When CBS Canceled The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour for Criticizing the American Establishment and the Vietnam War (1969)

"Rig­or­ous­ly clean-cut, com­pe­tent on the acoustic gui­tar and dou­ble bass, and sel­dom dressed in any­thing more dar­ing than cher­ry-red blaz­ers, Tom and Dick Smoth­ers looked like the antithe­sis of nine­teen-six­ties rebel­lion. When they first gained nation­al recog­ni­tion with their vari­ety show The Smoth­ers Broth­ers Com­e­dy Hour, they must have come off to many young view­ers as the kind of act of which their moth­er - or even grand­moth­er - would approve. But the broth­ers' cul­ti­vat­ed­ly square, neo-vaude­vil­lian appear­ance was deceiv­ing, as CBS would soon find out when the two took every chance to turn their pro­gram into a satir­i­cal, relent­less­ly author­i­ty-chal­leng­ing, yet some­how whole­some show­case of the coun­ter­cul­ture."

"The Smoth­ers Broth­ers Com­e­dy Hour pre­miered in Feb­ru­ary of 1967, and its first sea­son "fea­tured min­i­mal con­tro­ver­sial con­tent," writes Sarah King at U.S. His­to­ry Scene. There­after, "the show became increas­ing­ly polit­i­cal. The broth­ers invit­ed activist celebri­ties onto their show, includ­ing folk singers Pete Seeger and Joan Baez and singer-actor Har­ry Bela­fonte. The show also pro­duced its own polit­i­cal mate­r­i­al crit­i­ciz­ing the Viet­nam War and the politi­cians who sup­port­ed it," not least Pres­i­dent Lyn­don John­son. Bring­ing on Seeger was a dar­ing move, giv­en that he'd been black­list­ed from net­work tele­vi­sion for the bet­ter part of two decades, though CBS's cen­sors made sure to cut out the most polit­i­cal&sh"

Tom and Dick Smothers presented a clean-cut, neo-vaudevillian image while delivering satirical, authority-challenging performances that aligned with the 1960s counterculture. Their variety show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, premiered in February 1967. Its first season featured minimal controversial content, but later seasons became increasingly political. The brothers invited activist celebrities including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Harry Belafonte. The show produced material criticizing the Vietnam War and the politicians who supported it, including President Lyndon Johnson. CBS censors removed some of the show's most political material, and Pete Seeger had been previously blacklisted from network television.

Read at Open Culture