Tom Smothers, who with his younger brother Dick changed the face of comedy with their musical humor and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, died Tuesday in Santa Rosa, California, following a cancer battle.
The news was announced by the National Comedy Center, on behalf of Smothers’ family. He was 86. Tom and Dick Smothers started out as folk musicians in the early ’60s, and soon discovered that, while they were not good enough to be professional musicians, the act worked if they mixed in comedy.
The elder bother was a regular on The Steve Allen Show in 1961. He appeared the following year on The Danny Thomas Show. In 1965, the duo landed The Smothers Brothers Show, a CBS sitcom that ran from 1965 to 1966.
Tom felt that the show did not play to the brothers’ strengths and wanted creative control over their next venture. He got it with their next CBS project, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, in 1967.
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