Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are complicated. Love is not.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

So many bastards, so little time.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

You are here: Home / Absent Friends / Tommy Smothers, Now Silent (RIP)

Tommy Smothers, Now Silent (RIP)

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Tommy Smothers, I think you might have approved of our irreverence here on Balloon Juice.

Rest in peace, Tommy.

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Reader Interactions

84Comments

  1. 1.

    geg6

    I will never forget how my parents, especially my dad, loved The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.  And how pissed they both were when CBS canceled them.  It was my first hint, as a young girl 10 or 11, that my parents, especially my dad, were very, very liberal for people of the WWII generation.  RIP, Tommy.  I always loved you best.

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    My parents loved the Smothers Brothers and I remember listening to their albums growing up. My brothers and I adopted the “Mom always liked you best” line whenever one of us got anything.

  4. 4.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    about 30 years ago I read a book on the history of the original cast of SNL. The first chapter started with the Smothers Brothers show and how it broke all the rules which made it possible for a show like SNL to get on the air. Turns out Tommy was the driving force of the SB show. On air, he played the dimwit for laughs but behind the scenes he was the producer, the head writer, etc. He himself hired Steve Martin, Carl Gottlieb, Rob Reiner and Super Dave Osborne (Bob Einstein) as co writers.

  5. 5.

    raven

    I noted this morning that I was overseas when the show was on and only saw it once when I was home on leave. If they were on the enemies list that’s good enough for me.

  9. 9.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    The Brothers wanted to have the legendary Pete Seeger on to do one one of his anti-war folk songs. But CBS said “NO!”. They asked, they pleaded, they begged, but they were repeatedly rejected. But after the disaster of the Tet offensive, CBS gave in.

    I’m sure Raven will appreciate this clip of “Waste Deep in the Big Muddy” (video)

  10. 10.

    zhena gogolia

    It was such a great show, with Officer Judy, etc. This one features Dick more, but it was one of the most hilarious things I ever saw. The “Honey House,” a parody of the mawkish song “Honey,” by Bobby Goldsboro. (It helps if you listen to the song first — the song was a monster hit and you couldn’t get away from it, so this parody was really timely.)

  11. 11.

    frosty

    @geg6: ​@Alison Rose: ​ Like you, my parents introduced me to the Smothers Brothers through all their record albums. They were typical middle-of-the-road Republicans, but they must have been watching the show when I was. Reagan cured my mother of her Republicanism; I don’t know about Dad. They both passed on before Trump.

  12. 12.

    raven

    @David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch: Yea, I watched it this morning

     

    The song was considered symbolic of the Vietnam War and President Lyndon Johnson’s policy of escalation, then widely seen as pushing the United States deeper into the increasingly unpopular war. Like the Captain’s demise, Johnson was eventually forced to abandon plans for re-election due to the war in 1968. The captain’s criticism of a dissenting sergeant as a “Nervous Nelly” in the song’s third verse appears to mimick Johnson’s epithet for critics of the war.[

    fuck LBJ

  24. 24.

    cmorenc

    @zhena gogolia: what’s really weird about bobby goldsboro, most remembered as singer of sappy crap like “honey” is that none other than keith richards credits bobby for teaching keith some tasty guitar licks (IIRC, i came across this in keith’s autobiographical book)

  27. 27.

    FastEdD

    Tommy Smothers appeared on the song “Prozac Made Me Stay” by my friend Antsy McClain. At the end of the song the Prozac is getting to him and he mumbles, “I lost my yodel.”

    Tommy, we did like you best. I’m sad you lost your yodel, you were one of the good guys. I will really miss you.

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    re “Give Peace a Chance”, I hope I’m remembering this correctly…

    In the 1980 Playboy interview that came out just before he was killed, Lennon said that the rhythm / drum track in the song is so weird because he has no sense of rhythm and they had to clean it up (with the other drum track that fades in and takes over) before releasing it.

    If I ever knew that Tommy was on it, I had forgotten that.

    The Who clip was fun. It was interesting to see the camera zoom into Pete’s guitar while John was doing his magic on the bass – he never, ever got the attention that Pete did!

    “My friends call me Keith – you can call me John.” [snort!]

    RIP Tommy. You made a huge difference in the world.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  31. 31.

    Miss Bianca

    With regard to the last tweet, in particular, I once heard the dynamic of the type of comedic duos like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, the Smothers Brothers, et al, was that of “the idiot who knows everything vs the idiot who knows nothing.”

    I was only a wee one when the Smothers Brothers were on TV, but I do remember them fondly. RIP, Tommy.

  34. 34.

    Hungry Joe

    I was a college freshman in ‘68. There was a large TV room in the first-floor lounge, and it was always pretty much deserted … except on Sunday nights. If you wanted to sit down to watch “The Smothers Brothers,” you had to get there at least half an hour early.

  36. 36.

    JCJ

    It is funny how hearing of Tommy Smothers’ death makes me think of my family.  I remember my parents and brothers watching their show.   My dad was a stout liberal.  Somehow my mother, from a sundown town in southern Indiana, was a stout liberal as well.  Such memories always make me a bit sad thinking of my family as my dad died in 1976 at age 55 (heart) when I was 14 and one of my brothers died at age 17 in 1973 (muscular dystrophy).  On the other hand I remember how much they enjoyed the show which brings nice thoughts.

  37. 37.

    dexwood

    I was in high school when their show aired, never missed an episode. My mother watched The Who with me the night they were on. While Pete was wrecking things she turned to me and asked “why is he doing that”? I remember replying “because he can”. Man, was I pissed off when they were yanked off the air. A few years ago, I came across five boxes of vinyl records at an estate sale. I bought all of them really cheap. Among them were six albums of the Smothers Brothers, albums I once owned when I was a junior high student. I kept them, though, I later sold many records from those boxes.

  41. 41.

    dr. bloor

    @eclare: Unless I’m thinking of another one, Bob died four years ago (although Super Dave Osborne lives forever).

    My parents were Rockefeller Republicans, but the Smothers Bros were on the tube every week for as long as they lasted.  I was only nine and didn’t get a lot of the content, but sensed that you could cut the subversion with a knife.

  42. 42.

    Another Scott

    @Delk: I’m pretty sure I read it somewhere, and was pretty sure it was in the Playboy interview, but it’s not jumping out to me in the online sources I’ve been able to find today.

    I did find this (in relation to John’s song “Remember”):

    Lennon plays piano on the track in staccato fashion.[4] Rodriguez comments that early in the song, when Lennon begins to sing, Starr has to “compensate for John’s erratic sense of rhythm”, an example of the benefit to Lennon of working with a musician familiar with his quirks.[20]

    The original version of “Remember” was over eight minutes long.[3] This version contained an organ overdub, more double-tracked vocals, and a Jew’s harp. Lennon cut the recording down and added the closing explosion.[3] A rehearsal take of “Remember”, showing the musicians working on the song’s tempo, appears on the 1998 box set John Lennon Anthology.[21]

    If musicians were perfect, they’d be really, really boring. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    oldster

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Interesting. I don’t know Peewee’s oeuvre, but I guess the overgrown child thing is the link? Certainly Tommy’s ability to channel a kindergartner is uncanny.

  47. 47.

    dr. bloor

    @cmorenc: Glen Campbell is another Aw Schucks guy who got a prime time gig because he was telegenic, not because he was one of the best guitarists of his generation and could turn a wet fart into a hit.

  51. 51.

    HumboldtBlue

    @oldster: ​ 

    but I guess the overgrown child thing is the link?

    Very much so, that was all Peewee in that skit. Particularly the changing of the voice from high to low and such.

  53. 53.

    Geminid

    @dr. bloor: Glen Campbell also was a very good singer with a pleasing tenor voice. A nusician friend said Campbell gave a superb concert, and it was his singing that made it so good.

    I read that Campbell earned the money to buy his first guitar by picking cotton. A kid with a dream.

    Ed. Lawrence Welk did something similar. He got his father to buy him an accordion, an especially expensive instrument.. The younger Welk paid for the accordion by working on the family farm until he was 21. Then he left the farm to pursue a musical career. Like the Texas-born Campbell, North Dakota-raised Welk found fortune and fame in Los Angeles.

  56. 56.

    dexwood

    @raven: True. Long before that, he lived in Albuquerque often playing in his uncle’s band and appearing on an early 50s children’s TV show. Well before my time here, but my wife remembers the show. Her parents often saw Campbell and his band in local clubs at the time.

  57. 57.

    dr. bloor

    @raven: That’s a great documentary. Full of inside jokes and anecdotes, not the least of which related to Campbell’s never having learned how to read sheet music.

    Edit–there’s also a Campbell-Jimmy Webb documentary out there, which has him singing Galveston as Webb imagined it.

  60. 60.

    Jackie

    @JCJ: Dad loved the Smothers Brothers and had me half convinced Pat Paulson really was running for president!
    This show, The Rowen and Martin Show and All In the Family was much see TV in our household.

  63. 63.

    BC in Illinois

    My high school memory about Tommie Smothers:
    In ’65 or ’66, I had my guitar at a party where a friend and I discovered that we both knew the same Smothers Brothers songs, that we could do a pretty good harmony, and that he could do the monologues.
    We did “I Never Will Marry.”

    Some say that love is a gentle thing,  But it only has caused me pain.
    And the only girl I ever did love  Is gone on that midnight train.

    I never will marry.  I’ll take me no wife.
    I expect to live single  All the days of my life.

    Then Tom’s spoken part . . a heartfelt lament that his true love has left him, and now he swears by all the stars in the sky that he will never marry, unless he can marry her.

    [pause]

    “I’ll mess around a little bit, though . . .”

    ETA: The original, 1965

  66. 66.

    Almost Retired

    @Alison Rose:   And he (and Dick) went to the High School a few blocks from me!  Although so did Charles Lindbergh, so that HIgh School has a mixed record.

  71. 71.

    Kathleen

    @zhena gogolia: I’ve loved Classical Gas since the day it was released. Mason Williams was a comedy writer and composer of silly songs. The Kingston Trio who were cohorts of the Smothers Brothers performed a lot of his songs.

  72. 72.

    Citizen Dave

    Keith Moon famously (at least to nerd Who fans) loaded his drums with waaay too many explosives, and didn’t tell anyone.  Power in the studio flashed, and Pete lost a chunk of his hearing from it.  Rock and Roll!

    Tommy did a killer Johnny Carson impression.

  73. 73.

    Kathleen

    @raven: Wichita Lineman is one of the most brilliant singles ever released. Campbell’s plaintive performance punctuated by instrumentals mimicking an electric line was stellar

  74. 74.

    laura

    @Jackie: random factoid- Pat Paulson’s brother Fred makes an absolutely awesome horseradish- it’s a fridge staple at our house and ate it on our Christmas roast. We, too, grew up on the Smothers Brothers and the comments are bringing back memories and emotions.

  81. 81.

    Splitting Image

    @David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:

    I only read Playboy for the pictorials

    Unpopular opinion: The best reason for reading Playboy is the cartoons. Will Elder and Harvey Kurtzman were long-time contributors.

    The articles are the second best reason.

    RIP Tommy Smothers. My father was a big fan of his back in the 60s. I don’t think I ever appreciated him and Dick as much as I might have, because the same corporate politics that cancelled the show tended to keep them out of re-runs, and their revival in the 1980s got sideswiped by the writers’ strike.

  82. 82.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Kathleen:

    The Kingston Trio who were cohorts of the Smothers Brothers

    This is why we read this blog. My mom loved the Smothers Brothers and The Kingston Trio.

  83. 83.

    StringOnAStick

    @Kathleen: I can sing a quite decent version of Wichita Lineman, which makes me a tenor though it’s tricky because I’m female (with a deep smoky voice).  I would love to perform that song.

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