The Smothers Brothers were very popular in the 60’s and it would probably be a real big hit in the 2013. What more could you ask for from a television show? They were brothers who were funny and had good chemistry and they both were singers and musicians. They tried having their own show before doing a conventional 1960s situational comedy. It was strange that a popular successful show would be canceled because CBS later would have shows like, ‘All in the Family’, ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’, ‘Maude’, ‘Good Times’, and’ The Jeffersons’.
They thought the show was boring and decided to be cutting edge by talking about controversial subjects and things happening in the news. They would have on guests who were controversial or needed to be seen to voice their opinions. They had guests like the Who and Pete Seeger on who were controversial and out there.
CBS is like all the other networks; ABC, NBC and Fox. It is and will always be about money and ratings and not losing money or dropping in the ratings, and trying to beat out the other broadcast networks now and then. CBS was worried about their own butts because of all the controversy surrounding the show.
The only reason CBS decided to run the show was because it was losing in the ratings every time to NBC’s Bonanza regardless of what show they put on, The Smother Brothers had accomplished at least having a popular successful show. Their show was the father to shows like ‘Saturday Night Live’, ‘The Tonight Show’, and ‘Politically Incorrect’.
The fact they were getting all this flack and hate mail to pull the plug or change what they did on the show must have caused CBS to decide they didn’t want to get sued and lose lots of money. They were afraid of the worst and that the risk of canceling the show outweighed the success of the show. Back then they decided it was best to back away from controversial television programs. That is somewhat stupid because of the programs that they put on the air afterwards, but it looks like times changed later on in the 70’s.
If a network had a show where towards the middle of its history of running you would have to censor things out because it offended someone or was politically incorrect, it might get annoyed by all the extra work needed to make sure its 100% ok to every single living person on the planet who watched the show. It must have piled up such to make them angry and see it wasn’t worth it which probably again goes back to CBS being all about money. They thought the idea of canceling the show would be best for them and show to their viewers that their network was not something controversial or fun.
The idea of trying to please everyone was something that could not just be done because it’s not like present times where you have all those stations like we do now. With cable nowadays more shows like the Smothers Brothers stay on the air. They would have a niche audience that would like their type of comedy and variety show. They could be as politically or controversial as they want on cable or even CBS now because the times are very different.
The 1960’s had hippies and such but there weren’t things on television that were very controversial but only very clean content with nothing ‘bad’ presented on television. There wasn’t anything or anyone that was being made fun on TV that was considered controversial. When they would make fun of the President of the United States he wouldn’t like it. If you did that back then you may have received some strong feedback along with not so subtle warnings.
The brothers were lucky they were just only canceled because the President’s bruised ego might have gotten them into more trouble. Nowadays people make fun of former presidents Clinton, Bush, and current president Obama, and the people running for office or other government employees. They also had the FCC after them and that was hard to deal with all the time.
The show was ahead of its time like a handful of shows and musicians back then in the 1960’s. The way the show was it scared the network and lots of people to the point that the canceling was seen to have been something that was expected. The type of cultural shock and change was something they weren’t ready for. It hit the public hard and the public wasn’t ready for it because they were adults from an earlier age and this was considered blasphemy to them.
They may have been the ones in charge of the TV station or the ones sending all those letters. They couldn’t accept that the young culture liked this show and things like that, as the young culture was the main force behind protesting the war in Viet Nam. So the young generation wanted the show and they would have gotten it if it was broadcast later on in TV history. Being ahead of their time this time around wasn’t the best route as it was for shows like the ‘Honeymooners’, and musicians like James Brown.
In the end, there were a few reasons why the Smother Brothers showed was canceled in the middle of season so abruptly. The main reason was that the network CBS was worried about their money and not wanting to get sued and lose their precious revenue. They did care about the ratings but losing money was more important. They were using extra money to censor and alter things in the show but it got to a point where it was too much to handle anymore. They were also getting flack from the President of the United States.
Other reasons were the culture shock of the show and how the show was ahead of its time. This caused people not to like the way the show was or the direction it was going, they weren’t ready just yet for a show like this. The tragedy is that the Smothers Brothers Show wasn’t on longer because it would have been awesome to see where they would have gone with the show as the times were more accepting of their show, plus having more things to cover and talk about that occurred in the 70’s. They were very lucky to have their music to at least fall back on.