Smothered - The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
by Maureen Muldaur
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Actor: Allan Blye, David Bianculli, George Burns, Jack Benny, Joan BaezDirector: Maureen Muldaur
Producer: Maureen Muldaur
Writer: Maureen Muldaur
Editor: Lillian Benson
Producer: Charles Derbyshire
Producer: Shannon Gee
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 93 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-01-28
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Video Group
DVD Reviews of Smothered - The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
DVD Review: A Real 60's Pop Culture Tragedy
Summary: 4 Stars
Although I wasn't born in the 60's I can tell you from what I've learned that the years 1963 to 1974 (from Kennedy's murder in Dallas to Watergate and Gerald Ford's bogus "the long national nightmare is over" statement) was "The Greatest Generation" (sorry Tom Brokaw, you're not even close) and if pop culture was taken as artifacts "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" would be Exhibit A. Which is where "Smothered" comes in. As you know the story Tommy Smothers and brother Dick were a comedy team and used music for their routine. The turning point would come in 1966 when they appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and CBS was impressed by their performance they gave them their own variety show. T.S.B.C.H. first aired in January 1967 on CBS. No one gave them a chance considering that the network put them in the 9/8 PM Sunday timeslot against NBC's "Bonzana" and after the eye network's Sunday night powerhouse: "The Ed Sullivan Show". But four months later The Smothers' overtook "Bonzana" as the number one show in that slot and the Ponderosa crew had to go to another time spot. With this Tom and Dick upted the ante for the second season. And that's where the fireworks began: For much of 1967 and into 1968 the show made a mockery of politics and put on music artists that Ed's "Really Big Shoe" weren't going to touch (Buffalo Springfield, Janis Ian, Jefferson Airplane) and then came the show in which the brothers let Pete Seeger perform and when CBS executives heard this, they freaked out because they were aware that Seeger was still blacklisted for being a Communist. That of course, lead to the notorious clause they put on Tom and Dick in which every show was to be watched by the network for questionable content. The two sides agreed and it seemed to work. That all changed in April 1969 when CBS honchos were expecting the tape to come and it didn't. When the tape did come they called up Tom and Dick and told them the show was canceled. But it didn't stop there: NBC picked up the show the next year and promised the brothers they would be "hands off" and not ruin the show. Not surprisingly, the show failed and the peacock network dropped it. The magic (or was it black magic?) that The Smothers created was gone.
I do remember watching some of the shows when it was on E! in 1993 and I was just astonished by what they were doing (where else could find Robert Kennedy talking about Pat Paulson?). I really want this DVD because me and my mother were talking on the phone the other night about the troubled state television is in right now (violence on "CSI", graphic sex scenes on "Nip/Tuck", and especially the writer's strike) and in the midst of this I brought up this subject. I just hope that Fred Silverman and all the others that were working at CBS in the late-60's have long since apologized to Tom and Dick for what they did and not knowing that TV would get worse in the next century. It's a worthy buy and if it's not a pop culture tragedy, then "Smothered" is a cautionary tale of the saying "Don't kill the messenger, because you might learn something".
Description of Smothered - The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
An incredible slice of America?s media and pop-culture history, SMOTHERED tells the story of the censorship struggles of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the Emmy Award winning television program, broadcast on CBS from 1967 until it was prematurely struThe tribulations of Tommy and Dick Smothers and their popular late-'60s television show are detailed in Maureen Muldaur's interesting 92-minute documentary. Viewing the clips from The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, one might find it hard to imagine that they were considered controversial at the time; indeed, the jabs at censorship, gun ownership, the Vietnam war, and more seem mild by today's raunchy standards. But controversial they were, especially to CBS, who aired (and eventually canceled) the Smothers' show. Turns out that Tommy, the "dumb" one, was in fact a gadfly who turned the program into a cause célèbre somewhat beyond its actual significance; and in the end, as one of the talking heads featured here points out, it was the Smothers' decreasing sense of fun that really doomed it. Both brothers are interviewed, as are writers Rob Reiner and Steve Martin and others. DVD extra features include bios and an excerpt from a book on the subject. --Sam Graham
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