On another episode, the show welcomed blacklisted folk singer Pete Seeger — he’d been banned from television for years. He sang his “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” a song widely understood to ridicule President Lyndon Johnson for the Vietnam War. CBS refused to air the segment, but Tom and Dick brought Seeger back and he sang it again, this time making the air. Segments like these, along with others poking fun at religion, racism and the establishment, led to CBS giving the brothers the ax.
The song started out with clips from other US war protest songs going back to the 1800s: https://youtu.be/qHETC5qAnqo?si=7OIaA0nxsy3h0rlH
Edit link to article: https://www.cracked.com/article_40618_the-late-tommy-smothers-was-canceled-back-when-that-meant-something.html
This hits different knowing that at this time CBS was balls deep with Navy contracts to build nuclear reactors for submarines and aircraft carriers.
Edit: I stand corrected. They did not buy CBS until 1995. I knew CBS owned the liabilities for Westinghouse from the 50’s onward, didn’t realize it only began in 1995.
CBS wasn’t owned by Westinghouse until 1995.
Were they?? The hell?
Yeah, by it’s now-former parent company, Westinghouse.
GE, who made the other half of our nuclear propulsion systems, bought it’s own network in the 80’s, NBC.
Oh yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Cbs didn’t have anything to do with i manufacturing though, so a bit weird to say it was CBS.
Incorrect. CBS owned and operated a tv and radio manufacturing arm, acquired Fender musical instruments and rolled their separate manufacturing arm under the Fender design name. They bought toy companies, the X-Acto knife company, all again making stuff while owned wholly by CBS.
CBS even had its own R&D lab which ran for 50 years, again killed in the 80s, including development of military tech.
Then in the 80s the divestment era hit wall st and everything was sold off, including the company itself in the 90s.
Either way, CBS didn’t manufacture nuclear components from what I can tell.
Thanks for the explanation though.
No. Not until 1995. CBS was more or less its own thing until then.
Stealth progressives.
Was there supposed to be a link to an article where that quote is from? I’d love to read it, but not seeing a link
Whoops I guess the youtube link killed it: https://www.cracked.com/article_40618_the-late-tommy-smothers-was-canceled-back-when-that-meant-something.html
Thanks!
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Don’t forget the song from Harry Belafonte (who also died this year) that was recorded for The Smothers Brothers but didn’t see the light of day until 1993
