Tom Smothers Dies At 86, Free To Spend Eternity Taunting Souls Of Kissinger, Nixon, And CBS Execs
Tom Smothers Dies At 86, Free To Spend Eternity Taunting Souls Of Kissinger, Nixon, And CBS Execs
Thanks for all the laughs and the free speech stuff too!
Tom Smothers, the older, goofier half of the comedy-music duo the Smothers Brothers, has died of cancer at his home in Santa Rosa, California, at age 86. His comedic partner, comic foil, and two-years-younger brother Dick said in a statement,
“Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner. Our relationship was like a good marriage — the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected one another. We were truly blessed.”
I was only seven years myself when their show “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” was cancelled in a move of monumental corporate cowardice by CBS, so my early TV comedy show memories have more to do with “Laugh In” and “Sonny and Cher,” but I do remember my very Catholic mother saying that “Laugh In” should have been banned like those terrible Smothers Brothers. CBS replaced them with “Hee Haw,” for Crom’s sake.
Thank goodness, they much later showed up on “Late Night with David Letterman” when I was in college; I remember this clip in which they discuss getting canned by clueless network executives, a favorite theme for Letterman, too.
And for a taste of their early work at its best, here the two discuss pyoomas, cravasses, and the art of boiling that cabbage down.
One more: Pete Seeger’s performance of "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy," the song that CBS censored out of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in 1967 but eventually allowed to be broadcast in 1968. A classic rebuke to all the big fools who insist we must mindlessly push on even when it no longer makes sense.
Finally, because we love you, a gift link to the New York Times obit, which notes that Tom Smothers was always convinced that Richard Nixon himself had ordered CBS to cancel their show, and that certainly sounds like something Nixon might do, doesn’t it?
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"Our relationship was like a good marriage"
Huh. A clip I watched last night had them taking questions from the audience, and one was whether Smothers was their real last name. They said that it indeed was; but then Tommy added 'but we're not brothers'. And after a beat: "We're married".
Of course the laugh was partly at what an *outlandish* notion, two men! But to even suggest such a thing, at that time (long enough ago that Dickie had short hair, and no 'stache) struck me as still being cutting edge. Thank goodness for YouTube; I know what some of my views this evening will be devoted to.
I was in college at a large university with a very active anti-war student body in the mid to late 1960's. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was very popular on our campus. Although their content would be almost bland in today's political landscape, it was pretty radical back then.
Is it just me, or a lot of cultural touch stone personalities from those years dying off all of a sudden?