The Oklahoma House of Representatives is returning for the Second Regular Session of the 59th Legislature on Monday, February 5.
We completed bill filing on Jan. 18 with 1,210 House Bills, 12 House Joint Resolutions, and one House Concurrent Resolution.
A joint resolution is similar to a bill but is mainly used as legislative referenda placed on statewide ballots. These are typically constitutional amendments submitted for the people to vote on, but sometimes legislators will send a proposed change in statute to the ballot voluntarily.
Once session begins, ons. Dick: So who’s running the country? Tom: The morons.”
Yet at other times they lost their subtilty such as with jokes like, “Dick: It’s a very difficult situation. People keep spending our money abroad and it’s hurting our economy. People keep wanting to travel to other countries instead of staying in the good ol’ United States. Tom: Yeah, well, the way I think is that, see, President Johnson should just come up with something positive as an inducement to keep the people here. Dick: But what could the president do to make people want to stay in this country? Tom: Well, he could quit.”
Their biggest target was the Vietnam War which they sang about in songs like the Draft Dodger Rag. The chorus went like, “Sarge, I’m only 18, I got a ruptured spleen, And I always carry a purse, I’ve got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat, My asthma’s getting worse.” The song went one for several more verses just the same.
Finally, President Johnson had had enough, especially after a skit where it turned out that Johnson’s BBQ sauce was years behind the Russians secret BBQ sauce. Johnson began demanding the show be pulled from the air. When the network told the brothers to calm it down, they vamped it up instead. They brought on singers like Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte who both sang strong antiwar songs. The network cut Seeger’s song and replaced with a Nixon for President ad instead, infuriating the brothers.
With the election of Nixon, the show did not last long. The brothers promised to take it easy on the president- elect, but then did not live up to their promise.
Only three months into Nixon’s term, the show was canceled.
The network claimed Tommy did not get that week’s show to the censors in time. The brothers claimed it was Nixon. While the show would be considered tame today, it was one of the first to call out politicians and it became an early victim of cancel culture. However, the Smothers Brothers did set the stage for programs like SNL which came out six years later.
The later time slot helped SNL, but the Smothers Brothers had broken down some of the barriers that allowed SNL and later programs to thrive. Even more, the brothers did it with class. Their jokes were funny and not crude making them suitable for an entire family to watch together. Tommy Smothers’ humor should be remembered alongside some of the greats in entertainment and his show deserves to rank up there with the most groundbreaking of all time.
James Finck is a professor of history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He may be reached at HistoricallySpeakingl 776@gmail.com.
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