Mom Always Liked You Best!

The Smothers Brothers were and are far more than their famous catchphrase from the 1960s. Television critic and NPR contributor David Bianculli chronicles their rise from satiric folk duo to controversial television team in his new book, Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

The show, which ran on CBS for three seasons from 1967 to 1969, was a groundbreaking mix of old and new entertainment (Jimmy Durante and The Doors, for instance) and daring political and social commentary sewn into standard sketch comedy. Before the show could begin its fourth season, CBS fired the brothers after years of battling Tom (much more than Dick) on countless censorship issues, some of which, 40+ years later, seem pretty tame.   

To witness the material that never aired (and also did), there is a 2008 DVD, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour: The Best of Season 3, available in the Troy Library's extensive collection of television series on DVD. For more background, the DVD of the 2002 documentary, Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, is well worth a checkout, too.