Martin Mull, Comedian and Star of ‘Fernwood 2 Night,’ Dies at 80

Martin Mull, the funny comedian, actor, singer-songwriter and painter who became famous thanks to the satire series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartmann and its derivatives Fernwood 2 nightsdied. He was 80 years old.

Mull died Thursday at home after a “valiant fight against a long illness,” his daughter, Maggie Mull, shared on her Instagram.

“He was known for excelling in every creative discipline imaginable and also for directing commercials for Red Roof Inn,” she wrote. “He would find that joke funny. He was never funny. My father will be greatly missed by his wife and daughter, his friends and colleagues, his fellow artists, comedians and musicians and – a sign of a truly exceptional person – many, many dogs. I loved him very much.”

Mull also starred for extended periods in the 1990s as the disconcerted director Willard Kraft in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and as Leon Carp, the gay boss and friend of Roseanne Connor (Roseanne Barr), on Roseanne.

He played private detective (and master of disguise!) Gene Parmesan in Development Arrested and a pharmacist who did not hesitate to taste his product on Two and a half men. He earned his only Emmy nomination in 2016 for his performance as political operative Bob Bradley in Vice-president.

The intelligent Mull starred with frequent collaborator Fred Willard and co-wrote the 1985 Cinemax mockumentary. The history of white people in America and its 1986 sequel. He also played Colonel Mustard on the big screen in Hint (1985). More recently, he was one of the veterans of the Fox sitcom The cool kids and a lawyer addicted to acid on Netflix The ranch and recurring on ABC Not dead yet.

Combining his talent for song and comedy, Mull found early success in 1970 when country music star Jane Morgan recorded his parody “A Girl Named Johnny Cash,” a riff on Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue.” It remained on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart for five weeks.

Mull continued to play guitar in nightclubs and sing parodies he wrote, pop tunes like “Santa Doesn’t Cop Out on Dope”, “Loser’s Samba” and “Jesus Christ Football Star” . He opened for Frank Zappa, Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, and his self-titled debut album, released in 1972 on Capricorn Records, featured drummer Levon Helm of The Band.

“Although his distinctive sense of humor is evident on all of his albums, Mull is no Weird Al parodist,” Stewart Mason wrote of the offbeat performer on AllMusic.com. “His albums are skewed singer-songwriters, pop/rock with a strong jazz influence, that just so happen to have funny lyrics.”

However, it is Garth and Barth Gimble, the very different identical twins from Fernwood, Ohio — the legendary setting of the Norman Lear-produced film Marie Hartman, Marie Hartman – which put Mull in the national spotlight.

Designed to poke fun at America’s obsession with consumerism and pop culture, Mary Hartman The series starred Louise Lasser as an unassuming housewife trying not to lose her mind in the mundane hell that is suburbia. Mull joined the syndicated series in 1976 for its second season and quickly became one of its most despised characters – abusive husband Garth.

“I thought they hired me because I was a comedian,” Mull said in a 2014 interview. “I was a little surprised when all of a sudden we had all this drama at the Virginia Woolf. I didn’t like the character at all. I don’t like violence, and beating my wife is particularly repugnant to me, so it was quite difficult.

Despite Mull’s reservations, Garth’s keen sense of humor and sly, offbeat approach helped him succeed. The audience winced but laughed when Gimble locked his wife in the closet and then kissed the closet door as he left for work.

Al Burton, the show’s creative supervisor who hired Mull, thought he would be perfect for the controversial character. “Martin is one of a kind,” he said. “He has this unique hateful quality while still being an engaging performer.”

Although Garth only appeared in a handful of episodes of the show’s 325-plus run, he came out of it with a bang. In one of the most gruesome twists in television history, he met his death by being impaled on the star atop an aluminum Christmas tree in his closet.

But Mull’s time in Fernwood was just beginning. In the final month of the series, he reappeared as Barth Gimble, a smooth-talking guy who was having trouble adjusting to small-town life. For reasons never fully revealed (it’s been suggested that his situation involved an underage girl in Miami), Barth decided it was best to lay low in Fernwood.

When Mary Hartman completed in 1977, Lear created the spin-off Fernwood 2 nightsProduced by Alan Thicke, it featured Barth as a leisure-suit-wearing talk show host whose insufferable ego made him believe he was Tri-County’s answer to Johnny Carson.

Gimble’s sidekick, Jerry Hubbard (Willard), joined the show. Much to Gimble’s dismay, Hubbard was the epitome of ignorance. When a guest brought the discussion to gynecology, Hubbard innocently asked if a cure had been found for it.

“Barth would host the city’s first talk show, inviting guests to recount their UFO sightings and anchoring segments such as ‘Talk to a Jew,'” rolling stone wrote in 2015. “Martin Mull and Fred Willard don’t get enough credit as a crack comic duo, and the series skewers the format’s clichés — made even cheesier by the audience-friendly production values – set the tone for the deceptively sincere showbiz parodies and fake late-night shows (see Larry Sanders) which will become a staple of comedy in the years to come.

Fernwood 2 nights became a cult hit, and many of Lear’s friends asked to be on it. The producers couldn’t figure out how to make sense of all the celebrities showing up in a small Ohio town, so they moved the show to the fictional town of Alta Coma, California, the “unfinished furniture capital of the world.” America 2 nightsthe show now had Gimble and Hubbard interviewing Burt Lancaster, Carol Burnett, Charlton Heston and Jim Nabors.

Martin Eugene Mull was born in Chicago on August 18, 1943. His father, Harold, was a carpenter and his mother, Betty, was an actress and director. He grew up in North Ridgeville, Ohio, and New Canaan, Connecticut.

His original plan was to become a painter, and he studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and a master’s degree in painting. To earn money to pay for college, Mull organized bands and the experience opened his eyes to the world of entertainment.

Her debut album included the songs “Ventriloquist Love” (lyrics: “Whenever I kiss you / your lips never move”) and “I Made Love to You in a Former Life.” He later released a live LP in 1973, Martin Mull and his fabulous furniture in your living room!! — which also featured Mull doing stand-up bits – and 1974’s Wine and Neurosis Days.

Mull was recommended to Lear after someone spotted him at a nightclub performance.

After his initial television success, Mull was signed by ABC Records, who released his albums. I am all those I have loved And Sex and violinswhich earned a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Recording and was produced by Frank DeVol, who played bandleader Happy Kyne on Fernwood 2 nights.

He created (with Steve Martin and Craig Kellem) and starred as a Seattle television commentator in the CBS sitcom Domestic lifebut it only lasted 10 episodes in 1984. It lasted longer Roseannein which Leon married a character played by Willard in 1995 in one of television’s first gay weddings.

Mull also had recurring roles in The Jackie Thomas Show, The Ellen Show, Dads, Life in Pieces And American Dad!among other shows.

He starred alongside Tuesday Weld in Serial (1980), directed by Bill Persky, appears as himself in Robert Altman’s film The player (1992) and appeared in other films such as FM (1978), Mr. Mom (1983), OC and Stiggs (1985), The distant man (1990), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jingle All the Way (1996) and Killers (2010).

Survivors include his third wife, Wendy Haas, whom he married in 1982, and Maggie, a television writer-producer.