One of my English teachers had also taught the brothers – when when the class discovered this interesting factoid, we quizzed her about what Tommy had been like as a student. She was noncommittal, and rather tight-lipped, so we assumed that he had been a smart-ass.

That was a reasonable assumption. When I was a senior in high school. I took a Music Appreciation class. The teacher had a junior high student in one of her classes who had achieved a certain measure of renown in the school, and who later fulfilled that early renown by winning a Pulitzer Prize. We asked our Music Appreciation teacher what that student was like. I forget precisely what she said, but recall that whatever she said, she did not have a positive opinion of that student. Which suggests that like Tommy Smothers, he was probably a bit of a smartass. (In later years he wrote that he had a low opinion of his junior high music teachers, so the opinion of his music teacher was reciprocated,)

Why your teacher was tight-lipped, and why my teacher was not, is probably the difference between experienced teachers and beginning teachers. Experienced teachers learn that when talking about former students, it is best to say as little as possible- especially if the former student left a negative memory. Which is why most teachers say little about a former student to the siblings of the former student. My teacher was a first-year teacher who had yet to learn that lesson.

We didn’t care about the politics as much as the music and jokes.
I can still sing several of the Brothers’ comedy bits (without the repartee), but I didn’t appreciate their true musicianship until later.

I wish we had more shows like that on TV now.

Here’s Tommy on the “Tonight Show” around the time Carson was retiring in which Tommy nailed an impression of Carson, then expressed his desire to be Carson’s replacement and his hurt feelings that he wasn’t. I’ve watched this a number of times.

–“Tommy Smothers dead-on imitation of Johnny Carson – Feb 20, 1992”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oghxf-HS6go

Tommy really bears a resemblance to Carson.

My guess is that you are referring to this exchange between Jillette and Tommy in which Jillette recounts his appearance on Glenn Beck, then argues there is a similarity between the Glenn Beck and SmoBros shows.

Tommy was not amused. Not at all.

–“the green room with paul provenza 1.06”
https://youtu.be/5Gcdghx87gM?t=390

Here’s the Anchoress writing on the incident way back in 2009:
___________________________________

Smothers was furious that Jillette would talk to “the enemy,” Glenn Beck, but he (and the left) were furious when President Bush would not talk to Iran. All Jillette is doing, really, is what Obama is now doing with Iran: talking to “the enemy” without preconditions. You’d think Smothers would admire that, after all. Yes, irony.

–Elizabeth Scalia (The Anchoress), “Penn Jillette And Tommy Smothers” (2009)
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2009/10/22/penn-jillette-tommy-smothers/

loved their version of “Streets of Laredo” which ended with “if you get an outfit you can be a cowboy too” (you have to listen to the whole thing to appreciate how surprising and funny that last line was).

I remember the ending- hilarious. I had forgotten it was a Smothers Brothers performance.