It’s now the stuff of Baby Boomer legend. Once upon a time — specifically, 1967 — Tom and Dick Smothers, a rising brother comedy team folks singing parody nightclub act, a big hit on Jack Paar’s Tonight show, and The Jack Benny Show, were given their own TV show on Sunday nights almost as sacrificial lambs to try and take on the NBC powerhouse competition killer “Bonanza.” Few expected the show to last.
They surprised everyone: their show became a huge hit. The combination of dumb brother Tom and smarter Brother Dick seemingly updated the comedy team vacuum in a mid-20th century America where teams were popular in vaudeville, in movies, on radio and early 1950s TV. And the show was smart comedy: great writing, music, comedy, high production values — even in color. But then something happened: with the growing unpopularity of the Vietman War, the country became polarized and younger comedians wanted to have their comedy reflect their different political, cultural and even musical values.
Enter the Smothers Brothers. According to the accuate lengend, they went to war with the CBS censors, constantly pushing the envelope in terms of comedy, music, topical political references and American culture in general. CBS wanted to keep things as they were: with shows that appealed to The Greatest Generation’s tastes, style and values. The Smothers Brothers wanted the show to have content that some of the baby boomers then changing comedy and demonstrating in the streets enjoyed. They courted battles with censors, lost some and won some. The Smothers Brothers Hour shifted from being a younger-skewered comedy show to a kind of counter culture icon and comedic ancestor of Saturday Night live. Finally, after a string of confrontations over censorship internally and in the press, the Smothers Brothers were abruptly fired by CBS on the prextext of not deliving a tape to the network on time. Ratings, shmatings…they had to go.
David Bianculli’s superb and compelling Dangerously Funny The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour has it ALL. It paints a portrait of an entire era: it’s context, entertainment values, political upheavals and generational attitudinal shifts. It is THE definitive work on the brothers’ television and performing careers, the internal battles, the show itself (there are detailed descriptions of key episodes), behind the scenes stories — and most importantly of the battle that not just led to their firing but essentially ended their role a top national comedy act. It details many of the show’s performers who became famous: Steve Martin. Rob Reiner and Pat Paulsen (who launched a comic run for President) Bianculli correctly notes the show’s huge impact on today’s topical TV comics such as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and and BillMaher .
Most importantly, Dangerously Funny is must reading for those interested in broadcasting, free speech, comedy and entertainment. And for the Brothers’ critics, too, and here is why:
I was in high school when the Smothers Brothers were cancelled. As their show became more political and they battled over material they seemed less funny. It was like what happened to Jerry Lewis who was beloved until in interviews the public got a sense of huge disconnect between the lovable clown on the screen and the “real” Lewis. The Smothers Brothers became one more example of polarization in a generation-polarized country. It was the establishment (CBS instead of LBJ) against the younger people (demanding TV shift from being vaudeville and radio derived to something more relevant).
Several other things are true (1)they never regained their popularity in other incarnations on TV after CBS fired them although Tom Smothers won his legal battle with CBS, (2)they were still stellar performers, but their moment at the top of the national comedy totem pole was over. Bianculli painstakingly documents how Tom Smothers gleefully challenged and battled the network, almost daring them to do something since they had a contract. In the end, CBS argued that a provision was violated. It became a matter of corporate management principle: CBS could not let an employee artist dictate how they ran their network or its content. .
So were the Smothers Brothers 1960s free speech Joans of Arc? Or perhaps naive contributors to a corporation that literally pulled the plug on their appearances on their network and effectively short-circuited their national prominence? Or perhaps a combination of both?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.