Tom Smothers

The death of Tommy Smothers shows how little things have changed in America in the last 55 years.

Those of us of a certain age will remember when CBS fired the brothers in 1969 in a classic right vs. left battle. The battle continues today, perhaps just as acrimoniously.

The brothers started out very innocently. The San Francisco Examiner reported on April 25, 1959 they were due to make their folk-singing debut at the Purple Onion, whose owner called them “another Kingston Trio.” Yes, there were three of them. Brother Bob was part of the act.

At the end of the year, there was talk of Tom going on a solo career and Bob and Dick getting out of show biz. But the San Francisco press reported on offers from Vegas and Seattle and television in Los Angeles, so the act continued, with Bob leaving some time in 1960. One of the events Tom and Dick took part at Golden Gate Park in September that year was the “I Am an American Day” ceremonies, with one paper calling their act “wholesome.” How opinions would change by the end of the decade.

They cut their first album for Mercury, live at the Purple Onion, that month. It was released in 1961, when Tom and Dick began to get national exposure. Here’s a story from the Associated Press in July that year:

Smothers Brothers Find Success
By Harry Jupiter
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When the spotlight falls on the high domed, balding head of Thomas Bolyn Smothers III, his eyes take on a frightened look and he licks his lips nervously.
Haltingly, apologetically, like a man who walked into the ladies' room without looking at the sign, he begins describing the song he would like to sing.
The young man at his side-nudges his arm and Tom Smothers says:
"Excuse me, this is my brother, Dickie Smothers, who sings along with me. I mean we sing together. I mean, aw heck.”
And then the Smothers Brothers, one of the hottest acts in show business today, are off and singing.
Theirs is a spectacular success story. A little over two years ago Tom and Dickie Smothers were students at San Jose State college, 50 miles south of San Francisco. They were practicing for the spring registration dance at the college when they were invited to sing at a beer joint in San Jose. "We got two bucks apiece a night," recalls Dickie. "We got a lot of beer, too," adds Tom, deadpan with a sigh of recollection.
Neither drinks much. Tom, 24, and Dickie, 22, are neat and slender. And they don't need free drinks, either. They now get something like $2000 a week.
The Brothers Smothers are back at the Purple Onion, the little showplace where they got their big break two years ago.
Dandy folk singers, fine musicians, devastating satirists, they have been hitting the plush spots around the land and enjoying every minute.
No bones about they'd love to keep going indefinitely. "If the bubble bursts," says Dickie, "I think I might like to be a teacher. That's what I was studying at San Jose State. But Tommy has never wanted anything but show business."
Tom nods. "If we should break up the act eventually, I'd like to do a single. I'd like to be an actor, especially a character actor."
It appears they're a long way from breaking up this act.
Reaction to the young men has been tremendous and they're appreciative. The brothers, cleancut, immaculately groomed, reflect their late father, a career Army man who was a major when he died in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines in 1945 after the Bataan death march. The boys, a younger sister and their mother were evacuated from Manila when World War II began.
Tom and Dick received presidential appointments to West Point, but despite family sentiment they never seriously considered going to the military academy.
Tom, who only stutters when he wants to, is a mimic who has been acting all his life. Dickie, dark haired and mammoth eared, is near sighted and has difficulty hearing with his right ear.
Both are sound musicians and, for the most part, they are self trained. When Tom decided he wanted to learn to play the guitar, he bought a guitar and an instruction book.
When Dickie was told two years ago that the act needed a bass fiddle, they went out and bought a second-hand bass—and an instruction book.
They love to sing and they ad lib constantly. Their forte, though, is their sly, deadpan dismemberment of intellectual folk singing shredding the current trend toward spending more time explaining the song than singing the song. Tom adds a note of historical reverence to his halting stammer when he recounts the history of the "annual camel races which are held in Uruguay each year on the third of June."
"One hump camels," interjects Dickie. "Make sure you tell 'em they're one-hump camels."
"Oh, yes, I almost forgot," says Tom. "That was my brother, Dickie Smothers, who knew you would want to know that these are one-hump camels we're singing about."
Then they embark on their song on the one-hump camel races in Uruguay—but it turns out to be an Israeli hora, an ancient Hebrew tune called "Tiena, Tiena." Sometimes they catch each other fibbing amidst the ad libbing.
Introducing a song that encompasses the legendary men who pushed the flat boats along the old Mississippi, Tom flips his guitar and holds it with the flat side up.
"This is how those of boats looked," he explains.
Brother Dickie peeks over Tom's shoulder, points to the neck and inquires: "What's that?"
Tom reddens, pauses, says:
“Uh, that's, uh, that's the rudder."
Then he smiles benignly at the audience.
Dickie, however, isn't convinced. "They don't put rudders on the front," he insists.
Tom is stuck this time. Finally he turns to the audience again and says: "I lied."
In his lengthy introduction to "Jezebel," Tom goes into indignant description of the name "that is synonymous with evil, the name that means a bad woman wherever it is spoken, the name that suggests an evil, bad, awful girl. And that name . . . that name . . .”
Dickie whispers in Tom's ear and Tom is reassured.
"The name of that bad, evil, nasty girl," he says, "as everyone knows, is Mary Lou Johnson.

Taking a shot at the quirks of folk singers is one thing. Taking on the establishment, including police brutality, and the continued war in Vietnam under both Johnson and Nixon, is something else. But that’s what Tom Smothers wanted his variety show to do when it signed on in 1967. CBS disagreed, and began censoring entire sketches and cancelling guest artists. The network caved to the “America-Love-It-Or-Leave-It” crowd which saw nothing wrong with uniformed officers bashing demonstrators wanting peace and speaking out against racism and sexism.

Even today, the idea of using the off switch for programming one doesn’t like isn’t good enough for some. The programming must be annihilated. Their attitude is political satire is bad—unless it’s making fun of the politicians someone disagrees with.

A whole chapter of the book “CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye” was devoted to the ousting of the Smothers Brothers in 1969. It goes into detail about what led to the firing on April 4, 1969. It really was a huge deal; newspaper editorial and entertainment columns were full of opinions.

Smothers Says Show Censored
NEW YORK, April 7 (UPI) — Tom Smothers accused CBS today of "censorship with all its ramifications" in canceling the weekly television show he does with his brother.
At a news conference the Smothers brothers, Tom and Dick, said no decisions have been made yet to sue the network for dropping the show although, they said, the CBS action amounted to an "unfounded breach" of the 26-week contract they signed March 14 for next season.
The brothers said they had received an offer from Canadian Television network if no American network would have them.
Flattered by Offer.

"I'm very flattered by the offer," said Tom, but he added they had made no decision whether to accept the offer.
The brothers said they have not received offers from either of the other two major American networks and did not expect any immediately because of possible court action on their part.
“Need Divergent Views”
"I think in America it is necessary that unpopular opinions and divergent views be shown on television," Tom said, pointing out that "even network executives say the airwaves belong to the people."
The Canadian network broadcast an uncut, unedited version last night of the show.
Tommy Smothers said the reaction of Canadian viewers had been good, that nothing was objectionable contrary to CBS' opinion that comedian David Steinberg's "sermonette" routine was in poor taste.
Watching his program from a Toronto hotel suite, Smothers said he could not understand "what on earth is offensive" about a skit by Steinberg about an imaginary conversation between Solomon and Jonah.
Earlier, Canadian Television President Murray Chercover, whose stations carried the uncut show, said, "I have an irrevocable contract for this year and next for the Smothers show and options for any future ones."
Chercover added that no matter what the CBS-Smothers entanglements may be, Canadian TV is prepared to "film the entire show in Toronto."

One of the reasons CBS president Bob Wood gave for not airing the show was the sermonette. Yet the sketch had been taken out after a preview of the show for network executives on the West Coast.

Tom did a lot of talking after CBS told him to leave. He and Dick appeared on the Today show the following Tuesday. On April 18th, they appeared before newspaper editors, reading a seven-page speech denouncing television’s attempts to keep the viewpoints of younger people off the tube, decrying network censorship and the war in Vietnam.

The brothers never did move to CTV. They put together a special for NBC that ran next to noted Vietnam war supporter Bob Hope. But it can be argued that their career had already peaked, though they continued to be signed for new series and made guest appearances.

If Tom Smothers will be remembered, it will be for his fight to open television to more liberal viewpoints clad as satire. There are people today who beak off that entertainers (eg. late night hosts) are “too political.” Those entertainers carry on, whether one considers their material appropriate. For that, they owe some thanks to Tom Smothers.