[lbo-talk] Smothers

[Dennis Perrin]

I'm watching a bunch of Smothers Brothers shows from '68-69, their final 
season on CBS, after which they were essentially fired for their political 
content, despite having high ratings and regularly beating the then-mighty 
"Bonanza" which ran opposite them on NBC. I'm writing an essay about this 
box set for my blog and HuffPost, so I won't go into too much here. But I'm 
now watching the Smothers' interview Benjamin Spock in the Fall of '68, 
after his trial. It's fucking amazing TV. No wonder CBS censored this 
segment. The entire war state was being attacked by a leading dissident and 
one of television's most popular comedy acts. You wouldn't see this even 
attempted now -- not on a comedy show, anyway. Stewart and Colbert would 
never go this far.

Dennis