The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

This show started as a Spring replacement show in 1988. It started off very similar to the 60s show with a mix of sketch comedy and live acts. A writer's strike started about the same time, shutting down scripted dramas, comedy and variety shows. The format quickly changed to something similar to the Ed Sullivan show. Musical guests, comedians, circus style acts, Tom doing a recurring bit as Yo-Yo Man. All using acts that required no staff writing. One recurring act was the band Celestial Navigations who were two musicians playing mostly keyboards and character actor Geoffrey Lewis who told some amazing stories set to the music. When the fall came and the scripted drama and comedy series were delayed, they brought back The Smothers Brothers for a brief second season, and they proved to be more popular to the game shows and other non-scripted options available at the time. It was a very interesting series and an interesting return to a pure variety format which was very popular in the 60s.