Tom Smothers, a Counterculture Comedy Legend With the Smothers Brothers, Dead at 86🤘

[Old Joad]

Smothers died at his home in Santa Rosa, California, following a recent battle with cancer.

Tom's younger brother and comedic partner, Dick, said in a statement, "Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life, he was a one-of-a-kind creative partner."

 

[Starship Krupa]

One of the funniest people on earth.

During the time period when he and Dick were no longer performing together, he was a guest on The Tonight Show from time to time, in the Johnny Carson days.

Indelibly etched in my memory is one time he was on there, and Johnny, as he usually did with guests, as they were often on to plug their latest project, asked him what he had been doing lately.

Tom replied in his "dense Smothers brother" persona with a complete straight face that he was considering joining the Navy, and of course the audience laughed. But he kept it up, becoming slightly indignant that he wasn't being taken seriously, remaining in character, describing the benefits of joining the Navy. And as he went on it just became funnier and funnier. This was well before Andy Kaufman came along and took that sort of thing to the level that he did.

Carson, for his part, played along very well as straight man, pointing out to him that there might be issues like his age, and Tommy broke into his trademark crestfallen face. I'm laughing now just thinking about the whole schtick. Without spelling it out, he painted a picture of this naive person getting hold of a Navy recruiting brochure and falling for the pitch at the age of 40-something.

It became apparent to me that the "dense" brother was also the comedic genius behind the act.

[craigb]

Back when skirting around vulgarity was funny instead of just being vulgar.

 

[pwal³]

they also had some great bands on, rip tom

 

[jackson white]

... did they pay musicians scale to mime on those shows (re Doors/Touch Me)?

[User 905133]

 

[57Gregy]

I remember the show when the Beatles debuted Hey Jude. We were back stateside after 3 years in Germany with no TV and just before we left for another 3 years in Germany with no TV.
Those guys were hilarious no matter what the subject.
RIB Tom.