A look at the musty humour of the Smothers Brothers
Grumpy critic Milton Shulman didn’t enjoy Dick and Tommy
THE SADDEST SPECTACLE on the contemporary TV scene is the depressing deterioration of American TV. Conditioned by the fear and caution of advertisers, popular programmes are sinking ever deeper into a morass of blancmange entertainment.
With the exception of an occasional current affairs programme, the American networks operate on the principle that it is their function to provide the least offence to the greatest number.
It does not overly concern them that in so doing they are also being extremely offensive to most of the intelligent people in their country.
Nor does it bother them that by being aggressively innocuous they are actively helping to cement into their society all its iniquities and inequalities.
The result of this policy of banalities for the masses is that most discerning, sensitive and intelligent Americans view the medium with contempt. They appear on it sceptically work for it reluctantly and deride it both privately and publicly.
Pressures
One of the most heartening aspects of British TV is that, as yet, the rot that comes from catering to advertising pressures has not bitten very deep into our own programming philosophy.
And, because of a self-imposed limitation on the amount of American material transmitted — usually amounting to about 15 per cent of its total output — British TV has been forced to produce most of its own programmes which, naturally reflect our own customs, habits, values and ideals. The result has been that most people in this country infinitely prefer British programmes to almost anything that comes from America.
American series or variety shows rarely reach the top ten status — not only nationally, but even in the regions. Many weeks go by when not a single American show appears in the top twenty national favourites.
The fact that BBC and the ITV companies still go on buying American material is not because they think the public will prefer them to British shows, but because they usually cost less than producing an original programme over here.
The gap between American popular taste and our own native preferences has been sharply illustrated by the fate of the Smothers Brothers. After only nine programmes they have been dropped by the BBC from their schedules. Two more programmes remain to be shown.
‘Daring’
In America, difficult as it is for anyone over here to understand, the Smothers Brothers are not only the most popular variety show but also have a reputation for producing daring, satirical and controversial TV.
1 have assiduously watched most of their transmitted programmes and I must confess that the mystery of their appeal has consistently escaped me.
In a clean-cut way, I suppose they represent to Middle West moms an ideal of the all-American brothers. Dick, the sharper, more astute one, is amiably patient with the gangling inarticulateness of his brother Tommy, whose lovableness is demonstrated by his awkwardness with both his grammar and his guitar.
The show’s shape is traditional in the mustiest sense of that word. There are guests who are fulsomely introduced and who take part in the inevitable set sketches in which the feeblest of jokes are greeted by almost maniacal laughter from a studio audience.
The level of the jokes and audience appreciation can be gauged by the fact that in a recent skit about the French Revolution the heartiest laugh came when Marie Antoinette, on being told that the people were crying for bread, replied, “Let them eat cake!”
Although eight writers were credited with the script, I did not notice Marie Antoinette’s name among them. Perhaps de Gaulle will take it up. Since we produce a host of variety shows far funnier and wittier than this lame display of simple gush — Morecambe and Wise, Bruce Forsyth, Millicent Martin, Benny Hill, Ken Dodd — it is not surprising that British viewers have been less that enchanted with the Smothers Brothers.
But what amazes me is that in America the Smothers Brothers are hailed as prophets of adventurous and satirical TV. And it is not an idle reputation, since this year alone three advertisers have stopped sponsoring the show because they consider its jokes too blue and its political satire too controversial.
Yet nothing I have seen could, by our standards, be considered remotely objectionable. Compared to our own satire shows or to something like Till Death Us Do Part, the Smothers Brothers are milk-sodden gruel for the toothless.
Sketches
Occasionally there are mild sketches about things like safety in automobiles or treatment of the sick, but nothing more pointed than a gag ever emerges and the atmosphere is always too cosily friendly that an insult could only be interpreted as a compliment.
The sharpest comment I ever heard about anything remotely resembling a social problem was when someone was asked how people could be discouraged from staying in hospitals. “Bad food, ugly nurses and as a last resort we keep the bed pans in the Frigidaire,” was the answer
If this type of innocuous banter can drive advertisers away from sponsoring programmes — and ultimately extinguish them from the air — then American TV will have imposed upon itself a censorship which in its ultimate effects, will be as damaging to freedom in the United States as controlled TV has already damaged freedom in France, Rhodesia and the Soviet Union.
