David Bianculli

For almost forty years, Bianculli has been the television critic for NPR's Fresh Air. In this book, he attempts to trace the history of television, genre by genre, exploring how we got from the so-called "golden age" of the 1950s to today's "quality TV" era, which he calls the platinum age.

Each of his eighteen chapters summarizes the history and development of one TV genre -- crime, workplace sitcoms, spies -- going into more depth on five key shows in that evolution. The landmarks in the show more spies chapter, for instance, are The Avengers, Mission: Impossible, Alias, Homeland, and The Americans.

Throughout, Bianculli points out important relationships -- writer X got his start on show Y before becoming a star on show Z -- and unexpected connections. I never knew that the creators of Scooby-Doo drew inspiration for their four main characters from 60s sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, but I'll never again be able to not see them that way.

Scattered between the chapters are about two dozen interviews/profiles of individual TV creators, each one placed after the chapter to which they made the biggest contribution. While it is true that television history (like most history) has, until recently, been overwhelmingly dominated by white men, I still think Bianculli could have more of an effort to diversify his subjects, which include only three women (Carol Burnett, Amy Schumer, and Michelle King in a joint interview with her husband Robert) and one person of color (Larry Wilmore). The interviews also get a bit repetitive. The careers of Bianculli's subjects overlap, and he's not averse to using the same anecdote in multiple chapters (Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, for instance).

The book was published in 2016, and even in those few years, there are things that would Bianculli would probably update for a new edition. There would not be glowing profiles of Kevin Spacey and Louis C.K., for one thing. (The Cosby Show is included as a touchstone show in the family sitcom chapter, as it should be, and Bianculli does an excellent job of explaining both why the show mattered and why revisiting the show is always going to be uncomfortable.)

An updated book would have to include a chapter on reality TV, a glaring omission in the book even in 2016; I would also have liked chapters on game shows and news programming. To his credit, Bianculli acknowledges in his conclusion that even a book of nearly 600 pages couldn't get to everything, and lists several other genres he had to skip over.

And one can argue with the selected highlight shows; that's half the fun of a book like this. Surely the crime chapter should have highlighted something earlier than Hill Street Blues (Dragnet? The Untouchables?), and by no stretch of the imagination does the six-season Downton Abbey belong in the miniseries chapter.

But these are the quibbles of a mildly obsessive TV fan. On the whole, this is a delightful overview of television history, and Bianculli does a fine job of tracking the trends and shifts that got us from Bullwinkle to South Park, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Girls. show less

If you grew up in the United States, and were born after 1960 or so, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour may be the most significant television program you’ve never heard of.

It ran for only three seasons (1967-1969), but in that time it was television’s premier showcase for up-and-coming musical acts and topical humor. It booked some of the leading musical acts of the late sixties—Donovan, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, and the Who—and broke the 17-year network-television blacklist of show more folksinger Pete Seeger, but its impact on comedy was even greater. Guided by Tom Smothers, who produced helped to write the show as well as sharing hosting duties with his younger brother Dick, Comedy Hour joked about once-taboo subjects (sex, drugs, religion) and hot-button political issues such as race relations and the Vietnam War. It was something unheard of at the time (and still rare): an entertainment program with a distinct political point-of-view.

The show’s constant pushing of the envelope made battles between the creative staff and the network censors inevitable, and Tom’s combative personality, and fierce commitment to his political principles intensified them. Both the network and the nation acquired new, more conservative presidents during the show’s third and final season, making the battles even more ferocious. CBS eventually won the battle—terminating the brothers’ contract on a flimsy legal pretext—but it lost culture war. The Smothers Brothers became heroes to the young, the educated, and the politically engaged . . . and inspirations for virtually every topical-comedy program that has aired on American television since.

David Bianculi sets out, in Dangerously Funny, to recount the history of the show and make a case for its significance. Both parts work brilliantly. The narrative of the show’s three seasons is meticulously detailed, but the details are carefully chosen to make the case for the Smothers Brothers as powerful, influential voices in a turbulent time. Bianculi writes with the warmth and enthusiasm of a fan, but the discrimination and analytical bent of a cultural historian. He takes care to move beyond “Isn’t it cool that Pete Seeger appeared on the show?” and into why—at that particular moment in 1968—it was revolutionary.

Dangerously Funny is, as a result of Bianculi’s eye for detail and ear for dialogue, not just a great book about a legendary television series—it’s an important contribution to our understanding of America in the 1960s. show less

If you remember the Smothers Brothers, read this book for a tiptoe thru the tulips (I know it was on a competing show, but timeliness was the aim) buried under the neiges d'antan. If either phrase has left you scratching your wig-holder, look THAT up in your Funk and Wagnalls.

But don't read this rather dense, somewhat longwinded recap of the three-season run of the Smothers Brothers's show. It will mean little to you, and the density of the behind-the-scenes material won't fascinate. The show more author clearly knows his onions about TV, about the time period, and about the brothers. His style isn't sparkling, but it is very informative and it's never dry. Just thick. Like a fallen souffle, it still has the savor but the texture's just a little off.

I grew up on Smothers Brothers material because my sisters are both much older than I am, so were listening to their albums, and Kingston Trio albums, and Vaughn Meader albums, and Bob Newhart albums. *sigh* What a way to grow up. Then along came the Beatles, and out went everything else...except the Smothers Brothers, the eldest sister was a granola-and-granny-gowns girl to the horror of our Balenciaga-wearing mother.

So along comes the TV show the clean-cut young men put on, on Sunday night opposite "Bonanza" which neither of my parents cared diddly about (if it had been opposite "Gunsmoke" I'd've never even heard of it); the closing-in-on-50 mom and closing-in-on-40 dad tried to be gravy (joke on "groovy," slang of the times...they were as inept at modern slang as I am, and you will be, youngsters) by watching it with their teens and the caboose.

We all loved it. Pat Paulsen was so funny that my arch-conservative parents thought he was the highlght of the show with his first-time-ever-done fake run for President. My sisters loved "Share Tea with Goldie", with a flower child making in-jokes about drugs that Mama and Daddy didn't get. I was in love with Mason Williams, of "Classical Gas" fame. Still one of my very favorite pieces of pop music, up there with "In Your Eyes" and "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel.

No one used dirty words. No one was more than mildly salacious, to my father's disgruntlement. But everyone was ethically opposed to the Vietnam war, and my mother's nephew was a Navy pilot at risk, plus she'd lost "someone close" in the Ia Drang battle (never discussed in detail, quite mysterious), so we as a family were opposed to the unwinnable war (Dad's name for it).

Hard to imagine now, in this fractured entertainment landscape, but the Smothers Brothers drew 35% (THIRTY-FIVE PERCENT) of the TV-viewing audience...and got canceled! If someone drew a 35% share today, the network execs would offer their grandchildren as slaves and their houses as rewards to the people who delivered such monster ratings. Then, well...that was just ordinary. What wasn't ordinary was the men delivering the ratings were young and idealistic and ready to talk about things that were taboo (eg, religious hypocrisy, racial politics) without hesitation. The people who watched the Smothers Brothers were mostly young, mostly rich, mostly well-educated and almost always all three. What an audience!!

And they got canceled.

Even my arch-conservative parents thought that was stupid. "Can't stop people thinkin' and best not to try," said Mama. "What's the use of a Constitution if you can only agree with powerful people?" asked Dad.

Yeah. That's what I'm sayin' after reading this book. They didn't back down from any fight, and they lost the war...but damn, it's hard not to admire their spirit. Tommy, though, comes across as a self-righteous little pisher and Dickie as a self-absorbed bore. But hey, they fought a good fight and today's TV landscape looks the way it does in good part because of these guys and their irritating ways.

Someone give them a show, quick! They're still alive, but who knows for how long! show less

When I was young I discovered records by The Smothers Brothers in my family records collections and became a fan of their witty interpretations of folk music classics. I even went to see them perform live one time and was sorely disappointed by what felt like a phoned-in performance. The show was days after The Gulf War began in 1991 and since I knew the Smothers Brothers' tv show was notoriously anti-war during the Vietnam era and expected some commentary on the contemporary situation but show more there was none to be had.

Well, I can't explain that bad show but after reading Bianculli's book I've learned much about their great show that aired for three seasons on CBS in the the late 1960s. The first thing I learned is that the Smothers Brothers are unlike their onstage personas. Tommy Smothers, the dumb brat in the act is actually the brains behind it all. Bianculli depicts Tom as a keen talent scout giving young musicians tv exposure before they had mainstream appeal and hiring great comedians and writers (many of the musicians, comedians, and writers would go on to greater fame). It was also Tommy who would lead the fight against network censors to who tried to squelch political and anti-war speech in the show. While the network censorship battles are detailed with all the gory details and seem unfair (and often absurd due to how tame the Smother Brothers show seems in retrospect), Bianculli also show that Tom Smother over-earnest desire to fight fanned the flames of the show's demise.

Each episode is described in detail with Bianculli emphasizing the innovation, stand-out performances, and counter-cultural undertones of the shows. The backstage story is also rollicking with humorous anecdotes of multiple generations of entertainers working on the show. The show didn't last long but its legacy remains. Bianculli credits the Smothers Brothers with laying the groundwork for innovative shows of the 1970s from Saturday Night Live to M*A*S*H to the comedies of Norman Lear. I need to find the DVDs and catch up. show less