Almost every couple has “their show.” It’s the one you save for the end of the day, when the house finally gets quiet and you both land on the same couch.
Elvis and Priscilla Presley had one too.
Priscilla moved to Graceland, Elvis’s home in Memphis, as a teenager in 1963. The two married in May 1967, and their daughter, Lisa Marie, was born in February 1968. Those were the years of a young family settling in, and like any young family, they had their evening routines.
In June 2024, a fan asked Priscilla what she and Elvis liked to watch on TV at Graceland. She answered in a video she shared with fans, sitting in front of a bookcase filled with framed photos of the two of them.
You might guess a music show. Maybe a western, or one of Elvis’s own movies.
Not even close.
“The show that Elvis and I would watch was Laugh-In,” Priscilla said in the video. “Laugh-In back in the day was really something, they had different guests coming on.”
If you were around in the late ’60s, you probably remember it. “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” was the fast, silly NBC sketch comedy that first aired in 1968 and ran for six seasons. Goldie Hawn was one of its regulars, and Priscilla’s video even included a clip of her.
So the same year Lisa Marie arrived, a brand new comedy show showed up on TV, and it became the one Elvis and Priscilla shared.
Priscilla called it “something very, very new back in the 60s.” She remembered that “they would come out [with] things that we would never say earlier.”
That’s a fun thought. The most famous singer on the planet, home in Memphis, laughing at the same goofy jokes as families all over the country.
But “Laugh-In” wasn’t the only thing on at Graceland. Priscilla said Elvis also liked “Get Smart,” and he was a fan of Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show.” He “loved his monologues,” she said, meaning Carson’s.
And Carson’s monologue turned out to be the signal for the second half of the night.
“After Johnny Carson’s monologue, that was it, and we’d get in the car and get out to the movies,” Priscilla said.
Off they’d go, often to catch the latest release, according to Remind Magazine.
It’s a sweet little window into their home life. For all the stage lights and the screaming crowds, a regular evening at Graceland sounds a lot like one at your house, just with a later bedtime.
Elvis and “Laugh-In” come up on SiriusXM’s Elvis Radio too, and this short clip is a fun one for anyone who still remembers the show.
Elvis Radio on Elvis and “Laugh-In”
It’s easy to see why her answer makes fans smile. Most of us think of Elvis in the big moments, on a stage or in a movie. Her memory puts him somewhere much smaller, in front of the TV with his wife, waiting for the next punchline.
Then grabbing the car keys once Johnny was done.