The Mid-60s Smothers

The Smothers Brothers are known today because of that moment when their variety show was pulled off television by CBS for daring to air comedy with a political viewpoint that upset the Nixon government (the same viewpoint they aimed at the previous Johnson administration).

Before that, they were like many comedians. They worked in nightclubs. They appeared at colleges and fairs. They were booked on TV talk shows and variety programmes. And they were among the many inked to that staple of the late 1950s and the 1960s—comedy records. Just like top tunes, the albums were reviewed in Billboard and in other publications.

Their first LP in 1961 consisted of routines recorded on stage at the Purple Onion in San Francisco. The article from the Newspaper Enterprise Association published Aug. 8, 1964 plugs their fifth record and goes into a bit of their background.

Smothers Brothers Recall Start in Entertainment
By JOAN CROSBY
NEW YORK (NEA) — Tom Smothers looks like a young advertising executive and Dick Smothers looks like a teacher, and that's what they both would have been if they hadn't been accidental successes as folk-singing comedians. The Smothers Brothers, whose delightful Mercury album "It Might Have Been Something I Said" is a fast-climbing hit, began singing in school in California, where they were raised.
"We were born on Governor's Island in New York," Dick said. "Our father was in the Army, and Fort Jay, on the island, was the cheapest place to have a baby."
"We began with a repertoire of two songs, 'Down By the Riverside' and 'It's a Sin to Tell a Lie," Dick said. "They were enough to get us runner-up spots in two amateur contests. One of the songs must have been weak."
They are the first in a long line of Smothers to enter show business, even though their initial appearances were hardly earth-shattering.
"We're the end of a great tradition," says Tom. "We're also carrying on the family tradition for mediocrity," adds Dick.
* * * * *
EVENTUALLY THEY achieved some fame and not much fortune in California when the first of their accidents occurred. An act canceled out of the Blue Angel in New York, and they were booked, one week before they were to open. "Jack Paar saw us,” Dick recalls. "But there was no spot for us on his show. Then another act canceled, and he put us on the show. Maybe we have had it too easy. The first two years we weren't making much money, but we were working steadily. We look around and see others who have talent but things just didn't happen to them. They don't get the break."
"It was only five and a half years ago that we began to sing," Tom, 27, says.
Dick. 25, thinks they would like to settle down into a television series, or make some movies in the future. Comedy albums for them, he says, are reaching the end. "Our well of material is running very shallow. Of course, we said that after our first album, and then we did half of our second album straight because we didn't have enough comedy material."
"Our first album sold seven copies," Tom says. “The second sold several hundred, and the third snowballed actually into the thousands."
Both Smothers are married, and Dick is the father of two children. Susan, 3 1/2, and little Little Dickie Smothers Jr., eight weeks. "I'm Little Dickie Smothers Sr., so he has to be little Little Dickie Jr."
"Have you heard," Tom asks, "that there is a rumor we are going to sign a contract with CBS like the one Barbra Streisand has? There is such a rumor. I'm starting it."

They did eventually sign with CBS, but that’s another story.



In their pre-CBS days, the Smothers Brothers managed to do something that would seem impossible. Folk music can be serious stuff. It is filled with messages to help the downtrodden, to battle injustice, to advocate for world peace. Tom and Dick managed to make fun of the genre without making fun of the message. This article from the Santa Barbara Press, Oct. 17, 1964, gives you an idea what was in their act.

COUNTY BOWL PACKED
Smothers Brothers In Madcap Show
By Bill Sluis
News-Press Staff Writer
Imagine something clean-cut, All-American and serious. Give it a bass fiddle and put it on stage. Then conjure up your idea of Freud's ID. Shape it into something that looks human with a red jacket. Put him on stage with a guitar, and you have it.
The Smothers Brothers —Tom, Dick and (there were no others).
Pack the County Bowl with 5.300 Smothers fans and Mad Magazine addicts. Wind everyone up on the Smothers' "Nor an Abernacle” choir. Sprinkle in some Addams Kids —this madcap concoction smothered the bowl with brothers—all two of them.
They're the Homer and Jethro of 1964. Talented, scoffing inane John Henry never got to be a railroad typhoon, Smothers sang. He was really a high school drop out. George Washington never told a lie, but got "smacked in the teeth" for chopping down the cherry tree. And the man "who sang to the trees" was really the man who talked to other things as well. (Like, he was nuts).
DEPRIVED CHILDHOOD
And Billy the Kid did all these bad things, like gunning folks down, because he had a deprived childhood, a deprived playground (no, other kids), a deprived sandbox (no sand), a deprived swing (no seat), and a deprived slide (straight down).
Last night can only be described as a "Smotheranny.” Nothing else quite does it. When they left around 11 p.m. no one had had enough. The Smothers lasted through it all with no problem. While Tom (the ID) acted through the entire act like a little boy with something "bad to tell everyone," Dick kept the crowd from being let in on the secret just in time.
Tremendous timing and great showmanship kept the crew-cut audience see-sawing from the naughty to the not-so-nice as Tom, the ID goes from that word he won't say to the cat he dropped 10 stories which, believe it or not, landed on all four and came up looking like a duck!
RETRIEVING CHICKEN
Bewildered Tom is still trying to get through to the folks back home, his brother, the audience, his "mommy and daddy," himself, and the retrieving chicken he used to have as a childhood pet. Somehow Smothers, the ID, his childhood, his country and his guitar-playing, all funnel into a mad mixture of irrelevance absurdity, innocence. (But, what can you do with a guy whose sandbox had no sand, whose swing had no seat and . . ?)
The act was broken up by some serious, non-spoofing folkwork by Esther Ofarim and Abraham. This Israeli couple sang five songs, each in a different language. They were the "real" thing.
But last night the audience was there to watch the Smothers poke holes into folkmusic, themselves, folk heroes, unrequited love's lament and about "hot cakes boiled in cabbage juice." And, about "Mediocre Fred," who punched a dock to show he was alive."

Some of their routines continued to be re-used as time went on (including a song involving cabbage). Fortunately, they can be seen on-line by people who weren’t around when Bill Paley pulled the plug.