Feature Article

Sibling Rivalries

(The Brother’s Fight)

-Corey Highberg Feb, 2020

Sibling Rivalries

(The Brother’s Fight)

1967 to 1970 were tumultuous times for the United States for a multitude of reasons, including the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration, (not to mention the assassination of several prominent figures like Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.) Forty-nine-year-old Dairy Farmer Max Yasgur, who provided, for $50,000, the 600 acres that were the site of the Woodstock festival of 1969 summed it up most succinctly when he came on stage Sunday afternoon. His voice breaking, he told the mass billowing out into the horizon before him: “I don’t know how to speak to 20 people, much less all of you . . . you are the largest group of people ever assembled in one place at one time . . . we had no idea there would be this many . . . and you have proven something to the world . . . that half a million kids can get together for fun and music and have nothing but fun and music.”[1] The Beatles would give up their life on the road in 1966 to become a studio band until their breakup in 1970 as a result of the stress caused by Beatlemania[2]. Televisions were more and more in the American home[3] and with it came an entirely new prospect for the transmission of cultural identity.

The Sunday night prime-time slot, and 9-time-undefeated ratings champion of 1967 was a show called “Bonanza”, and the opposing broadcast occupied on one of only three other available networks was called the “Kamikaze slot”, in recognition of the inevitable cancelation that shows faced when going up against the television powerhouse. The 10th attempt would fall on the shoulders of the innocent comedy act known as the Smothers Brothers[4]. They proved to be a safe and largely inconsequential gamble by the CBS network at the time.

What could possibly go wrong?

In this article, I will explore the challenges that faced the American television censure board during the 1967-69 broadcast of two and a half seasons of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” The position of CBS was sensitive. Their reactions to content controversy are fascinating, and the discussion is complicated by the audience approval/disapproval. Its relationship to revenue sources that allowed CBS to remain a vehicle for public information and discourse makes this whole challenge relevant to today’s media discourse. We will look at sociological academic resources, interviews from the time period, and news articles that recount the conflicted dialogue about the music, content, and conversation that this show incited during this sensitive time in American History. The music and talent of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour exposed the fragile association that society has with its relationship to music and its accessibility when those performances are contrary to established norms.

The Smothers Brothers were a music act consisting of two siblings that sang folk songs. The evolved into a comedy routine where Tommy, (the eldest) would play folk guitar and act ‘dumb’ while his brother Dicky would play the bass and behave as the straight man, keeping him in line. Steve Martin, renowned comedian, and early writer of the show commented that,

“When you have power wrapped up in innocence, it's more palatable. They were like little boys, but you also had Dickie there to reprimand Tommy when he would make an outrageous statement. It's like the naughty ventriloquist dummy who can get away with murder as long as the ventriloquist is there to say, "You can't say that." It's the perfect setup for getting a message across.”[5]

That’s how this group used to express issues important for the time that would have otherwise not been part of the public discourse. The brothers began their careers in 1959 and, while they still operate Remick Ridge Vineyards in Sonoma County, CA[6], they are currently retired and only occasionally participate in public appearances. The circumstances that lead them to become the controversial act of the late 60’s began with a television network that was looking to beat a competitor in the ratings. In February 1967, the Smothers Brothers were the seeming solution to the dilemma that faced them. CBS, ABC, and NBC were often the only choices, and on Sunday nights, ABC was wearing the crown. Tommy Smothers received an offer from CBS to go up against Bonanza in the time slot where, according to the head writer, Mason Williams, 9 shows had failed to survive. Williams went on to say, “I guess we’ll be the tenth.”[7] The lowest rated show on the networks at the time was whatever show was running opposite Bonanza. The executives at CBS had a consistent problem, and in trying to face it, they needed some time, as there was no way to get a filmed show ready in less than 90 days. They needed something in a live format, hence they approached the Smothers Brothers. The only condition that Tommy had was to retain creative control. The network was desperate, so they gave it to him.

The Smothers Brothers, while considered mild-mannered, blue-collar, good-natured kids were still operating during a time of intense distress. “In 1968, a nation, indeed an entire world, once seemed poised upon the tinderbox of revolution…a sense of public and moral outrage reached fever-pitch. Television began playing an increasingly constituent role in this sense of outrage.” [8] The immediate problems began within the first few episodes. Some of the more notable controversies were Pete Seeger's performance of his anti-Vietnam War song, "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy," and Harry Belafonte's "Don't Stop the Carnival" with its video collage of the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots[9]. The trouble, at its essence, was that while CBS had captured a new, younger market, the growing anger and hate mail they were receiving as a result of the controversies the show created, were costing them revenue streams from their advertisers. As part of a catch-22, the more the show gained viewers, the more they offended, the more the network attempted to censure, and the less relevant the show became, losing viewers. By the second half of the third season, the show had slipped to 24th place. Tom Smothers, attributes this to too aggressively targeting the youth audience.[10] The indications are that the constantly edited versions of episodes were taking its toll on the viability of the message it was delivering.

The most concerning of its critics were its unintended audience, “older viewers.” Hate mail resulting from sketches with religious, political, or racial overtones were immediate targets. Carr writes, “What audiences objected to most, however, were not the show’s anti-establishment sentiments but its breaches of good taste.” He continues, “The CBS Program Standards manual still states that a “CBS television program is a guest in the home.” The so-called guest, the manual reveals, should be “entertained and enlightened but not offend or advocate.” While The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour may have entertained some, it advocated enough issues to breach the living room protocol.”[11] By this measure, the show was in constant conflict with the network, and letters read from “the public appreciates good taste and not be taken advantage of in this regard,” to overtly racist and homophobic letters that claimed, “I am for one, fed up with looking at n-----s, n----r-lovers and long haired fruits on your and every other show.” This would have been good and well enough ignored, had not the network the issue of revenue streams derived from its affiliates. The expanding complexities of the advertising markets of the late sixties were a product of the ever-growing affiliate network controlled by the big players, NBC, ABC and CBS. No longer could business owners rely on the thought that American audiences consisted of a homogeneous marketplace. The term demographics, and the art of devising audiences by more complex standards became commonplace. With this, the focus on a younger market, more attuned to the political controversies of the day, ultimately became the backlash of hate mail as a result in growing popularity of the showed sharp edged messages.

The significance of the parody song performance, and the folk traditions of political criticisms inherent within the Smothers Brothers act causes an anxiety for an already tense time, and while CBS, (nor any other broadcaster, for that matter) had not experienced such a spectacle of artistic reflection towards the growing concerns of the late 60’s, nor had the tools to properly adapt to it, had almost no recourse but to cancel the show and enter into the subsequent court cases to examine how this whole experience would impact freedom of expression in the modern home. The irony of Pat Paulson, one of the regular acts on the show, is not lost in his statements, "The Bill of Rights says nothing about Freedom of Hearing," he told viewers, adding, "This, of course, takes a lot of the fun out of Freedom of Speech"[12]. Years later, many still study the impact that the Smothers Brothers and CBS had on our sensibilities to entertainment, how music played a critical role in this evolution, and how traditional folk songs could be used as the catalyst to propel alternative culture and youth ideals into the mainstream.

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-Corey Highberg Feb, 2020