Smothers Brothers “Fun Facts”
Smothers Brothers “Fun Facts”
Some of you may have known that Tom and Dick Smothers helped in the writing of ‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour’, but did you know there were two other brothers writing for the show too? One was “Super Dave Osborne” and the other was Albert Brooks…they were known to their mother as Bob and Albert Einstein. Other writers include Steve Martin, Rob Reiner, Pat Paulsen and how about this for a surprise…Don Novello who is better known as “Father Guido Sarducci”. The show’s most versatile writer had to be Mason Williams who also wrote and performed music, the best known of his efforts is the Grammy winning, “Classical Gas”. The show was done in Studio 33 at CBS Television City, but had the show not been canceled, Dick and Tommy had planned to move the show to San Francisco for the 69-70 season…flower power’s ground zero.
I often worked the Sunday evening shift at CBS-Chicago, and this show was my pay-off.
The Super Dave Osborne character did not materialize until after the Smothers Bros run. Rather, Bob Einstein’s occasional character on the show was Officer Judy. I was never clear on why he was a cop named Judy. His purpose was to round up the long haired troublemakers, such as in this vintage pic from Einstein’s website, with Mason Williams and John Hartford.
I used to send of a stamped self addressed envelope each Monday to the HYD address provided to get a copy of Pat Paulsen’s This Weeks Editorial. I still have the pretty much complete set, on Smothers Brothers stationery.
Loved this show!
Ran into Dick Smothers at Dancing with the Stars. He is in great shape. In his seventies, and wants to do a season on Dancing. Said Tommy has his own winery.
I knew Albert Brooks at Los Angeles City College under his real name, Al Einstein.
My first job in television was working for the Smothers Brothers. Being in the writers room was the funniest place I had ever been. If someone made the room laugh, it got in the show… I laughed at everything. I made short films for the last couple of shows but we were pretty much already cancelled. I thought my career would be in variety shows, but they were already an endangered species, soon replaced by talk and award shows. Variety was killed off by sugar coated pop stars and the remote control. Bored for a nanosecond? Click!
Never realized that… They had the “A-Team” of writers!
Thank you!
Loved the Smothers Brothers and became a big fan at a young age when the show was on. Of course at the time I did not realize (or appreciated) how political some of their humor was. Watching clips now, they were geniuses.
I absolutely love this page. Huge kudos to the person behind it. You are brilliant!