Fickle Finger of CBS

Why did CBS fire the Smothers Brothers? Tommy Smothers says the network is against free speech. CBS says that Tommy and Dick broke their contract. ABC and NBC say no comment. Dick says ask Tommy. The one sure thing is that the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour -- since 1967 one of TV's few sources of new ideas and sparkle --is off the air for this season and next.

CBS's stated reason for canceling the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was one of those rationales distinguished by the fact that just about nobody believed it. According to the network, the brothers had failed to hand over a tape of their April 6 show to CBS censors by a Wednesday deadline (TIME, April 11). When it did appear, said CBS, the tape contained a "sermonette" segment that was in poor taste. Tom Smothers pointed out that: 1) there is no Wednesday-deadline provision in the contract; 2) the tape was submitted to the CBS Los Angeles office on Wednesday anyway; 3) the brothers had agreed to snip the offending sermonette. CBS's real motive, said Tom, was to find a costless way to cancel the $4.5 million Smothers contract at a date so late that the other networks could not fit them into next fall's schedule.

Twain Vein. The Smotherses were obviously trying to draw CBS into open battle. Dick was at an auto show in New York, but Tom began the week by traveling to Toronto to watch the show on the independent Canadian TV network. Next day he flew to New York to screen the program for newsmen. Ironically, it was one of the Smotherses' best-produced shows, featuring Tommy and Singer Nancy Wilson in a parody of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald ditties, several lively musical numbers, and ending with a tribute to Martin Luther King (not one of the networks had chosen to do a special on the anniversary of King's death). The sermonette that CBS felt would have been considered "irreverent and offensive by a large segment of our audience" turned out to be rather mild, even in an Easter week following the Eisenhower funeral. Comedian David Steinberg's retelling of the story of Jonah was more in the vein of Mark Twain than Lenny Bruce. Jonah, in Steinberg's version, was swallowed by a giant guppy. Many clergymen appreciate Steinberg's mischievous Biblical homilies and he has often been invited to speak in churches and temples. "Because new types of humor seem foreign to people, they assume that they must be in bad taste," says the impish Steinberg, who is now sermonizing at Manhattan's Bitter End. "What they don't know is that I know the Bible and love it."

For both the Smothers Brothers and CBS, the deeper issue is whether comedians have the right to make impertinent statements without network interference. Tommy and Dicky maintain that every self-respecting wit must lace his humor with social comment. Further, they say, CBS's insistence on its "responsibility" to edit out "bad taste" only perpetuates blandness and denies a forum of expression to young adults (who form nearly one-third of the Smothers audience), blacks, and any other minority with "unpopular" opinions.*"No one gets after Bob Hope for his views on the war," says Tommy acerbically. "How the hell does CBS have the right to decide the public air can't be used to criticize the war?"

Substituting Uggams. Although CBS remained grimly silent last week, the network had already made its position clear at recent Washington hearings. Lately, Senator John O. Pastore has been expressing concern over what he considers the violence and questionable moral content of TV shows. While CBS President Frank Stanton eloquently defended TV's right to free speech in Washington last month, he also assured Pastore's Senate Subcommittee on Communications that he would police his air waves with renewed vigilance. Despite the assurance--or perhaps because of it--the Smotherses' April 6 show was studded with gibes at Pastore, both from Tom and his guest, Dan Rowan of Laugh-In. Rowan awarded Pastore ("Pastore--P-a-s-t-o-r-e") the "fickle-finger-of-fate award" for "keeping up the good work." As one CBS official put it privately last week, "Tommy had been sticking his finger in the network's eye and something had to be done."

The Smotherses can do little more than complain publicly. They considered a lawsuit, but discarded the idea, Tom explained, when they learned that it would keep them off the air during the probable two or three years of litigation. ABC and NBC have pointedly ignored the brothers' overtures. Rapprochement with CBS seems unlikely, especially since the network has already drawn up plans for a new variety-series replacement starring Leslie Uggams. One possibility would be for the boys to accept an offer from the Canadian TV network to produce what Tommy only half-jokingly calls a "Smothers Brothers in Exile" show in Toronto. Except for that unlikely outcome, Tom Smothers is probably justified in saying, "What I'm afraid of most is that this whole thing will dry up and blow away and be forgotten."

*Support for the brothers came last week from Federal Communications Commissioner Nicholas Johnson, who criticized the "ignominious silence" of broadcasters who are dedicated to "free speech for profitable speech only. A study of the occasions on which the broadcasting industry has raised the banner to 'free speech,' " said Johnson, "leaves one with the distinct suspicion that these occasions almost invariably coincide with the industry's monetary self-interests."

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