Through the prism of 40 years
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour looks quaint. The just-released four CD-set of TV shows from their third season in 1968 captures Tom and Dick Smothers in their Nehru jackets trading schticky banter, and among their guests are Vegas legend Liberace and English stage actor Anthony Newley.
But there was another side to the Smothers — which ultimately got them banned from the air. The program, which ran from '67 to '69 was initially just one of the era's variety shows. It rapidly became a pipeline for youth culture, channeling groundbreaking musicians, anti-Vietnam war sentiment and reefer-fueled cosmic consciousness into America's living rooms every Sunday night.
Everybody from Steppenwolf to the Muppets got a big break on the Smothers Brothers' show. African-American R&B musicians including Ike and Tina Turner
and Ray Charles —
— who couldn't get prime air time in the heat of the Civil Rights struggle — got lengthy feature spots. Both are on the new
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour: The Best of Season 3 (available at
http://www.smothersbrothers.com). Tom and Dick even pulled the great activist-musician Pete Seger off the McCarthy blacklist — all while mixing silly songs with barbed quips about foreign and domestic policy.
The Beatles contributed early music videos to the show. Hendrix was a fan. The Who, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, and Steppenwolf all performed. And appearances by the Doors,
the First Edition,
Donovan,
George Harrison,
and Joan Baez
are all part of the CD set.
Because the Comedy Hour managed to be both family friendly and controversial, it scored high in TV ratings even as it annoyed conservative viewers like President Lyndon Johnson and CBS's CEO William Paley — the powerbroker who abruptly pulled the program's plug at the height of its success in April 1969.
"We were totally surprised," Dick Smothers recalled during a recent phone interview. "We were just doing what comedians do — making fun. In retrospect, the firing probably cemented our reputation. People don't like having anything taken away from them before it's time."
Ironically CBS and Paley had recruited the Smothers Brothers from a successful stand-up career. At first, the network put them in a sitcom, which failed.
"We were great at telling jokes and being spontaneous in front of an audience, so they took away the audience and gave us a script," says Dick.
The
Comedy Hour was their second chance. There were, however, a few caveats. The Brothers got to choose their guests and had creative control, although they did have to abide the network's censors. And Tom and Dick decreed that there would be none of the lip-synching prevalent among the day's other variety programs.
During the past 40 years the Smothers Brothers have kept making albums and singing and arguing on stage to the tune of 80 or so dates a year. Today they're both part of an effort to get Seger nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. They also co-own California's Remick Ridge Vineyard.
To set the political record straight, Dick explains that Tommy's "a radical left winger, and I'm a raging moderate." Over the years Dick has enjoyed auto racing, piloting airplanes and helicopters, and gourmet cooking. He even once took Lenny Bruce water skiing. "We never intended to have careers as performers," says Dick. "We wanted to have fun. We were just brothers who argued and sang on stage, and people laughed. Now here we are, 50 years later, still arguing and singing on stage and making people laugh."