Rating: 
Summary: when will they put out the original show?
Review: A Welcomed DVD to my collection. Now let's see some of the uncut episodes! Would love to see the FRED DE CORDEVA series on DVD too!
Rating:
Summary: GREAT insight to a GREAT Comedy team!
Review: A Welcomed DVD to my collection. Now let's see some of the uncut episodes! Would love to see the FRED DE CORDEVA series on DVD too!
Rating:
Summary: Very well done
Review: I am among those who remember the Smother Brothers Comedy Hour. And I remember one of the things that a commentator said during this show, that they had some out-of-the-ordinary guests, "Not just Steve Lawrence and Edie Gormet, or Wayne Newton," as the guy said. The Who. Arlo Guthrie. Pete Seeger. These were guests they had.But, as Rob Reiner, one of the writers, and others commented, they were so...ordinary! The blazers, the short hair (earlier, anyway). They were so American that people couldn't resist. It was also "wholesome" humor, not, say, George Carlin, or Lenny Bruce. That's how they got on, to compete with the select hour which "Bonanza" had dominated for years. Then they did a bit--Tommy and Elaine Maye did--spoofing censors. That's where the censorship began. The whole bit was removed from the show! In fact, the documentary shows that they were politicized by the censorship. The more they tried to say, the more they were challenged by CBS. For what it's worth, I think their comedy hour was the last variety show I could even stomach. Most weren't very good anyway. They either weren't funny or were pathetically predictable. This opened new doors. In fact, contemporary critics said if it weren't for the Smother Bros.' show, Saturday Night Live would probably have never been on the air. The timing of the show is just about right. Any shorter and I might have felt short changed. Too long and it may have gotten a little dry. The people the producers talked to included the Brothers themselves, the writers, including head writer Mason Williams, famous for his single, "Classical Gas," and guests including Joan Baez and Pete Seeger (who was responsible for letters CBS received reminscient of the McCarthy witch hunt!) If you want to remember an era when television even had some potential, or even just remember a great comedy duo, this is a DVD I recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Very well done
Review: I am among those who remember the Smother Brothers Comedy Hour. And I remember one of the things that a commentator said during this show, that they had some out-of-the-ordinary guests, "Not just Steve Lawrence and Edie Gormet, or Wayne Newton," as the guy said. The Who. Arlo Guthrie. Pete Seeger. These were guests they had. But, as Rob Reiner, one of the writers, and others commented, they were so...ordinary! The blazers, the short hair (earlier, anyway). They were so American that people couldn't resist. It was also "wholesome" humor, not, say, George Carlin, or Lenny Bruce. That's how they got on, to compete with the select hour which "Bonanza" had dominated for years. Then they did a bit--Tommy and Elaine Maye did--spoofing censors. That's where the censorship began. The whole bit was removed from the show! In fact, the documentary shows that they were politicized by the censorship. The more they tried to say, the more they were challenged by CBS. For what it's worth, I think their comedy hour was the last variety show I could even stomach. Most weren't very good anyway. They either weren't funny or were pathetically predictable. This opened new doors. In fact, contemporary critics said if it weren't for the Smother Bros.' show, Saturday Night Live would probably have never been on the air. The timing of the show is just about right. Any shorter and I might have felt short changed. Too long and it may have gotten a little dry. The people the producers talked to included the Brothers themselves, the writers, including head writer Mason Williams, famous for his single, "Classical Gas," and guests including Joan Baez and Pete Seeger (who was responsible for letters CBS received reminscient of the McCarthy witch hunt!) If you want to remember an era when television even had some potential, or even just remember a great comedy duo, this is a DVD I recommend.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Introduction
Review: I first saw this DVD about three days ago. Up until that time, I had heard very little about the Smothers Brothers. The only thing I did know, I had heard from my mother: they had a show during the Sixties that had censorship problems. Already, my interest was sparked. This documentary, orginally released on Bravo, is a wonderful introduction to the Smothers Brothers and their television program. Although the DVD is mainly about the censoring problems the Brothers encountered, there was some interesting information on the brothers themselves, and the writers behind the scenes. The DVD is chocked full of hilarious clips. I can't wait for a chance to see some Smothers Brothers episodes. Unfortunately, there are not many resources concerning the duo, so it may be a while before I can purchase the series on DVD. This is a great film to get you started on the road to Smotherdom. It also happens to be a great source for research papers.
Rating:
Summary: when will they put out the original show?
Review: i hope soon they put out on dvd the comedy hour
steve martin was one the writers of the show.it was too bad it
was canceled i didnt like nixon either.
Rating:
Summary: Nice
Review: It's hard enough to get a guy in his thirties (me) emotionally invested in the sixties with a Time magazine ad "Turn, Turn, Turn" montage. So it's nearly impossible to get fired up about a (now) relatively tepid variety show. But this documentary works well at showing a banal, nuts and bolts level of politics. It's close to the center of things, where contract disputes and institutional pressures are mainstream metaphors for clubs and tear gas. (Rob Reiner compares key 60's assasinations to network "artistic assasination"... and looks like he knows he's stretching it). The story focuses largely on the increasing tension between CBS and performer Tommy Smothers over the program's political satire. LBJ and Nixon seem to loom in the shadows throughout, as fodder for jokes while exerting (plausibly deniable) pressures on the network. Throughout, David Halberstam provides good historical and political context. And clips from the show are... educational... (Look it's Steve Martin, David Steinberg, and that guy) There is a sort of "guess you had to be there" feel.... In the recent interviews, the entertainers are low key about their accomplishments. So you don't jump up and down, yet feel good that nothing is hyped -- great tone throughout.
Rating:
Summary: Nice
Review: It's hard enough to get a guy in his thirties (me) emotionally invested in the sixties with a Time magazine ad "Turn, Turn, Turn" montage. So it's nearly impossible to get fired up about a (now) relatively tepid variety show. But this documentary works well at showing a banal, nuts and bolts level of politics. It's close to the center of things, where contract disputes and institutional pressures are mainstream metaphors for clubs and tear gas. (Rob Reiner compares key 60's assasinations to network "artistic assasination"... and looks like he knows he's stretching it). The story focuses largely on the increasing tension between CBS and performer Tommy Smothers over the program's political satire. LBJ and Nixon seem to loom in the shadows throughout, as fodder for jokes while exerting (plausibly deniable) pressures on the network. Throughout, David Halberstam provides good historical and political context. And clips from the show are... educational... (Look it's Steve Martin, David Steinberg, and that guy) There is a sort of "guess you had to be there" feel.... In the recent interviews, the entertainers are low key about their accomplishments. So you don't jump up and down, yet feel good that nothing is hyped -- great tone throughout.
Rating:
Summary: Nice
Review: It's hard enough to get a guy in his thirties (me) emotionally invested in the sixties with a Time magazine ad "Turn, Turn, Turn" montage. So it's nearly impossible to get fired up about a (now) relatively tepid variety show. But this documentary works well at showing a banal, nuts and bolts level of politics. It's close to the center of things, where contract disputes and institutional pressures are mainstream metaphors for clubs and tear gas. (Rob Reiner compares key 60's assasinations to network "artistic assasination"... and looks like he knows he's stretching it). The story focuses largely on the increasing tension between CBS and performer Tommy Smothers over the program's political satire. LBJ and Nixon seem to loom in the shadows throughout, as fodder for jokes while exerting (plausibly deniable) pressures on the network. Throughout, David Halberstam provides good historical and political context. And clips from the show are... educational... (Look it's Steve Martin, David Steinberg, and that guy) There is a sort of "guess you had to be there" feel.... In the recent interviews, the entertainers are low key about their accomplishments. So you don't jump up and down, yet feel good that nothing is hyped -- great tone throughout.
Rating:
Summary: CBS vs. The Smothers Brothers in the court of public opinion
Review: The 2002 documentary "The Great Smothers Brothers Censorship Wars" tells the story of how one of the most popular comedy variety shows on television in the Sixties went to far and was axed by the network. Tom and Dick Smothers were a popular comedy and folk singing team: Tommy played both the guitar and the role of dullard while Dick played bass, sang the tenor parts in the arrangement, and tried unsuccessfully to keep his brother in line. "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" first aired on February 5, 1967 going up against the #1 show on television, "Bonanza." The show finished 16th in the Nielsens and helped knock the Cartwrights out of the top spot the following season. The show was a hit with younger viewers, who liked the irreverence of the show, which poked fun at every sacred cow they could find, aided and abetted by Pat Paulsen's "editorials." As this documentary shows, the Smothers Brothers were having trouble getting things past the CBS censors almost from the start. When Paulsen ran a joke campaign for the presidency, CBS kept him off the air fearing the real candidates would demand equal time, but the two key blows were an appearance by folk singing legend Pete Seger, who sang the Vietnam protest song "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" and a pair of comedy "sermons" by comedian David Bernstein. The technical reason for canceling the show was the failure to provide a tape on time to be cleared by the censors, but the motivation was clearly the anti-war, left-wing, and outspoken guest stars. Tommy Smothers could yell about the First Amendment all he wanted, but in the end CBS replaced the show with "Hee Haw," a lesson that was lost on no one at the time, which was, you should remember, Richard Nixon's first term in the White House. The documentary is fairly balanced, with talking heads from both sides, some of which will be recognizable to young viewers (e.g., Steve Martin, a Smo Bro writer). For those of us who fondly remember Leigh French, Bob Einstein, and Mason Williams, this is a nice walk down memory lane, albeit through some bad times. "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" was my favorite television show and when we left for Japan where my father was stationed it was the last television show I watched the night before the flight over. The documentary does assume that you know about the comedy of the Smothers Brothers, because that takes a back seat to the behind the camera conflicts between CBS and Tommy Smothers. Of course, in the television climate of today with what is available on cable the problems of the Smothers Brothers seems rather nostalgic, but there is still a chilling aspect to the tale when you recall the protests against the war, the assassinations of Kennedy and King, and the movement against dissent by the establishment at the end of that decade. The great irony of course was that it was CBS that would be the network that would decide to air "All in the Family," which both ushered in an age of "relevant" prime time programming and constituted a de facto absolution for Tommy Smothers. Unfortunately, when the Smothers Brothers were let back on the air (on NBC) they were produced by Joe Hamilton, Carol Burnett's husband, who tried to force them into the mold of his wife's successful comedy variety show. By the time Tommy took over the producer's role the show was doomed by the half dozen shows he put on at the end were as fine as anything the format had seen and I am glad that when I met him several years ago I was able to tell him exactly that.
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