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The Smothers Brothers had one of the best
- Smothers Brothers 1970's Show - Smothers Brothers Show - 1980s & '90s - CBS Censor notes for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
- Tommy Smothers Rumor had it that in 1969, Richard Nixon pressured CBS to cancel 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', one of the network's top-rated and most profitable shows. It was said that the newly elected President didn't want a weekly comedy show ridiculing his administration (and its aggressive Vietnam war policy) the way the Smothers had done throughout the Johnson administration. Richard Ranke adds: Thank you for the information about the Smothers Brothers and their later variety shows. I saw them all. (Does anyone remember their 1970 summer show which included Sally Struthers and Spencer Quinn as regulars?) Don Novello
was someone I first saw on the Smothers Brothers 1975 show. Most people
only know of him from Saturday Night Live (which should be
dead) and do not realize that he was with the Smothers Brothers first
- or that, in fact, Guido Sarducci was his character, developed long
before S.N.L. - Richard Ranke Here is an audio clip from Pat Paulsen's appearance on the afternoon variety show 'Dinah!' in 1974, hosted by Dinah Shore. On the couch with Dinah.
TV
on DVD
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-S Kosareff writes: "I attended a taping of the original SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR when I was about 16 at Television City in Hollywood. As you may know the Smothers Brothers inherited Judy Garland's old stage (43) and the ramp the Smothers used that extended out over the audience was originally built for Judy since it was reminiscent of a theatrical stage, unlike most television stages which are audience level. "Since Stage 43 was rather small, Nelson Riddle's orchestra was housed in an adjoining stage and the music was piped in to 43. The guests on this program were Noel Harrison and Jane Powell. I still have the 'Mom Always Liked you Best' button, one of many passed out to those people who stood in line to see the show."
Because
of the show's growing popularity, 'Bonanza' was no longer number one
by 1968 - but still, CBS wasn't all that happy.
It wasn't long before Tommy Smothers discovered that he may have had artistic control contractually but the network had absolute control. Popular phrases, controversial songs and sometimes whole comedy segments were excised by the strict network censors. Sure, it was OK in 1967 to make fun of a President's golf game on TV - but not his war.
The network claimed the last show of the season was turned in late, cried breach of contract and dropped the series. (It was later proved that the network DID have the tape in their possession after all.) The network ultimately refused to run the episode anyway because they said it "would be considered irreverent and offensive by a large segment of our audience."
"In our case, seventy-five percent of the twenty-six shows we've done this season were censored," Tom Smothers told Look magazine in June, 1969, "And we're mild. Now, if we're thrown off that easily, what will happen to someone who has something really important to say?" This may go down as one of the most important censorship battles ever fought (and lost) in the United States. The Smothers offered the censored episode on a syndicated basis, hoping that stations would sign on for a new ninety-minute Smothers special with new material added. Instead, NBC aired a 60-minute special starring the Smothers brothers and Peter Fonda (Easy Rider) which led to another weekly variety series - on ABC.
- Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
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Isn't
it a shame how 
'The
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' wasn't expected to be a hit when it debuted
in February, 1967 - scheduled on CBS as a mid-season replacement variety
hour against the unbeatable 
The Smothers were just the latest in a long line of well-known
performers since 1961 that went up against 'Bonanza', all quickly going
down in flames. Jack Benny, 
Unlike
previous contenders, The Smothers Brothers didn't have strong TV series
credibility. The duo started their career in bohemian clubs during the
beat era, wandering into television through the back door with guest
appearances on 'The Ed Sullivan Show', 
A short-lived CBS sitcom called 
The gamble worked, the Smothers came in 16th overall for
the 66-67 season. When 'The Smothers
Brothers Comedy Hour' returned for a second season, the show began to
develop more of an edge, tackling comedy subjects other television shows
never dared to - religion, recreational drugs, sex and political unrest. 
A lot has been written about 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy
Hour', and its unique place in TV history. Deft satire, brilliant stand-up
humor, references to marijuana and the counter-culture, innovative video
special effects, musical artists blacklisted from other shows - these
were elements that made the series far different from anything else
on TV in the Sixties. 
"We
were the first show that said 'Hey, man, the war is bad' and criticized
(President) Johnson from a public platform." Tommy Smothers related
in 1975. 
At the end of the third season, because of numerous censorship
battles and a constant beating in the conservative press - and the fact
that Tommy Smothers was turning in the shows too late to be edited before
broadcast - CBS demanded that the Comedy Hour episodes be completed
and reviewed by censors by Wednesday of each week. 
Even
after they had renewed the show for another season, CBS
cancelled the Comedy Hour in 1969 - sending the Smothers Brothers and
the network into court, and squelching Tommy Smothers' idea of filming
season four from counter-culture ground zero - San Francisco. 
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