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Mom Likes Them Best

Life on the edge, 1960s style

A A A Comments By Patrick Williams Thursday, Nov 20 2008

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Sometimes you're too old to get it...the joke, that is. Sometimes you're too young. In the case of The Smothers Brothers, I'm both. I'm just the right age to vaguely remember brothers Tom and Dick's late '60s variety show, canceled on CBS in 1969 because it was just too edgy and political--for 1969, when the edge was way, way closer to safe and boring, especially to a kid who preferred Gunsmoke and Batman. Comedian for Pat Paulsen running for president? Pete Seeger singing anti-war folk songs from the 1860s? "Mom always liked you best?" Not exactly Wag the Dog, was it? Or 30 Rock. (Remember Carrie Fisher's 30 Rock stint as a '60s-era TV-writing gasbag, explaining to the puzzled kids a Laugh-In-like sketch involving a mailbox that falls over? "Don't you get it? The mailbox is Haldeman?" Nope. Didn't get it then. Don't care now. Still, tons of other people--you call them grandpa and grandma--love the Smothers Brothers' dry wit, which explains how they're still touring after 49 years in show business. Tom and Dick will bring their satiric folk act to The Eisemann Center, 2351 Performance Drive in Richardson, Saturday night only at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $32 to $65. Visit eisemanncenter.com or by call 972-744-4650. If you don't dig the comedy, you can consider it an anthropological expedition.
Sat., Nov. 22, 8 p.m., 2008