Decades after controversial TV show, new book gives Smothers Brothers their due

It took TV critic and historian David Bianculli 15 years to research and write his newly published book, "Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour."

That was five times as long as it took comic Tom Smothers to live that epic three-year battle with CBS to bring cutting-edge content to prime time in the late 1960s, when a mere three national television networks served up safe drivel like "The Beverly Hillbillies."

It was a long time ago. And Tom, the one-time young gadfly who turns 73 on Feb. 2 on Ground Hog Day, confesses to being tired, and a bit tired of the story.

"You reach a certain point where your future lies in your past. ... I really don't want to talk about it," he reflected on a quiet morning at his Kenwood home, where he spends a lot of time reading - two books a week - and happily co-parenting with wife Marcy, son Bo, 16, and daughter Riley Rose, 13.

But others continue to be intrigued. With 51 years behind them, The Smothers are now being toasted as respected elder statesmen of entertainment - avatars for more open airwaves, advocates of free speech and one of the longest running comic duos in history.

Last week, the Smothers Brothers, with the late "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry and actor Candace Bergen, were inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. Two years ago, the Academy gave Tom a belated Emmy for Best Comedy Writing. In 1968, fearing he'd become too controversial, he left his name off the list of writers in the show's Emmy submission, the same year it won for best writing. It was team writer Steve Martin who handed Tom the statue that now glitters on his grand piano.

Bianculli, an NPR TV critic and media professor at New Jersey's Rowan University, also believes the Smothers' story is worth documenting for a new generation of viewers who take for granted the irreverent social and political satire of Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and Michael Moore - all, as he says, "descendents of the Smothers Brothers."

"They're carrying on the same fight, the same ideas, the same sense of humor with bits of relevance," said Bianculli, who wrote the book with the Smothers' cooperation, culling from Tom's extensive archives and interviewing dozens of key players from the show and the network.

In their matching blazers, the Smothers Brothers looked like the boys next door when the show was picked up in 1966 to compete against the unbeatable "Bonanza." The clean-cut look was clever cover.

For three years, they racked up ratings lampooning bigotry, guns, religion and politics, famously launching the perpetual presidential campaign of the late Pat Paulsen, who also sought quiet refuge in Sonoma County in his later years.

They broke a 17-year blacklist against folksinger Pete Seeger, played hosts to anti-war activists such as Joan Baez and sneaked coded references to the drug culture past censors. Seeger's performance of the anti-war anthem "The Big Muddy" was axed but Smothers got him back on the show a year later and the song aired after public support for the war waned.

Bianculli meticulously details the escalating war between Tom, who relentlessly agitated to at least have some of the show's comic skits and musical interludes reflect the political and social unrest of the day - unheard of in 1967 - and network censors fearful of offending advertisers, affiliates and conservative viewers.

"They fought for more stuff than what got in and what got in seems, in retrospect, so tame," said Bianculli. "But they were fighting almost in a vacuum. And if you switched channels you'd see Flying Nuns, Dreamy Jeanies and Favorite Martians."

There were fights over serious issues. Joan Baez's dedication of a song to husband David Harris, facing prison for draft resistance, was eviscerated. A sketch in which Tommy and writer/actress Elaine May play censors was pulled, so they told the audience and waved a copy of the script around on the air.

But the brothers, at Tommy's lead, welcomed an impressive array of cross-generational talent, airing songs before they were hits and performers before they were stars. The show featured everyone from Bette Davis to the Beatles, Bobby Kennedy to The Who.

Through it all, it was mainly the older Tom taking the lead in editing, writing, production, talent-scouting and sparring with network brass. Both sides became increasingly recalcitrant. CBS finally fired the Smothers on a technicality when Tom failed to deliver a tape in time - at least according to the network - for TV affiliates to review it for offending content in 1969.

Four years later, the Smothers won a breach of contract and copyright infringement suit against CBS. While they still performed and packed smaller venues, the act never regained its prime-time platform. Tommy, uncomfortable about the pitying looks from his peers in Hollywood, fled to Sonoma Valley in 1971 and started making wine.