Mastodon Feed
Reblogged by pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑"):
lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org ("Lauren Weinstein") wrote:
This really hurts. Tom (Tommy) Smothers, who along with his brother Dick formed the Smothers Brothers, has died at 86. Despite his character being played as a dummy, in reality he was the driving force of the comedy duo, pushing them from a fairly straightforward singing comedy team into realms of free speech, anti-Vietnam war, and anti-censorship realms that incurred the wrath of President Johnson, who pushed CBS to cancel their show ("The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour") -- which ultimately happened.
When they featured (in September 1967) once blacklisted Peter Seeger singing his anti-Vietnam war "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" all hell broke loose and CBS cut the performance from the tape before the show aired. After pressure from the brothers, CBS permitted them to bring him back for another performance of the song in February the next year, which did air -- but the brothers relationship with CBS was beyond repair, especially when CBS tampered with a performance by Harry Belafonte later that year.
It's impossible for me to express here the impact of the Smothers Brothers, or reasonably point at a single representative sample of their vast work, or their many interviews about these topics, but you may find this Q&A interesting as a starting point.
Peace Tommy. You deserve it.
