7 /10 1 Votes7
6.5/10 TV Final episode date 22 April 1966 | 7.6/10 IMDb Theme music composer Perry Botkin, Jr. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Created by Aaron SpellingRichard Newton Written by Dee CarusoGerald GardnerLila GarrettAlex GottliebBernie KahnArnold MargolinJim ParkerArthur WeingartenAllan Burns (uncredited)Chris Hayward (uncredited) Directed by Charles BartonFrederick De CordovaSidney MillerH. Bruce Humberstone Cast | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Smothers Brothers Show is an American fantasy sitcom featuring the Smothers Brothers that aired on CBS on Friday nights at 9:30 p.m. ET from September 17, 1965 to April 22, 1966, co-sponsored by Alberto-Culver's VO5 hairdressing products and American Tobacco (Tareyton). It lasted one season, consisting of 32 episodes. It was also the network's last situation comedy filmed in black-and-white; shortly after its final telecast, all CBS prime-time series were transmitted in color.
Contents
Synopsis
Dick Smothers played himself as a rising young executive at Pandora Publications, working for publisher Leonard J. Costello (Roland Winters). Brother Tom had been lost at sea two years earlier and now shows up as an apprentice angel assigned to do good deeds on Earth to become a full-fledged regular angel. Of course, Tom's efforts to help people never seem to work as planned and Dick had to help him clean up the mess. Tom received his orders from Ralph, his unseen and unheard boss. The series also featured Harriet MacGibbon as Mrs. Costello and, on occasion, Ann Elder as Dick's co-worker and girl friend, Janet (Eileen O'Neill also appeared in several episodes as another of Dick's girl friends, Wanda). As was typical of the Smothers Brothers in their later show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Dick was typically the straight man to Tom's humorous antics.
The series was produced by Four Star Television in association with the brothers' "Knave Productions" (named for Tom's catchphrase, "Curb Your Tongue, Knave!", which also served as the title of one of their record albums).
Creative control struggles
This series may have indirectly inspired the Brothers' more successful later series, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, in that Tom Smothers had been critical of the series as not being compatible with the brothers' strengths (in fact, he fought with Four Star executives over more creative control of the series, earning an ulcer and irritating his marital relationship to the point of divorce at the end of the season).
For instance, neither brother played their instruments on the show (with one exception, at the beginning of "'Twas The Week Before Christmas" episode), and it was not until halfway through the season that they sang the theme song.