Fresh Air - Remembering The Smothers Brothers, Who Changed TV

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

We remember Tom Smothers, of the comic folk duo the Smothers Brothers, who died last week at the age of 86. Their popular TV variety show in the late 1960s captured the spirit of the counterculture, and was often censored by network execs. We feature our interview with Tom and Dick Smothers and have an appreciation by TV critic David Bianculli.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. This is Fresh Air. I'm TV critic David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. Today, we're devoting our show to Tom Smothers, who died last week at age 86 after a battle with cancer. Along with his younger brother Dick, Tom was a member of the Smothers brothers, whose 50-year career made them one of the longest-running comedy acts in show business. Dick played the upright bass and was the straight man. Tom played guitar and acted like an easily excited adolescent. Their voices blended beautifully, their comedy timing was impeccable, and their 1960s variety series, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, was one of the

most significant and groundbreaking TV programs of its time. Today, we'll salute Tom Smothers and the legacy he and Dick created with their important CBS program. We'll listen back to an interview Terry Gross conducted with Tom and Dick back in 1985, an interview I conducted with Tom in 1997, and finally, a piece of the interview Terry conducted with me in 2009 when my book about the Smothers Brothers had just been published. But first, let's begin with an appreciation that puts Tom Smothers and his Comedy Hour in its proper perspective. It's the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Tom and Dick Smothers didn't set out to be TV pioneers, but that's precisely what they were. Before the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour ran on CBS from 1967 to 1969,

almost all TV entertainment shows set out to escape from reality, not to reflect it. There were popular sitcoms about a talking horse, a personal genie, a visiting Martian, even a dead mother reincarnated as an automobile. Reincarnated, get it? The Smothers Brothers had even starred in one of those escapist sitcoms, with Tom playing Dick's guardian angel. But they hated that show, walked away from it, and returned to the nightclub circuit and the recording of their hit comedy albums. Those LPs in the early 60s portrayed them as brothers who poked fun at folk singers and folk songs when not arguing among and about themselves. Musically, they were good enough to nail the songs and the harmonies, while often adding their own comic twists.

Here's their version of the classic western tune Streets of Laredo from one of their early albums. It's from one of my early albums, too. This is a recording from my copy of the original vinyl LP, which explains all the pops and clicks. As I walked out in Laredo one day I spied a young cowboy Oh, dressed in white linen Dressed in white linen

As cold as the clay I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy I see by your outfit you are a cowboy too We see

by our outfits that we are both cowboys. If you get an outfit, you can be a cowboy too. In their early nightclub years and early albums, they found and perfected their unique comic formula. They became instant stars after appearing on Jack Parr's Tonight Show, then kept building on their twin strengths, satirizing the earnestness of folk singers and bringing a comic explosion of sibling rivalry front and center. After a few years, everyone was so familiar with Tom's catchphrase to his brother Dick, the brothers used it as the title of an album. Mom Always Liked You Best.

Mom gave you a dog. My mom gave my brother a dog, and I didn't get to have a dog in the morning. Everybody had dogs. I didn't have a dog. You got to have a dog in the morning. Anything in the whole world, I wanted to have a dog of my own. I asked my mom, I said, Mom, I want to have a dog like my brother Dickie Smothers. You remember me. I'm Tommy Smothers. And I never got to have a dog, and you wouldn't let me play with your dog or anything. I remember when I was 10 years old, I said, if I could only have a dog.

My brother had a dog, and I couldn't. I didn't get to play with your dog, and you would always tell Mom when I play with your dog, hey, Tommy's playing with my dog. You remember Tommy, the kid you don't like so much? And I didn't get to play with your dog, hey, Tommy's playing with my dog. You remember Tommy, the kid you don't like so much? And I didn't get to play with a dog, and I didn't have a dog. Hold it a minute. Before we go any further, you know you had your own pet already.

Crummy chicken. You wanted it. It's no fun playing with a chicken. They don't bark good. So when CBS executives came to the Smothers Brothers, asking them to host a variety show they sorely needed to fill a hole in their schedule, no one thought the brothers would cause any trouble. Not even the brothers. They began each hour of that first season of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

with time-tested, finely honed routines from their nightclub act. Like the song Cabbage, with which they opened their very first episode. Pull that cabbage down. Take it, Tom. No. I didn't feel like taking it. You didn't hear me right. I said, take it, Tom. I heard you clear as a bell. You said, take it. Sometimes if a fella doesn't feel like taking it, You didn't hear me right. I said, take it, Tom. I heard you clear as a bell. You said, take it.

Sometimes if a fella doesn't feel like taking it, he just stands right up as American. I agreed, agreed. Agreed, a fella doesn't have to take it. You're not a fella. You're a folk singer, Tommy. You took on responsibilities. You have to take it.

You've read the folk singer's guidebook. Yeah, but I don't... You read the book, right? I just didn't... Did you read the book? Yes, I read the book. Okay, then you read the folk singer's guidebook. Yeah, but I don't... You read the book, right? I just didn't... Did you read the book? Yes, I read the book. Okay, then you read the folk singer's credo. Well, see, I just didn't... The credo, Tommy, says... The credo says all folk singers

are obligated to do what? I didn't... Tell everybody, look at them and say what you are obligated to do. All folk singers are obligated... You're obligated to do. All folk singers are obligated just to take it. But when the series proved instantly and unexpectedly popular, Tom Smothers, his head writer Mason Williams, and the other writers set out to say things. Things about politics, war, drugs, and the times in general, which led to censorship by CBS. That, in turn, led to increasingly fierce battles about what could and couldn't be

televised. At the end, after three seasons, Tom and Dick Smothers were fired by CBS and their show pulled from the air. The Smothers Brothers sued and won, but the damage was done and they had lost their primetime platform. But not before making several invaluable contributions to television. Tom Smothers, with his eye for talent and his enthusiasm for showcasing new artists, was the link between Ed Sullivan before him and Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live after him. Mason Williams, Pat Paulson, Lee French, Steve Martin, and Rob Reiner all started with the Smothers Brothers. And CBS, after firing Tom and Dick, reversed course and sought out controversial shows rather than avoiding and punishing them. In the few years after pulling the Smothers Brothers

from the air, CBS presented the feminist comedy of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the anti-war comedy of MASH, and the ultra-controversial comedy of All in the Family. Tom Smothers, with his brother Dick and their staff, paved the way for all those shows, as well as, even more directly, for SNL, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, and John Oliver. Now, let's hear Terry's 1985 interview with Tom and Dick Smothers. She began with a clip in which they spoofed the seriousness of folk music. Many folk songs have been written in the first person, the original authentic folk songs. They have been

written during the actual occurrence of a historic event by someone who was involved in this event. The song my brother would like to sing now was written in the first person by a man about 150 years ago. It's entitled hangman

hangman hangman slack your roll hangman hangman slack your roll slack it for a... It's short. We have another song, which is an old folk song, and it hasn't been sung enough lately, we feel. It's been sort of neglected, and it's a very nice song, and I know you'll recognize it the moment we start. Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care. Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care. Jimmy Crack Corn and Jimmy Crack... Wait a minute.

That's not the way the song goes. I Don't Care. Tom Smothers explained to Terry that he and his brother didn't start out performing folk music. That kind of edged in on us. When we first started singing in high school, it was barbershop quartets. We were in the choirs together. We had a little band, a dance band,

and we sang the songs of the day, which was something Smith and the Redheads. What was it? Be sure it's true. So we weren't into folk music at all until the folk music started. Then we started, when we see Judy Collins, I remember she would sing every hanging song, every verse, every chorus, a lot of minor key songs.

Sad songs. Don Crawford, a good friend in Denver, did a profound performance of John Henry. About 12 minutes long. Yeah, so I would go out there, and for some reason I would mimic people. We were known as satirists. I didn't even know what the word was until they said the Smothers Brothers satirized the folk music craze. We were just out there. I'd hear someone sing a song, and they'd be deadly serious about it, and I couldn't help but just kind of poke a little fun at it.

Well, one of the things that you both did were really long-winded introductions to the songs. And I was wondering if you thought it was overly serious of a lot of folk musicians to launch into the historical reasons and the ethnic reasons behind a song that they'd perform. The long-winded introductions were just the nature of folk music. And I found them very interesting. I never thought they were pompous or anything like that. And to tell a background of how a song just happened when people didn't go around writing them. You know, it was wonderful. Then working with, we got on the tail end of things. Sonny Terry, Brownie, was it Brownie?

Brownie McGee. Yeah. Josh White Sr. and Oscar Brand. We did some of his stuff. Some wonderful people out there. And the way the songs came about, the way they were created, to me, was very interesting. And then just to make fun in a lighthearted way

and just have a really ridiculous story that has nothing to do with the music. Like Tommy had... Dark as a Dungeon? No, Dark as a Dungeon. The most ludicrous would be, they call the wind Mariah. He says it's an old Jewish folk song, Machaya. Call it Machaya.

And then Havana Gila, where they danced around a hat. It was a rain dance. Actually, they danced around an umbrella. Similar to how they danced around hats, the Mexicans, and prayed for hair. And you just, the further, the bigger the lie, it just becomes funny.

What were your alternatives? Did you have alternative plans if you didn't become performers? Well, we never knew we were going to, in the long term. Maybe Tommy, he probably feels different. I always thought it was a summer job for about 10 years. I thought it was a summer job. And I never expected at the start to make it a paying profession. It was something to do when we were young and drop out of school a little bit.

And we just seemed to get another job, and that was success. So I never planned a year in advance or whatever. I was going to go back to school, in fact, after we worked a year and become teaching major. I got married, and I was going to, you know, we did our shot, our little fun thing. And if it wasn't for the Limelighters giving us a job at their club in Aspen in 1960,

I don't know if we would have tried being a duet. So tell us, what was your alternate plan if... I had no alternate plan. I still have no alternate plan. You have to have a plan to have an alternate. I always wanted to be a comedian. When I first saw George Goebel, who was my first influence, when I was 12, 13, 14, he was doing the Ed Sullivan show. I thought it was marvelous what this man did. And I'd like to do that, I told my principal. I said, that's what I'd like to do.

And so I always had a coping problem. I was pretty slow in school. I was genuinely trying to get my applause, not through scholastics, but through attention getting. If I was late for class, I'd instead of walking in the back door and sliding into the seat, I walked in the front door and apologized to the teacher and then to each of the students individually

until I was sent to the principal's office really deadpan. I knew I had this kind of a little bit of a gift to get people laughing. The problem I would expect is if you play a jerk on stage, that offstage people might think that you're dim-witted. Did that ever happen to you, that people would assume offstage that you had the persona? I was so close to my onstage, offstage. There was just a very thin line between. People would come up to you in a purple line in the first job and say,

don't do this, This is so painful. It's so upsetting to you. Don't get on that stage. Well, that's a very good performance because that's like really crawling into the skin of whatever character you choose, and that was the only one I had. I was walking down the street in the purple line, and some guy says, could you tell me where the Black Cat Cafe is?

I said, yeah, it's just down that one street and turn left. He says, I know where it is. I just want to see if you know how to give direction. You're so stupid on stage.

What about you, Dick Smothers? Did your persona on stage as the just more practical, down-to-earth persona apply to the role you really played in your relationship with your brother? Yeah, I think so.

That's the way I am in real life, just exaggerated. I think we exaggerate our natural tendencies when we get into comedy, and then it's believable. You know, if you create somebody who's not there, I think you have to be a superior actor to let anybody buy it. I'm pretty logical. Basically

if things don't make any sense to me, I don't want to do it. And that's the way I control our relationship on stage with Tommy. He would go off on a tangent and I would correct him. I'm 22 months older than Dick, which is contrary to the way an act should be set up.

I should be the older guy with my personality and he should be the younger brother. So it shows we had no plan whatsoever. Dick and Tom Smothers talking with Terry Gross in 1985. Today, we're remembering Tom Smothers who died last week at the age of 86. More after a break. This is Fresh Air. Hi, it's Terry Gross here with a promo for a special conversation I had with my co-host, Tanya Mosley, only available for our Fresh Air Plus supporters. When I'm going through a really hard time, I sometimes just think about that, like all the people who I've met through interviews who've come out the other end intact. Terry, I can only imagine the lessons you've learned over time. I mean, it's more than

a self-help book because just in the year that I've been doing this show, I learned so much with every single interview I do. Tanya and I select our favorite interviews of 2023 and talk to each other about talking in a new bonus episode only available on Fresh Air Plus. Find out more and join for yourself at plus.npr.org. Let's get back to Terry's 1985 interview with Tom and Dick Smothers. CBS gave them their own variety show in 1967. She asked Tom what he asked for when they were given creative control. That meant material, control of the writers, content, the look of the show,

everything. And the fact that it really went well. We had a nice cast of people put together by the producers and everything. But it wasn't quite what we wanted,

but it evolved, evolved, and I got younger writers, got Mason Williams, I'd bring him in. If I didn't like the, if a writer seemed like it a cliche and was bringing out old material and not creative new ideas. We'd replace him each cycle, each 13-week period until we had pretty much what I wanted. The Times dictated awareness came about about that time in the mid-'60s when Vietnam, voter registration, all those things started coming through, and they started leaking into our minds, our own consciousness.

And they started coming out a little bit in attitudes in the show. And our writers were young, and we kind of had this little kind of small group that worked late into the night. None of the other shows did. We'd leave at sometimes 1 o'clock, 12 o'clock at night from reworking sketches and stuff. And everybody had love beads on and sandals. It was a real, we were a real product of the times. And we reflected that viewpoint that was not being heard. So then instantly, once it was a hit, it was a surprise hit. It really was. Nobody predicted it. CBS

wanted us to pull back. Didn't want any controversy in anything. They're not realizing the content of the show was in large part part of its success. So that was a running battle for 72, I think we did 72 episodes. It was pretty much a running battle from day one

through the firing at the last. Well, they actually censored, deleted some of the performance excerpts. That was their legal right. And once they got it, I guess by the contracts and stuff, they could take out anything they wanted. How did that work? When would you have to deliver the show to them, so to speak? Oh, that was another whole thing. It changed. It changed every year.

At first, we delivered the show. It was just a normal practice, but I think the way it was, it was about a week in the front. A strike happened. A music strike. So that put everything behind. Some of those things, so we were all of a sudden working on taping on a Friday, delivering a first Sunday show. That meant editing with a razor blade and I of course being naive and not knowing anything about television I involve myself

in everything well wait a minute razor blade means that they did not have the electronic sophistication that they have now so you actually physically take razor blades and cut tapes and put pieces together and they worked straight through right after production yeah we're great and then they gave it to a girl, and she flew to New York and handed them these tapes. So when they would say, we don't like this part here, we'd say, you must take that out.

Or, we will take it out. And they'd say, well, I'll take it out. And it did take a long time to do it. You'd have to put something back in to replace it. No, if they wanted it out. We presented our contractual obligation, which was to present a show of an hour's length or whatever it was minus the commercials.

After that, they could take it out. They took things out and put in a Nixon commercial. It was political. Oh, of course, I got furious. What had they taken out to put in the Nixon commercial? I don't remember. I do, I do. It was the whole Belafonte piece, Mama, look a boo-boo.

It was the 68th Convention news footage, Mama, look a boo-boo. It was the 68th convention news footage from Chicago, the bloody riots and everything, and Belafonte sang some Calypso numbers to news footage that had been seen on the air. Nothing offensive about it, except you'd see Mayor Daley in the news footage at the convention

and the lyric might say, look a boo-boo or something like that. It was light satire. They took the whole hunk out. It must have been five minutes or more. Seven. Seven minutes, and put in a huge Nixon thing, which was a little salt in the wound. But it was gamesmanship, I think, a little bit there.

It was hardball. Tom and Dick Smothers, talking with Terry Gross in 1985. Coming up, we continue our retrospective on Tom Smothers. Here's Harry Belafonte performing Don't Stop the Carnival, a number cut in its entirety from that variety show's third season opener. I'm David B. McCooley, and this is Fresher. Carnival parade, have to talk to the governor today. Concerning the carnival parade, Trinidad people running wild. Governors say no carnival, a big riot, police and thing. Picket sign and the people start to sing.

Lord, Lord, stop the carnival. Lord, Lord, stop the carnival. Carnival's our American bacchanal. Lord, Lord, stop the carnival. Have no fear if you cut out the New Year. Make no fuss if you cut out the Christmas. Here come me woman, walking up the block. Pitchy bottom, going like a clock. Here come me woman, walking up the block.

Pitchy bottom, going like a clock, no carnival, the woman said. Oh, Lord, you're better off dead. Show me the way to the governor's mansion. I'm going to have me a reconcession. Lord, don't stop the carnival. Lord, don't stop the carnival. Carnival. On today's show, we're remembering Tom Smothers

of the comedy duo the Smothers Brothers, who died last week at age 86. On the 50th anniversary of their being fired from the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour by CBS, the National Comedy Center and the Chautauqua Institution hosted their onstage reunion before thousands of adoring fans. I was there as the moderator, and my job was to introduce clips and throw out some questions to Tom and Dick. It was the only time I ever shared the stage with them, and though I was well aware

of Tom's self-critical nature, this was a chance for me to see a whole new side of him, his keen instincts for what he thought was funny and why. He wanted, at some point, to do his act as the yo-yo man, where Dick offers commentary while Tom silently does yo-yo tricks and acts sort of like a human Gumby. I offered several suggestions about when to introduce the yo-yo man bit,

but Tom shot them all down. Finally, I suggested to Tom, why don't you just do it whenever the urge strikes you? Interrupt me or Dick or yourself and just stand up and pull out your yo-yo. He gave me a smile, one I'll never forget because he saw the possibilities instantly. And later on stage, midway through one of my questions, he pulled out his yo-yo and the audience went crazy. Tom Smothers was hard on himself and hard to please. But when I spoke to him for Fresh Air in 1997, he finally shifted from self-deprecation to a grudging appreciation of what he and Dick had done on stage, on records, and especially on television. When it comes to the 60s, you really can't find anything on television

that boiled it all down into one lump than this Mother's Brothers Comedy Hour. I mean, the sexual revolution, the drugs, the rock and roll, the peace movement, the generation gap, anti-authority, it's all right there. And yet you did it without losing the core audience that you started with. That was an exceptional thing.

Mason Williams was a great contributor. The process was really fun. We never quite had a chance to... I always thought to do the craft better. And that's probably what I'm thinking about. Someone told me Bob Newhart did an interview with him, and they're playing some of his old albums back. And in fact, his first album, The Button Down Mind,

he says, God, I can't stand it. Don't play it, don't play it. And I says, why? It's great. He says, well, they took some of the pauses out to tighten it up, and that's not my timing. So I don't think anybody who's ever been a writer or a performer or a musician has recorded or published something

and hasn't looked back at their earlier work with a more critical eye than the person who did it. Well, wasn't timing always very, very important to you and your brother in terms of the pauses, in terms of the ways you would start an act with just a couple of minutes, and then you turn around a few years later, you guys are always evolving it, and all of a sudden it's a 9, 10-minute bit. Well, I believe that timing, it's like the most important, silence is probably the most important part of music,

and silence or tension are one of the most important things in comedy. The more air we can put in there, the better. I also felt that even though the show was, I thought the Smothers Brothers comedy in totality covered all those bases, a lot of things, I felt that Dick and I, personally, we didn't have much air. I was involved in cue cards. So this is kind of a self-critical observation.

I feel much better about the shows. I loved them when we did it. I just feel a little uncomfortable looking at them now because it could have gone better. That's the thing. But air, like Orlin Hardy and, uh,

had such wonderful space and, and timing is, uh, doesn't even have to be, uh, an astute observation. It just has to be

timed right. And if we can hold tension, it's, that makes us unique in whether it be content or, or no content. You can,

uh, keep the tension of an audience that way. Now, do you feel that when you came around to do the revival series, CBS had you do a 20th anniversary special, and then they would grant you a couple of shows here, a couple of shows there, a couple of shows, that on those you were able to focus more on your own act

with yourself and your brother? I was better able to focus on on your own act with yourself and your brother i was better able to focus on the show and on the act but definitely dick and i after watching the first shows i remember that we were i would see cue cards i'd be reading cue cards just the eye contact wasn't there so i made sure this reunion show there was no cue cards that we uh so the space we could really think and talk and also the the uh actual show itself had a overall better pace how important is eye contact to the way you work with your brother it's everything uh it's funny we uh you can see and you can see people when they're not looking at each other if they're reading cue cards uh Tension can hold much better when two people are staring

at each other and you can, it's palpable. Even if it's a total side view facing each other where you can't even see the eyes, there's a head cock, there's a body language that tells you that there's eye contact being made. When you got the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, didn't you get the opportunity of creative control because you were basically going into a no-lose time slot like someone would today going in opposite Seinfeld?

Pretty much. Also, there's no reason not to grant us creative control because we had shown no inclination. We were short hairs. We were clean cut. They didn't expect anything that happened happened. I don't think anybody at that time in the mid-60s expected the expression of dismay over the war and voter registration, all these

things that were just taking place, sexual revolution, all those things. Well, were you just laying in the weeds? I mean, did you have this grand plan? I had no plan. I think most people don't have plans. They sometimes do something extraordinary. I got censored, so I started saying things not even knowing that there was anything wrong with them. But then I started becoming a little more involved,

and pretty soon it became a... Someone says, you can't say that. I would say, oh, we can too. Well, you were basically the only young guy with a platform at that time on primetime television. We were, in hindsight, I can see what we were, the Smothers Brothers were pretty much, had no choice. We were young. The whole staff was basically young with some seasoned writers in there, but primarily it was under 30. Rob Reiner, Steve Martin, Mason Williams, Bob Einstein, they were all, and they all felt the same way as youth did.

It was a great cultural clash, and we were there with a show, and we had to reflect that. It was just, I think it was a responsibility even though I didn't think it then, but I perceive it now as that we had no choice. But I still don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. To say that you had no choice and were sort of dragged along or you were at the fringes of this movement that we're carrying around anyway is one thing, but you were, in terms of the rock and roll acts

that you presented, the things that you brought on, the stuff that you discussed, going against the war, you basically were the center. There was just a lot of serendipity in the Smothers Brothers. Young, number one, had a big show, happened to be during this very culturally kind of earthquake, cultural earthquake and social.

And we were young enough and all those things happened. I always just say we were at the scene of the accident and made the best of it we could. We were there. We did not shirk our duty to bring to television as intelligent and as interesting a show as we could. But I think circumstances really made a big difference. Because if we'd have had that show in the 50s or we had it in the 80s, it would have never had the impact. Even if we'd have been diligently trying to do the most intelligent, thoughtful observations about life. Perhaps your most famous act of defiance on this Mother's Brothers Comedy Hour, breaking the blacklist on Pete Seeger and booking him.

And was that a calculated effort on your part to sort of rail against the CBS censors? I believe that was in 68, one of the last two seasons. And I did get more stubborn, more resolute in my need, and our crew and our writers wanted to express things, and it was more calculated.

As a matter of fact, I said to all our guests, wherever guests, whether it be new groups or old groups or actors, comedians always say, you're our guest on a show, was there anything you'd like to do? And we'd like to present what you'd like to do. And Pete Seeger said, waist deep in the big money.

And we sang at rehearsal. And I said, that's right on. And be my guest. And then the censors looked at it and said, it's a veiled reflection on our policy in Vietnam. It wasn't very veiled. But I did purposely say, yes, that's good. They cut it out.

We brought him back the next year. And I said, what would you like to sing? He says, Waste Deep in the Big Muddy. I said, well, be my guest this time because it got so much publicity and the ugly word censorship was coming up that they let it go. And it was the only show, I guess, that had a topical viewpoint about our involvement in Vietnam.

It was a bad idea and it was morally bankrupt, I thought, ethically wrong. But that consciousness came over all of us in the process of doing this show. Tom Smothers in 1997. Coming up, we listen back to my conversation with Terry Gross about my book Dangerously Funny, the uncensored story of the Smothers Brothers comedy hour. This is Fresh Air. We're remembering Tom Smothers of the comedy duo the Smothers Brothers. He died last week at the age of 86. In 2009, I wrote a book about Tom and Dick titled Dangerously Funny, the Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. That's when I sat down to talk with Terry.

David, welcome to Fresh Air and congratulations on the book. Oh, thanks a lot. Now, you've brought some really good clips with you from episodes of the Smothers Brothers TV series. And I'd like to start with one because I think it gives a good sense of the Smothers Brothers comedy and also how they managed to bring politics into their show. So would you introduce it for us? Yeah, sure.

I like this because it's a fairly early clip when the Smothers Brothers are still sort of considered to be, you know, just genial, nice folk satirists. And yet they're starting to hit on public issues and even attack the president in a very obvious way. And this was President Johnson? This was President Johnson at the time, yes. Okay, so let's hear it. Hey, Tom, you know, I just read in the newspaper this week where President Johnson has now asked Congress to pass a series of taxes, you know, to discourage people from traveling abroad.

What do you think about that? I read it, too, but I don't think he has to go that far. I don't think it's necessary to go that far with that. Well, look at it. It's a very, very, very, very difficult situation. People keep spending money abroad, and it's hurting our economy. People keep wanting to travel to other countries instead of staying here in the United States. Yeah, well, I think President Johnson should come up with something positive as an inducement to keep the people here.

Something very positive as an inducement to keep the people. Yeah, that's right. That's good thinking. But look, what can the president do to make people want to stay in this country? Well, he could quit. David, was that considered pretty radical at the time? Yeah. For an entertainment variety show, almost unprecedented, where you had these figures that were actually talking about public policy. TV in the 60s, the Smothers Brothers began in February of 67. At that point, almost all of primetime was trying intentionally to be as innocuous as possible and the smothers brothers came on and at a time when there was one television in the house and

everybody watched it for the first couple of seasons they pulled this amazing magic act and straddled the chasm of the generation gap they had kate smith and and Simon and Garfunkel on the same show. They had Mickey Rooney and The Who on the same show and appealed to both, you know, generations. David, you know so much about so many different TV shows. You're just like a walking encyclopedia of television. Of all the shows you could have written a history of,

why did you choose The Smothers Brothers? This one, I wondered about that. This one, I did once I was into it and I was into like my fifth year of writing and my tenth year of writing. And I realized I think this show, first of all, was at a pivotal point in TV history that Tom Smothers fought for freedom of expression and fought for a whole generation and lost. And so TV changed and changed really significantly. And I argue that we've never gotten it back. I mean, the things that we think of as TV freedom, it's on cable or it's on late night,

but in prime time, we've rarely had it since. And then the personal thing is that this show premiered when I was 13. And all of the stuff that was on there meant so much to me just because I was at that impressionable age. And I was watching with my dad. And it was just a really nice weekly experience. You mentioned you wanted to write this book in part because Tom Smothers fought and lost. And what he lost was the censorship battle. There was a considerable amount of censorship of the show. And he really took a stand and he lost. And the show was taken off

the air by the network, CBS. Let's talk a little bit about what censorship was like on TV then. And we're talking about the second half of the 1960s. What are some of the things you couldn't say then that you can say now? Well, famously, when Lucille Ball was pregnant in real life and wrote it into her character in the 60s, she couldn't even use the word pregnant in the episode in which she was having a baby. They had to say it in Spanish, enciente. I mean, it was so ridiculous. The censorship was so pervasive that even recounting it, it seems so silly. They cut an entire sketch with Elaine May because it was censors getting excited about the movies that they were censoring. And rather than cut a word or two, they cut the entire sketch.

And there was a phrase in it. What is it? I feel my heart beating in my breast. And they wouldn't let them say breast. So they ended up saying, I feel my heart beating in my wrist. Yes, beating wildly in my wrist. Yes. And they didn't even let that go.

They didn't let that go on the air either. All right. And drug references, you couldn't use those either. Well, the drug references, if they caught them, they would take them out. But the 60s, things were so new that they didn't recognize a lot of them when they saw them. So the smothers were able to slip some stuff by. And Tom actually enjoyed this battle a little bit and so did Mason Williams who was one of the writers. And so they would put in things that really meant nothing and instruct the crew and the writers and everybody around to laugh like dirty, sniggering little laughs. And so the censors would say, well, you can't say rowing to Galveston. And they'd say, well, why not? Well, you just can't say it. And so they would drive them crazy just for the fun of

it, too. We're remembering Tom Smothers of the comedy duo, the Smothers Brothers. He died last week at the age of 86. George Harrison came on the show to support the Smothers Brothers in their fight for free speech on the show. And tell us a little bit about that appearance and then we'll hear a brief excerpt of it. Well, I love the whole Beatles-Smothers Brothers connection because in 1964, the Beatles show up on Ed Sullivan, CBS, Sunday night. It makes the Beatles. It makes the whole British invasion. It changes society. Four years later, the Beatles have stopped touring. They're still the biggest thing in the world. And they've made this new thing called videos of Hey Jude and Revolution. And so for the United States premiere, instead of giving them to Ed Sullivan, Sunday

night at eight, they give them to the Smothers Brothers Sunday night at 9. And that's basically saying attitudinally we want to side with our generation. We want to be where the Smothers Brothers are. So at the beginning of this one show, George Harrison just shows up, unbilled a Beatlele, just to show up on The Smothers Brothers. Let's hear it. Do you have something important? Something very important to say on American television. You know, a lot of times we don't have the opportunity of saying anything important because it's American television.

Every time you say something, they try to say something important. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. Clap, clap, clap. Cue the lines. Well, whether you can say it or not, keep trying to say it. That's what's important. You get that?

Keep trying to say it. That's what's important. Very interesting. From George Harrison to the Smothers Brothers. It's amazing thinking of having a Beatle in 1968, unbilled and unannounced. People would be promoting that for days, weeks, months. I know.

If they knew who he was going to be on. And you know how much I love the Beatles, so I love that clip. Right, right. Did that clip have any repercussions? No, no. But it's on to me. After the show was, you know, after they were fired and the show was pulled off, Bob Einstein, one of the writers, says, how do you cancel a show or fire – how do you get rid of a show that gives you a Beatle?

So is there one show you can point to that you think really did end the Smothers Brothers? Oh, certainly. It's the first time that David Steinberg came on as a comic and did a religious sermonette, a comic sermonette. It got more negative mail than anything in the history of broadcasting up to that point. And so the CBS censors

sent Tom Smothers a memo saying, okay, you can have David Steinberg back, but no more religious sermonettes ever. So he invites David Steinberg back and even though it's not in the script, he says, hey, how would you like to do another one of those sermonettes? And so they add it in to the week's run through and he does it. He tapes it. That entire hour is never shown. And the Smothers Brothers are fired very shortly thereafter. So you actually brought with you a recording of the sermonette that was never aired.

Yes. Yeah. These are available now on – you know, Time Life has the last two seasons out of The Smothers Brothers, the best of them. And one of the outtakes is this because it was never shown this whole hour. Back then, no one ever joked about religion other than Bill Cosby doing the Noah routine. And that was, you know, that wasn't about content. This was about content. Okay, so let's hear it. This is David Steinberg. He got into a ship that was commandeered by 23 Gentiles. A bad move on Jonah's part.

And the Gentiles, is there want from time to time, threw the Jew overboard. Now, here there are two concepts that we must deal with. There is the New Testament concept and the Old Testament concept. The Old Testament scholars say that Jonah was, in fact, swallowed by a whale. The Gentiles, the New Testament scholars, they say, hold it, Jews. No. Jonah was in... Jonah... They literally grabbed the Jews by the Old Testament. That's David Steinberg and recorded in March of 1969, never broadcast on the Smothers Brothers show.

There's a great story about that. When the Smothers Brothers sued CBS and went to trial, David Steinberg was called as one of the witnesses. And the CBS lawyers made him redo his – that very thing. And they cross-examined him and said, now, when you were saying New Testament, did you – weren't you actually referring to testicles? Weren't you? And David Steinberg said, well, yes. Why were you doing that? Because otherwise it wouldn't be funny.

And, you know, it's no wonder the Smothers won that case. Well, the case was, again, that the network accused them of not delivering programs on time. And clearly what they were really worried about was the kind of content and language that was, you know, getting them into trouble. Yeah, the big difference is that the Smothers Brothers were not canceled. They had already been renewed for a fourth season. They were fired. And so Tom was reacting saying he was fired unfairly because anything that he had signed in terms of a contractual obligation, he had lived up to, that it was all these other little ephemeral things that they had thrown on him through the years that he hadn't adhered to. And is that the ground on which Tom Smothers sued CBS after CBS fired the Smothers brothers? Well, it's the one that went all the way through to the end.

He wanted to go on First Amendment rights and really make this a huge case, but he was advised by his ACLU lawyers, who were the only people who would represent him, that that would put it in a different court, it would make it a different thing, and so just go for this more narrow focus. Did the Smothers Brothers ask you to write the book? You allude to that in the acknowledgments. One time after I interviewed Tom, he said, well, are you going to write the book? And I said, what book?

And he said, well, the book on us because I'd written in a previous book an entry on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. And I guess it was – he agreed with it. And so he said, I'll give you total access but total freedom. And as a journalist, that's just something you don't get. And so I said, well, I'll have to think about it. And then I waited three seconds and I said, okay. And he laughed and then I remember him going down this very long escalator in Atlantic City and he yells up at me just before he goes out of sight.

He goes, I just want to read it before I'm dead. And that was 15 years ago. So I thank Tom for taking such good care of himself. Well, David, I want to thank you for talking about your new book, Dangerously Funny, about the Smothers Brothers. It was my honor, really. Terry and I talking about the Smothers Brothers back in 2009. Tom Smothers died last week. He was 86 years old. And it's one of the highlights of my career as a TV critic that my job gave me the opportunity to know and spend time with the Smothers Brothers.

For our final piece of music today, here's Classical Gas, written and performed by one of the head writers of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Mason Williams. On Monday's show, actor Sterling K. Brown. In the miniseries The People vs. O.J. Simpson, Brown played prosecutor Christopher Darden. He was one of the stars of the NBC series This Is Us and was in Black Panther. He co-stars in the new film American Fiction, which is on lots of 10 best lists. I hope you can join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Sharrock.

For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Biancullo. Music