Results: Remembering Tommy Smothers

Tom, or Tommy, Smothers, one half of the comedy and folk music duo The Smothers Brothers (with sibling Dickie Smothers) died of cancer in December 2023. Are you familiar the The Smothers Brothers or Tommy Smothers individually?

The Smothers Brothers would later become known as hosts of their own series of variety shows, but before that, they benefitted from the folk music boom of the 1950's and '60's by becoming a popular touring act, talk show guests, and recording artists. Before their first television series, the duo issued at least seven albums combining their comedic and musical gifts. Are their other public figures you appreciate for both their sense of humor as well as their musical talent?

Though the Smotherses would find their stride as TV personalities in variety show contexts, their first venture in series television was The Smothers Brothers Show, a one-season 1965 sitcom wherein Tommy played someone lost at sea and returned as an angel to visit/pester/complicate the life of his still-alive brother. Though it was of the fantastical nature of other situation comedies of its era such as My Favorite Martian, I Dream Of Genie, and Mr. Ed, it wasn't popular enough to be renewed. Can you think of other entertainers whose work you enjoy who seemed to have a promising, but false, start in a field in which they were neophytes?

The Smothers Brothers' best-remembered stint as variety show hosts was certainly their first. The Smothers brothers Comedy Hour aired from 1967-69, and not without controversy. Though they looked clean-cut, the siblings' embrace of of the hippie counterculture flourishing in the late '60's--including jokes about illegal drugs and opposition to the Vietnamese conflict in which the U.S. military was involved--put the show at odds with censors at the network airing it. Tommy was convinced it was President Richard Nixon's disapproval of some of the show's content that got his and Dickie's first of several variety series canceled. Do you think a TV show--sitcom, drama, variety, reality, whatever--that's open and forceful against the national government of the U.S. &/or Canada could find ratings success, much less stave off those governments' interference, nowadays?

Which of the following other facts about Tommy Smothers did you know or are impressed by once you read them below (however you want to answer)?