40 Years Ago -- On April 3, 1969 -- CBS Fired the Smothers Brothers

Okay, I'm obsessed. And I'm writing the final chapters of my book on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, so this date is foremost in my brain right now.

Forty years ago -- on April 3, 1969 -- CBS fired the Smothers Brothers.

Their variety series already had been renewed for a fourth season when CBS pulled the plug. "Fired, not cancelled," is what Tom always says when talking about the show, and it's a crucial distinction. Ostensibly, the brothers were fired for not delivering tapes of their shows in time for preview by affiliates, but what really did them in was using their prime time show to say something that mattered. Or try to.

The show that was pulled by CBS and never shown, the one with the second comic sermonette by David Steinberg, ended with Tom acknowledging something no other prime-time TV was prepared to do that weekend. He noted the first anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., and said, "Let's hope his dream will someday come true."

In prime time, on broadcast TV, that type of political passion from an entertainment program was as rare then as it is now. Back to the book And on days like this, when I realize how singularly brave and important a show Comedy Hour was, I can't get back quickly enough...