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Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose "Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In" took video receiver during storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catch-phrases as "Sock it to me!" has died. He was 86.

Martin, who went on to become one of television’s busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday blackness of respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, family spokesman Barry Greenberg said.

"He had had some bonny severe respiratory problems for many years, and he had pretty much stopped breathing a week ago," Greenberg said.

Martin had misplaced the speak of one of his lungs as a young lady, and needed supplemental oxygen for most of the date in his later years.

He was surrounded by family and friends when he died just after 6 p.m., Greenberg said.

"Laugh-in," which debuted in January 1968, was unlike any comedy-variety show before it. Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, it offered up a unflappable, about stream-of-consciousness run of non-sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and announcer Gary Owens.

Presiding over it all were Rowan and Martin, the veteran nightclub comics whose standup banter put their own distinct spin on the show.

Like all straight men, Rowan provided the voice of reason, striving to apt his fellow’s absurdities. Martin, meanwhile, was full of phony, much risque theories about life, which he appeared to hold with unwavering certainty.

Against this backdrop, audiences were taken from argument to furore by quick, sometimes psychedelic-looking visual cuts, where they might see Hawn, Worley and other women dancing in bathing suits with political slogans, or sometimes just horse feathers, painted on their bodies. Other times, Gibson, clutching a flower, would recite nonsensical poetry or Johnson would impersonate a comical Nazi intelligence agent.

"Laugh-In" astounded audiences and critics identically. For two years, the show topped the Nielsen ratings, and its catchphrases– "Sock it to me," "You bet your sweet bippy" and "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall’s" — were recited across the country.

Stars such as John Wayne and Kirk Douglas were delighted to make brief appearances, and even Richard Nixon, uninterrupted for president in 1968, dropped in to shout a befuddled sounding, "Sock it to me!" His opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was offered equal time but declined because his handlers brooding it would appear undignified.

Rowan and Martin landed the show justified as their comedy partnership was approaching its zenith and the nation’s counterculture was expanding into the mainstream.

The two were both struggling actors when they met in 1952. Rowan had sold his relaxation in a used car dealership to imbibe acting lessons, and Martin, who had written gags for TV shows and comedians, was tending bar in Los Angeles to pay the rent.

Rowan, hearing Martin was looking for a comedy partner, visited him at the shut up, where he found him eating a banana.

"Why are you eating a banana?" he asked.

"If you’ve ever eaten here, you’d know what’s with the banana," he replied, and a comedy team was born.

Although their at the crack gigs in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley were often performed gratis, they donned tuxedos for them and put on an appearance of success.

"We were raw," Martin recalled years later, "but we looked good together and we were funny."

They gradually worked up to the pre-eminent night spots in New York, Miami and Las Vegas and began to put in an appearance regularly on television.

In 1966, they provided the summer replacement for "The Dean Martin Show." Within two years, they were headlining their own show.

The novelty of "Laugh-In" diminished with each season, however, and as major players such as Hawn and Tomlin moved on to bigger careers, interest in the series faded.

After the show folded in 1973, Rowan and Martin capitalized on their fame with a series of high-paid engagements around the country. They parted amicably in 1977.

"Dan has diabetes, and his doctor advised him to cool it," Martin told The Associated Press at the spell.

Rowan, a sailing enthusiast, spent his last years touring the canals of Europe on a houseboat. He died in 1987.

Martin moved onto the game-show circuit, but quickly tired of it. After he complained about the lack of challenges in his career, fellow humorous Bob Newhart’s agent suggested he arrogate up directing.

He was reluctant at first, but after observing on "The Bob Newhart Show," he pronounced to try. He would recall later that it was "like being thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool and being told to dig or swim."

Soon he was everybody of the industry’s busiest TV directors, working on numerous episodes of "Newhart" as well as such shows as "In the Heat of the Night," "Archie Bunker’s Place" and "Family Ties."

Born into a middle-class family in Battle Creek, Mich., Martin had worked in a Ford auto assembly plant after high instruct.

After an early failed marriage, he was, for years, a confirmed bachelor. He finally settled down in middle ripen, marrying Dolly Read, a quondam bunny at the Playboy Club in London. Survivors include his wife and two sons, actor Richard Martin and Cary Martin.

At Martin’s request, there will be no funeral, Greenberg said.

Martin lost the use of his right lung when he was 17, something that on no account bothered him until his final years, when he required oxygen 18 hours a day.

Arriving for a defender celebrating his 80th birthday, he fainted and was treated by doctors and paramedics. The party continued, however, and he cracked, "Boy, did I make an entrance!"

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