Smothers Brothers Show, The

Click here to see The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour page about Tom and Dick Smothers' variety show.

From Wikipedia:

The Smothers Brothers Show was an American sitcom featuring the Smothers Brothers that aired on CBS on Friday nights at 9:30 p.m. ET from September 17, 1965 to September 9, 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.

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.

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 "The Week Before Christmas" episode], and it wasn't until halfway through the season that they sung the theme song. 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).

Created by Aaron Spelling

Richard Newton

Written by

Dee Caruso

Gerald Gardner

Lila Garrett

Alex Gottlieb

Bernie Kahn

Arnold Margolin

Jim Parker

Arthur Weingarten

Allan Burns (uncredited)

Chris Hayward (uncredited)

Directed by

Charles Barton

Frederick De Cordova

Sidney Miller

Starring Smothers Brothers

Theme music composer Perry Botkin, Jr.

Composer(s) Perry Botkin, Jr.

Country of origin United States

Language(s) English

No. of seasons 1

No. of episodes 32

Production

Executive producer(s) Aaron Spelling

Producer(s)

Frederick De Cordova

Phil Sharp (uncredited)

Running time 25 mins. (approx)

Production company(s) Four Star-Knave

Broadcast

Original channel CBS

Picture format Black-and-white

Audio format Monaural

Original run September 17, 1965 – September 9, 1966