General Discussion

Trump not first president to fume over comedy skits

...The weekly show hosted by folk-singing brothers Tom and Dick Smothers regularly skewed Johnson and his Vietnam War policies. The brothers sang the "Draft Dodger Rag" by Phil Ochs with such lines as, "I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma's getting worse."

When the United States imposed a travel ban to foreign countries, Tom Smothers looked at the camera and said, "OK all you guys in Vietnam, come on home." On the show, LBJ impersonator David Frye even joked about the president's "semi-beautiful daughters."

Johnson's two young daughters, Lynda and Luci, were fans of the highly watched show. But even they reportedly were upset about a mild skit on the top secret ingredients of LBJ's barbecue sauce. Johnson apparently was bugged to learn on the show that "the Russians were 20 years ahead of us in barbecue sauce," said one of the show's writers, Saul Illam.

For LBJ, it was the last straw. In the middle of the night, he phoned CBS head William Paley about the Smothers Brothers, demanding that the TV executive "get those bastards off my back." That day Paley asked the heads of CBS entertainment shows to get the brothers to back off, according to author David Bianculli in his book, "Dangerously Funny. The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour."

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https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/entertainment/television/2019/03/22/trump-not-first-president-to/5646232007/