Smothers Brother
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfl2o44zb0

Boy they were good. For those that never heard of them, quite an act!

Spyder

Sweet Jesus; your thread title made me think one of them had died. Don't do that!

My dad had their "Live at the Purple Onion" album on LP. My brother and I played it and played it and played it. I have their Best Of on DVD. Great commentary from them on the episodes and on the parts that were censored.

I know they retired a couple of years ago because Tommy Smothers was having memory issues, and one of my great regrets is never seeing them live.

:tro: you now have reminded me of the Jack Paar Show.

Saw a TimeLife infomercial for the Carol Burnett Show on DVD the other night. God I loved that show! Almost got me to call the Toll free number and order it. Good thing my phone was on the other side of the room and I was too lazy to get it.

Still it was an amazing show and to think they did that for 11 years every Saturday night.

Between this and the Shitty Christmas Gifts piece, I have had a wonderful start to my day.

Thanks!

one of the funniest shows ever. loved it. the gone with the wind skit was one of the funniest things i have ever seen.

Agreed. Comedy Genious.

Is that the Purple Onion club in SANFRAN?...if so been there way back when in the AF...saw George Shearing one nite...loved it...

lawrence welk really kicks ass..

This may be even worse than Lawrence Welk. The first live concert I ever saw was in the early 60s and it was Jack Benny and a very young Wayne Newton. Wayne was very heavy in those days and he didn't even look like he was old enough to shave, although I think he was probably about 19 or 20.

I assume so? I was a seven-year-old kid in PA playing my dad's old LPs. I had no idea what a nightclub even was.

It's an interesting album in that several of the songs are folk songs just performed straight. But it's still a great album. Their intro to "They Call the Wind Maria" is a hoot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85H9dv0j5Zk

I can remember one of their albums with a song on it called Marching to Pretoria and they had a skit about the "applechain" mountains. Was that the same one?

Pardon me for being nosy but that's just me, but i'm originally from Western PA...what part are you from?
Signed,
The Question Man

That's the one! The Applechain mountains was on the intro to "Dance Boatmen Dance." (as you can tell, I listened to that album A LOT) I was too young then to get the joke about the boatmen going to town every Saturday night to pick up their oars. ;)

I grew up outside Harrisburg (my parents now live very close to Penn National), but most of my family is from Williamsport. My uncle is from Western PA- he grew up in Butler.

Where in Western PA did you grow up?

Boatmen sing, Boatmen Dance, Boatmen do most anything. Damn, now I'll be singing that to myself all night. Just pulled some of that you tube stuff up. Watched one where Jim Stafford on the Smothers Brothers show played Mason William's Classical Gas. Amazing performance.

"I'm a boatman, gee I'm sore; I came home without an oar."

Heh. NOW I get it.

I found the opening from their 1988 reunion special. They made no bones about having been fired:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP3VAm_uXdk

Boatmen
 

Here ya go GR. You should enjoy this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q34GN1ZT1Kc

That was a hoot; thanks for that. Here's the Purple Onion track (starts at about the 5 minute mark)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3yEDLSOKYI

Best history lesson ever.

You're welcome. There was another one on youtube that was the Smothers Brothers, Peter Paul and Mary and Donovan all performing together. Good stuff, but the interesting thing was that after you watched it, you could then watch a whole lot more videos of PP&M. I stayed up until about 2 watching videos of them. God, they were good. Paul Stookey singing The Wedding Song could just about move you to tears.