In 1967, CBS had a roster of popular programming featuring a rural setting. The Andy Griffith Show, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres were among them. But the critics were unimpressed.
Television programming had already been called a “vast wasteland” by the FCC chairman a half dozen years earlier. A clever critic at The Saturday Evening Post quipped in a review of The Beverly Hillbillies that the “wasteland was really a cornfield.” Even network executives were getting concerned about all these rural-oriented series and their unsophisticated, cornpone humor.
The popular variety shows of that time were fairly similar to each other, right down to the lack of imagination in their names. The Jackie Gleason Show, The Dean Martin Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Danny Kaye Show—you get the idea. So CBS set out to offer a somewhat more sophisticated, younger variation on that theme and more than a few country miles from Jed Clampitt and Gomer Pyle.
They cast two clean-cut and somewhat nerdy brothers, still in their twenties, who were the children of a U. S. Army officer and West Point graduate who had died in World War II and brought up by their mother in California. They had spent much of the decade as a popular club act with periodic forays as guest stars on people’s shows and one failed sitcom of their own.
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was a major hit, even though it was broadcast opposite NBC’s highly successful Bonanza. The Smothers Brothers almost immediately started pushing what could successfully be done on television with political satire. The country itself was increasingly divided over the issues of racism and Vietnam, and that split was playing out every Sunday night. The older, conservative crowd was watching the Cartwrights over at the Ponderosa, while the younger, more hip crowd was tuning in to watch the comedy that the Smothers Brothers were offering alongside the musical talents of such great artists as the Who, the Doors and Jefferson Airplane.
But the controversial nature of the satire was making CBS nervous. At the beginning of the 1968 season, the network started to require the Smothers Brothers to submit their shows to the network censors ten days prior to the air date. After previously announcing that the show would be renewed for another season, CBS abruptly cancelled the show on April 4, 1969, due to failure to submit programs in advance for approval and editing. The Smothers Brothers were silenced. Ironically, a new variety show would take their time slot. It was called Hee Haw.
CBS scored one for the cornpone with that one, but the days of the rural sitcom were numbered. Just two years later, all of the aforementioned programs were canceled, and Mayberry was a memory, at least on the networks. They would live on forever in syndication, and Hee Haw would continue to be produced specifically for that market.
The so-called “rural purge” made way for All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, The Jeffersons, The Bob Newhart Show, M*A*S*H and Good Times, among others. All on CBS, with each one pushing out further than the Smothers Brothers could ever manage to do in a more constrained time.
Which brings us to Stephen Colbert. It’s the same network, although more than a half century from what we’ve been discussing. But things are much different now.
Colbert can’t be silenced like the Smothers Brothers if that was the intent. In fact, I don’t think it was, because his show has ten months to run. You can bet he’s not the only one making money on it. After that, who knows? There are so many networks, streaming platforms, social media from which the very wealthy Mr. Colbert can send whatever message he chooses to send.
Let’s be honest here. Mr. Colbert, along with Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel are too rich to be silenced. On the other side of the spectrum, Megyn Kelly, Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson are, too. Personally, I see more of those last three on social media than I ever did when I would check out what they were saying on cable news.
I really don’t care what the motivation was behind this latest CBS decision. Comedy is still comedy. It’s only fair that those who make us laugh should also end up laughing, too. Especially if they do it all the way to the bank.
