Eight years before "Saturday Night Live" started stirring up trouble for NBC, "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" was the counterculture bane of CBS' programming existence. And unlike the surprisingly game gang at 30 Rockefeller Center, the suits at the Eye (that's the nickname for CBS' logo) could not be mollified by high ratings.
The enmity between CBS and Smothers was forged by a perfect confluence of time and content. When the variety show premiered on February 5, 1967, the United States was waging two very different wars on two geographically inconvenient fronts. The country had just entered its second year of full-on, boots-on-the-ground combat in Vietnam, and though a slim majority still supported the conflict, the nation's youth weren't keen on getting drafted to fight an enemy that didn't pose an immediate physical threat to America. This unease dovetailed with the unrest at home: anti-war protests, the ongoing Civil Rights Movement, and a...
The enmity between CBS and Smothers was forged by a perfect confluence of time and content. When the variety show premiered on February 5, 1967, the United States was waging two very different wars on two geographically inconvenient fronts. The country had just entered its second year of full-on, boots-on-the-ground combat in Vietnam, and though a slim majority still supported the conflict, the nation's youth weren't keen on getting drafted to fight an enemy that didn't pose an immediate physical threat to America. This unease dovetailed with the unrest at home: anti-war protests, the ongoing Civil Rights Movement, and a...
- 3/22/2024
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Tom Smothers, who with his younger brother Dick changed the face of comedy with their musical humor and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, died Tuesday in Santa Rosa, California, following a cancer battle. The news was announced by the National Comedy Center, on behalf of Smothers’ family. He was 86.
Tom and Dick Smothers started out as folk musicians in the early ’60s, and soon discovered that, while they were not good enough to be professional musicians, the act worked if they mixed in comedy.
Dick Smothers said in a statement, “Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner. I am forever grateful to have spent a lifetime together with him, on and off stage, for over 60 years. Our relationship was like a good marriage – the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected one another.
Tom and Dick Smothers started out as folk musicians in the early ’60s, and soon discovered that, while they were not good enough to be professional musicians, the act worked if they mixed in comedy.
Dick Smothers said in a statement, “Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner. I am forever grateful to have spent a lifetime together with him, on and off stage, for over 60 years. Our relationship was like a good marriage – the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected one another.
- 12/27/2023
- by Tom Tapp
- Deadline Film + TV
Tom Smothers, the countercultural comedy icon admired for the 1960s variety program he created and hosted with his younger brother, Dick, and for the tenacity he displayed in frequent clashes with CBS censors, has died. He was 86.
Smothers died Tuesday at his home in Santa Rosa, California, after a battle with cancer, his brother announced in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter by the National Comedy Center.
“Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner,” Dick, 84, said. “I am forever grateful to have spent a lifetime together with him, on and off stage, for over 60 years. Our relationship was like a good marriage — the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected one another. We were truly blessed.”
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour ran from February 1967 until April 1969, when the pair were fired after...
Smothers died Tuesday at his home in Santa Rosa, California, after a battle with cancer, his brother announced in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter by the National Comedy Center.
“Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner,” Dick, 84, said. “I am forever grateful to have spent a lifetime together with him, on and off stage, for over 60 years. Our relationship was like a good marriage — the longer we were together, the more we loved and respected one another. We were truly blessed.”
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour ran from February 1967 until April 1969, when the pair were fired after...
- 12/27/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
On March 6, 1978, during a legal battle in Georgia over obscenity charges, Larry Flynt, the owner and publisher of Hustler magazine, was shot on the sidewalk, an assassination attempt that left him partially paralyzed. It didn’t take long for him to become an iconic figure in his gold wheelchair, but the shooting devastated him. It kicked-off a five-year descent into drugs, overeating, and a paranoid withdrawal from the world. By 1983, Flynt had pulled himself out of the swamp of despair, and one of the inspirations to do so is that he now had a cause. He convinced himself that either the CIA or the FBI was behind the assassination attempt. After years of legal fights over Hustler, Flynt already saw the U.S. government as his adversary; now he was convinced that it had become his mortal enemy, from President Reagan on down. He was going to get his revenge. How?...
- 6/13/2021
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
There is no question that blackface is a racist trope too regularly used on film, TV, and in magazines. While not nearly as rampant as it was in the 1930s, there have been hundreds of instances of blackface employed in the past twenty years. Everyone from Paris Hilton to Ben Stiller and Jimmy Fallon to Billy Crystal has donned a form of blackface in an attempt to be funny, controversial, or — in Hilton’s case — cute. (The things people will do for a laugh.)
The most recent use of blackface is by a repeat offender, Chris Lilley (pictured above), who is the star of the new HBO series, Jonah from Tonga. The series, which follows the story of a Tongan teenager, features Lilley in brownface make-up and a curly wig. In other series, the actor has portrayed S.mouse, an African American rap artist from California and Jen Okazaki, a Japanese mother of three.
The most recent use of blackface is by a repeat offender, Chris Lilley (pictured above), who is the star of the new HBO series, Jonah from Tonga. The series, which follows the story of a Tongan teenager, features Lilley in brownface make-up and a curly wig. In other series, the actor has portrayed S.mouse, an African American rap artist from California and Jen Okazaki, a Japanese mother of three.
- 8/8/2014
- by Stacy Lambe
- TheFabLife - Movies
There is no question that blackface is a racist trope too regularly used on film, TV, and in magazines. While not nearly as rampant as it was in the 1930s, there have been hundreds of instances of blackface employed in the past twenty years. Everyone from Paris Hilton to Ben Stiller and Jimmy Fallon to Billy Crystal has donned a form of blackface in an attempt to be funny, controversial, or — in Hilton’s case — cute. (The things people will do for a laugh.)
The most recent use of blackface is by a repeat offender, Chris Lilley (pictured above), who is the star of the new HBO series, Jonah from Tonga. The series, which follows the story of a Tongan teenager, features Lilley in brownface make-up and a curly wig. In other series, the actor has portrayed S.mouse, an African American rap artist from California and Jen Okazaki, a Japanese mother of three.
The most recent use of blackface is by a repeat offender, Chris Lilley (pictured above), who is the star of the new HBO series, Jonah from Tonga. The series, which follows the story of a Tongan teenager, features Lilley in brownface make-up and a curly wig. In other series, the actor has portrayed S.mouse, an African American rap artist from California and Jen Okazaki, a Japanese mother of three.
- 8/8/2014
- by Stacy Lambe
- VH1.com
Tonight, the Republican race for president may get a teeny bit more crowded: Stephen Colbert will be making an announcement about his plans for throwing his hat in the ring for the Jan. 21 Gop primary in his home state of South Carolina. He’s not serious — at least we think he’s not — but the latest public opinion polls do place the comedian at 5 percent in the state, a full point ahead of real-life candidate John Huntsman.
This isn’t the first time Colbert has made a half-joking run for the White House. He tried to get on the ballot...
This isn’t the first time Colbert has made a half-joking run for the White House. He tried to get on the ballot...
- 1/12/2012
- by Benjamin Svetkey
- EW.com - PopWatch
Those of us who enjoy the ancient and nearly-dead form of the newspaper comic strip know that the first successful regularly published strip was Bud Fisher’s Mutt & Jeff. It was enormously popular, running from 1907 through 1982, and reprints remain available each day online through various newspapers and through the gocomics.com service. Yes, it’s dated and the best stuff – the original strips that were actually done by Fisher – are quite good, if you are in for that sort of thing. I most certainly am.
Mutt & Jeff went on to Broadway, to silent pictures, to animation, and to a strong and ongoing presence in comic books starting in 1919 with a series of reprints from Cupples and Leon. When the contemporary comic book started in the mid-30s, Mutt & Jeff were right there from day one, in the first issue of the first regularly published comic book, Famous Funnies. The duo...
Mutt & Jeff went on to Broadway, to silent pictures, to animation, and to a strong and ongoing presence in comic books starting in 1919 with a series of reprints from Cupples and Leon. When the contemporary comic book started in the mid-30s, Mutt & Jeff were right there from day one, in the first issue of the first regularly published comic book, Famous Funnies. The duo...
- 5/10/2011
- by Mike Gold
- Comicmix.com
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