Comedian Tom Smothers, one-half of the Smothers Brothers, no more

Smothers Brothers would prove a turning point in television history, with their sharp eye for pop culture trends

Tom Smothers, half of the Smothers Brothers and the co-host of one of the most socially conscious and groundbreaking television shows in the history of the medium, has died at 86. The National Comedy Center, on behalf of his family, said in a statement Wednesday that Smothers died on Tuesday at home in Santa Rosa, California, following a cancer battle.

“I'm just devastated,” his brother and the duo's other half, Dick Smothers, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. “Every breath I’ve taken, my brother’s been around.”

When The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour debuted on CBS in the fall of 1967 it was an immediate hit, to the surprise of many who had assumed the network’s expectations were so low it positioned their show opposite the top-rated Bonanza.

But the Smothers Brothers would prove a turning point in television history, with its sharp eye for pop culture trends and young rock stars such as the Who and Buffalo Springfield, and its daring sketches — ridiculing the Establishment, railing against the Vietnam War and portraying members of the era's hippie counterculture as gentle, fun-loving spirits — found an immediate audience with young baby boomers.

“We were moderate. We were never out there,” Dick Smothers said. “But we were the first people through that door. It just sort of crept in as the '60s crept in. We were part of that generation.”

The show reached No. 16 in the ratings in its first season. It also drew the ire of network censors. After years of battling with the brothers over the show's creative content, the network abruptly cancelled the program in 1970, accusing the siblings of failing to submit an episode in time for the censors to review.

Nearly 40 years later, when Smothers was awarded an honorary Emmy for his work on the show, he jokingly thanked the writers he said had gotten him fired. He also showed that the years had not dulled his outspokenness.