Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In cards to display punchlines. On "Letters to Laugh-In", a short-lived spin-off daytime show hosted by Gary Owens, cast members read jokes sent in by viewers, which were scored by applause meter. The eventual winning joke was read by actress Jill St. John: "What do you get when you cross an elephant with a jar of peanut butter? A 500 pound sandwich that sticks to the roof of your mouth!" A cross-promotional episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" ("The Biggest Star in Hollywood", February 1969) features Judy Carne, Arte Johnson, Gary Owens, and producer George Schlatter playing themselves in a story
Carl Rowan bus boycott in 1955, resulting from Rosa Parks's refusal to relinquish her bus seat to a white passenger. As the only black reporter covering the story for a national newspaper, Rowan struck a special friendship with the boycott's leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. When news of an unlikely compromise settlement of the boycott came to Rowan's attention across the Associated Press wire, he notified King, who made quick steps to discredit the story, which was about to appear in a Montgomery newspaper, thus ensuring the continuance of the boycott. Founded in 1987 by Rowan, Project Excellence was a college