Tom Smothers, half of the Smothers Brothers and the co-host of one of the socially aware and groundbreaking tv exhibits within the historical past of the medium, has died at 86.
The National Comedy Center, on behalf of his household, stated in an announcement Wednesday that Smothers died Tuesday at house in Santa Rosa, California, following a most cancers battle.
“Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner. I am forever grateful to have spent a lifetime together with him, on and off stage, for over 60 years,” his brother and the duo’s different half, Dick Smothers, stated within the assertion. “Our relationship was like a good marriage – the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected one another. We were truly blessed.”
When “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” debuted on CBS within the fall of 1967 it was a right away hit, to the shock of many who had assumed the community’s expectations had been so low it positioned their present reverse the top-rated “Bonanza.”
But the Smothers Brothers would show a turning level in tv historical past, with its sharp eye for popular culture traits and younger rock stars such because the Who and Buffalo Springfield, and its daring sketches – ridiculing the Establishment, railing towards the Vietnam War and portraying members of the period’s hippie counterculture as light, fun-loving spirits – discovered a right away viewers with younger child boomers. The present reached No. 16 within the scores in its first season.
It additionally drew the ire of community censors, and after years of battling with the brothers over the present’s artistic content material, the community abruptly canceled this system in 1970, accusing the siblings of failing to submit an episode in time for the censors to evaluate.
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Nearly 40 years later, when Smothers was awarded an honorary Emmy for his work on the present, he jokingly thanked the writers he stated had gotten him fired. He additionally confirmed that the years had not dulled his outspokenness.
“It’s hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war,” Smothers stated on the 2008 Emmy Awards as his brother sat within the viewers, beaming. He devoted his award to these “who feel compelled to speak out and are not afraid to speak to power and won’t shut up and refuse to be silenced.”
During the three years the present was on tv, the brothers continually battled with CBS’s censors and infrequently outraged viewers as effectively, significantly when Smothers joked that Easter “is when Jesus comes out of his tomb and if he sees his shadow, he goes back in and we get six more weeks of winter.” At Christmas, when different present hosts had been sending finest needs to troopers combating abroad, Smothers provided his to draft dodgers who had moved to Canada.
In nonetheless one other episode, the brothers returned blacklisted people singer Pete Seeger to tv for the primary time in years. He carried out his tune “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” broadly seen as ridiculing President Lyndon Johnson for the Vietnam War. When CBS refused to air the phase, the brothers introduced Seeger again for an additional episode and he sang it once more. This time, it made the air.
After the present was canceled, the brothers sued CBS for $31 million and had been awarded $775,000. Their battles with the community had been chronicled within the 2002 documentary “Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.”
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Former Associated Press journalists John Rogers, Frazier Moore and the late Bob Thomas contributed to this report.
