Home » Open thread 12/29/23

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Open thread 12/29/23 — 12 Comments

  1. It really helps that he looked a LOT like like Carson. I watched it on a small screen, and it is pretty low-resolution video, and I have bad eyesight so they looked EXACTLY alike there.

    I was never a fan of the Smothers Brothers or Carson for that matter. But a lot of the Carson wannabes make me nostalgic for Carson.

  2. Hat tips to two great straight men setting side by side!
    Unlike Someone Else, I was a big fan of both Carson and the Smothers Brothers. To each his own.

  3. I thought the Smothers Brothers were very funny, back when comedy was something you could allow your children to see as well.

  4. Hat tips to two great straight men setting side by side!

    Jerry:

    I get your point and Tommy could certainly play the straight man as he did imitating Carson. But in the Smothers Brothers, Dickie was the straight man and Tommy the lead comedian.

    We don’t do comedy duos anymore. But in the past it was a classic recipe:

    Laurel & Hardy
    Abbot & Costello
    Bob Hope & Bing Crosby
    Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis
    The Smothers Brothers

    I wonder why.

  5. I too never got beyond the “they’re OK level” with the Smothers Brothers. Perhaps because they engaged in word play and I’m very visual.
    But this clip is an eye opener. Tommy Smothers clearly was more talented than I previously credited him. I wish they’d had a greater variety in their comedy. Perhaps if I’d ever had the opportunity to see their act, I’d have come away with a more favorable impression.

  6. RE: Rowan and Martin

    mongo:

    Quite right.

    But I can’t think of any comedy duos since the 70s. The duo seems to go back vaudeville.

  7. The Tonight Show has taken notice of Tommy’s passing. They’ve released a longer and better resolution of the linked video:

    –“Tommy Smothers Walks Out As Johnny | Carson Tonight Show”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyFb45x_zgA

    Dickie does more of an intro, then the part you’ve already seen, followed by the Brothers arguing with each other in classic Smothers fashion.

  8. Open Thread and all that …

    Today I was innocently trying to learn more French and clicked on a French lesson based on a Jean-Jacques Goldman (JJG for us fans) song, “Comme Toi.”

    OK. I had already heard the song. “Comme Toi — Like You” — a fine title for an earnest romantic ballad. But I don’t hear French that well and I don’t even listen to English songs that closely.

    So I didn’t get “Comme Toi.”

    But today I did. OMG. The narrator is bending over his infant child and contemplating what happened to Jewish children in the Holocaust.

    In our terms I would describe Goldman as the French Paul McCartney. He was that gifted musically and he had that good guy humor and charisma.

    But on the second track of an album titled “Quand la musique est bonne — When the music is good” he placed this heartstopper.
    _________________________________________

    Her name was Sarah, she was not eight years old
    Her life was sweetness, dreams and white clouds
    But other people had decided otherwise

    –Jean-Jacques Goldman, “Comme toi (Clip officiel) — Like you” (1983)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySZBnMukO8g

    _________________________________________

    Comme toi.

  9. That is a great video. I was a slight fan of the Smothers Bros. and a big fan of Carson. That was also great when Dicky and Tommy sneakily launched into their old shtick.

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