George Schlatter's Laugh-In became the highest-rated U.S. show during its first two full seasons
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Schlatter helped launch stars like Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin, calling their talent "magic"
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A new documentary celebrates Schlatter's groundbreaking comedy and his influence on modern television
George Schlatter knows he pushed the bounds of comedy onRowan & Martin's Laugh-In.
At the April 13 premiere of his documentary,Sock It to Me: The Legend of George Schlatter,at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, the comedian, 96, admits to PEOPLE thatLaugh-In“pushed the envelope pretty far and frequently.”
“We blurred the line," he says.
While the show took risks, audiences loved it, and it became the highest-rated show in the United States during its first two full seasons, which Schlatter admits only encouraged them to keep going.
"But the problem was, when you had that bigger share, I mean, half of the world was watching and laughing, so at that point... I'm arrogant now, but you can imagine me 50 years ago with a 50 share? It was impossible," he tells PEOPLE.
Schlatter was the producer and director behind the landmark comedic seriesRowan & Martin's Laugh-In, which ran from 1968 to 1973 and is frequently cited as the father of the modern sketch-comedy variety series.
Part of Schlatter’s charm and power was finding and creating comedic stars. Schlatter, who Tom Hanks named "The Pope of Comedy," became known for finding young talent, such as Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin.
When asked what he saw in those two actresses, specifically, Schlatter replies, "magic."
“When they walked in the office, you knew this was going to be magic. And you'd capture that in a bottle and then have fun," he says. "And it was a big playpen. They were people made to break the rules, and we broke a lot.”
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His documentary,Sock It to Me: The Legend of George Schlatter, named after the famousLaugh-Incatchphrase, was directed by Chris Coronado for George Schlatter Productions and narrated by Oscar-winning Hawn, 80, who calls her former boss "a dreamer... a rebel... the guru of joy."
"You know, back when television was black and white, when everything felt just a little too tidy, too polite, there was one man who looked at all of it and thought, 'Why not shake things up?' That man was George Schlatter," Hawn says in the documentary trailer.
"George shaped how we see television, how we see each other. He didn't just influence TV. He was the original influencer," she continued.
She explained that he "didn't just make television; he reimagined it with color and chaos and a whole lot of laughter."
"WithRowan & Martin's Laugh-In, George took a simple idea, a comedy show, and turned it into a movement. Fast cuts, wild sketches, punchlines flying like confetti. It was unpredictable, outrageous, and somehow it all made perfect sense," she said. "He took chances when others played it safe. He gave voices to the unheard, faces to the unseen, and built a revolution one catchphrase at a time."
Being the subject of the documentary and celebrating it was “a little scary,” Schlatter tells PEOPLE, noting that he and Coronado went through "literally hundreds of hours of shows."
"And so he went back through a lot of shows and pulled up stuff I'd forgotten we did. So the documentary includes a lot of things that I'd even forgotten about," Schlatter admits. "But it was fun. It was a gigantic adult playpen.”
Helping launch the careers of so many stars is, according to Schlatter,“the most fulfilling of all accomplishments.”
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