<\/p>\n
On April 4, 1969, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour<\/a><\/em> was abruptly canceled by CBS<\/a>. The Sunday<\/a> evening variety series aired for three seasons starting in February 1967, but not all of the episodes aired.<\/p>\n At the time, The New York Times<\/a><\/em> reported that the network canceled the series amid claims that host Tom and Dick Smothers<\/strong> breached their contract by failing to submit episodes in time for advance screening by the network and its affiliates.<\/p>\n Per the outlet, CBS feared the comedian brothers had planned to feature an\u00a0\u201cirreverent and offensive\u201d religious monologue by guest David Steinberg in an episode that would have aired on Easter<\/a>. The cancellation came amid \u201cmonths of argument over the program’s content,\u201d The Times<\/em> noted.<\/p>\n The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour<\/em> often took a liberal view on religion and politics and was known for bits that opposed the Vietnam War. The brothers regularly butted heads with network censors. To the Times<\/em>, Smothers claimed CBS\u2019 ongoing protests were just a pretext \u201cto get us off the air.\u201d<\/p>\n The cancelation of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour<\/em> came two weeks after the show had been optioned for a fourth season.<\/p>\n In 1970, ABC<\/a> picked up the brothers for The Smothers Brothers Summer Show<\/a><\/em> for nine episodes. The brothers would go on to other incarnations of their series in the late 1970s and ’80s.<\/p>\n In 1969, the Smothers brothers didn\u2019t take their firing lying down. Speaking with The Associated Press<\/a> 50 years later, Tom Smothers recalled that he and his brother filed a breach of contract lawsuit that CBS lost.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had such a minor payment dollar-wise, but that wasn\u2019t the point. \u201cWe had to do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Dick Smothers added, \u201cDon\u2019t tell a comedian not to say a certain word. For sure, they\u2019ll do it. The funny thing is, I look back at those things. They\u2019re so benign, but at the time they were volatile.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: 1962 No. 1 Hit Song Was an Iconic TV Theme\u2014But It Almost Didn\u2019t Happen<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n One of the wildest moments on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour<\/em> took place in September 1967 in an episode that featured guests Bette Davis <\/strong>and Mickey Rooney<\/strong>. Musical guests The Who delivered an explosive performance<\/a> of their hit song “My Generation.\u201d Literally.<\/p>\n Tom Smothers introduced the song by saying, \u201cI can really identify with that [song] because I really identify with \u00a0these guys, I dig \u2018em.\u201d He also told viewers they\u2019d be \u201csurprised by what would happen\u201d with the band\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n According to Classic Rock<\/a>, drummer Keith Moon<\/a><\/strong> reportedly filled his drum cannon with 10 times the legal amount of gunpowder allowed on a television soundstage after bribing a stagehand. At the song\u2019s end, The Who bandmates began to violently destroy their instruments, with Moon kicking his drum kit off the riser, where it loudly exploded. \u00a0Several of the band members were reportedly injured.<\/p>\n Tom Smothers appeared visibly shaken by the incident but attempted to crack a joke<\/a> about borrowing a bass guitar.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone was so shocked,” Smothers later said. “I was busy just seeing where the bodies were, seeing if anyone was injured.\u201d<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac<\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Apr 4, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On April 4, 1969, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was abruptly canceled by CBS. The Sunday evening variety series aired for three seasons starting in February 1967, but not all of the episodes aired. At the time, The New York Times reported that the network canceled the series amid claims that host Tom and Dick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2358925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[410164,458008,369206,458009],"class_list":["post-2358924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dick-smothers","tag-smothers-brothers-comedy-hour","tag-the-smothers-brothers","tag-tom-smothers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/60s-Comedy-Duo-the-Smothers-Brothers-Abruptly-Fired-From-Their.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2358924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2358926,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358924\/revisions\/2358926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2358925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2358924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2358924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2358924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Smothers Brothers sued CBS<\/h2>\n
The Who blew up \u2018The Smothers Brothers\u2019 stage<\/h2>\n