A folk-comedy act reaches prime time
Tom and Dick Smothers were a brother act who had built their name in the early 1960s by mixing folk songs with arguments about family. Tom played the slow-witted one and Dick the exasperated straight man, with Tom’s recurring complaint “Mom always liked you best!”. They had appeared on television before, including a short-lived sitcom, but The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour gave them a variety show of their own on CBS.
It premiered on 5 February 1967, on Sunday evenings at 9 p.m. That put it directly against Bonanza on NBC, a long-running western that was among the most watched programmes in the United States. The show was widely expected to fail in that position, but it drew a considerable audience, and in its first season it was a success.
Bringing in a new generation
What made the show different was its willingness to feature younger performers and writers. The head writer was Mason Williams, a guitarist who also had a hit with the instrumental “Classical Gas” in 1968. The writing staff in later seasons reportedly included young comedy writers such as Steve Martin and Rob Reiner. The show also featured Pat Paulsen, whose deadpan editorials became popular, and which led to a joke campaign for the presidency in 1968.
The musical guests came from rock and folk circles, which most variety shows ignored. Among them were the Who, whose appearance in September 1967 famously ended with an explosion in the drum kit, and others from the American counterculture. Few other programmes on network television offered that kind of exposure to the music of the period.
Politics and the first disputes
The brothers and their writers were sceptical about the establishment, and their jokes increasingly addressed Vietnam, civil rights, and the government. The Vietnam War escalation was a leading subject in public debate, and the antiwar protests of 1967 culminated in the March on the Pentagon in October. Even a light-hearted programme could not entirely avoid a conflict that divided families.
The first major confrontation involved Pete Seeger, the folk singer who had been blacklisted from network television in the 1950s. In September 1967 he was booked to perform “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”, a song generally understood as a criticism of Lyndon Johnson’s handling of the war. CBS removed the song from the broadcast. The brothers publicly objected, and after months of argument Seeger was allowed to return in February 1968 and sing it. The episode showed the network backing down under public pressure, but the relationship was damaged.
The role of the censors
Network standards and practices departments reviewed scripts and tapes in advance, and they could demand cuts. This was normal practice. Their cuts covered subjects such as religion, sex, drug references and criticism of politicians. The brothers argued that the cuts were becoming more frequent and more political, while CBS executives argued that they were applying the same standards as for other programmes and that comedy needed to be balanced. The brothers pushed back by delivering tapes late and by publicising what had been cut.
Several other episodes caused trouble. In the late 1968 season, a sermon sketch by the comedian David Steinberg drew complaints from viewers, and CBS declined to rebroadcast it. By early 1969, CBS had begun to view the show as a recurring problem.
Cancellation and aftermath
In April 1969 CBS announced that the programme was cancelled. The network said that the brothers had failed to deliver an episode in time for it to be previewed by the censors, which broke their agreement. The Smothers Brothers argued that this was a pretext and that the real reason was political. They took legal action, and they later reportedly won a judgment for breach of contract. Their friends in the industry, along with numerous viewers, saw the case as a free-speech argument, while CBS framed it as a dispute over standards and the terms of its contract.
The show also won recognition: the writing staff received an Emmy in 1969, which reportedly counted Steve Martin among the writers.
Why it matters
The Smothers Brothers did not win the argument at the time, since they lost their show, but their clash showed that television comedy could reflect a divided country. Later satirical programmes, such as Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, which debuted in January 1968 on NBC, and Saturday Night Live in the 1970s, benefited from the ground that had been tested. The debate also fed into larger arguments about what should be shown on mass media in the era of the Great Society and the Public Broadcasting Act. The brothers returned to television in later decades, and their reputation as defenders of comedy’s right to comment on events has endured.