Friday, March 5, 2010

Joke Week: Suddenly and Without Warning

There were the Smothers Brothers.  They had been around in the 50's, when their humor came from making fun of brothers and folk singers.  Tom's ad-libbed "Mom always liked you best!" is so much a part of our national language it seems like it's always been around. The last verse of the folk classic "My Old Man's a Sailor" had Dick spitting out:  "My old man's a cotton-pickin, finger-lickin, chicken plucker." Just for fun.  Then everything changed, and the brothers produced humor that was critical of the establishment.
Tom: We spend over 50 billion dollars a year on defense. We don't need more allies.
Dick: Well, what do we need?
Tom: We need... more enemies.
Pretty mild, which is why it aired. They segued from the squeakiest of clean folk comedy to what was at the time unacceptably negative counter-culture comedy.  For more on the show and the brothers read:
Dangerously funny : the uncensored story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
For hilarity, listen to their classic comedy routines on:
 Sibling revelry: the best of the Smothers Brothers

2 comments:

googoobeans said...

Thanks for the post!

I grew up listening to this record: Aesop's fables, the Smothers Brothers way.

potenta said...

@googoobeans : you're right!! i remember it as well :)