fred Willard played Jerry Hubbard, his Ed McMahon, and the pair was magic. Barth and Jerry eventually left Fernwood and had another talk show called “American 2 Night.” They were such sublime satirists they were spun off into their own talk show separate from “Mary Hartman.” If you were addicted to this stuff, as I was, there was nothing better.
Martin Mull was like Steve Martin in that he played the guitar (Steve had his banjo) and recorded wildly popular comedy albums and toured as a sit down comic. He decorated his stage with used “fabulous furniture from Goodwill. I think I listened to his album, “I’m Everyone I Ever Loved,” a thousand times. When Mull finally appeared in a movie — “FM” — it was very exciting. We felt like he made it, and deserved it. Fred Willard and I used to talk about Martin Mull all the time. He was a legend.
In later years, Martin turned up on TV shows like “Roseanne,” but I always felt like his wings were clipped. He wasn’t subversive anymore, he just doing the Hollywood thing. But the affection for his heyday never ended. Whenever he turned up in a “regular” show, I thought he was winking at his old fans like it was inside joke. When he finally was in “Veep,” where he was nominated for an Emmy Award, it felt like vindication.
“Genius, great sadness,” writes Steve Martin on Twitter. He posted the video below, “Normal,” from 1974. RIP Martin Mull.
