A huge influence...

[Roger Kettle]

Smothers Brothers- I Talk to the Trees
As I've mentioned before, my sister brought back an L.P. of these guys from The States in 1967. It had a huge effect on me as a 16 year-old and the Smothers Brothers immediately joined Spike Milligan and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as my favourite comedians. Okay, the humour in this clip has dated a bit but I still love it. As for its influence....Dennis is on the left and Beau is on the right.

[Tarquin Thunderthighs lll]

I remember watching them as a kid, Roger. Very funny guys - not sure that YouTube clip does them justice. As I often do when these names from the past crop up, I tapped their names into a search engine, and not only found out that both brothers are still alive, well and in their 70s, but also that they only retired from touring together in May of this year. Remarkable!

Here's a picture of them I found from 2004...

[The Peepmaster]

I remember seeing the Smother Brothers on TV when I was just a young kid, (and Roger would have been around 42).

At a similar time I "discovered" an LP by Bob Newhart, which I loved. Flying back from HK recently, I was delighted to see that Emirates had a large choice of Bob Newhart sketches to listen to. He was brilliant with his monologues, humour, and timing etc.

[Roger Kettle]

Agreed, Nige--I loved Bob Newhart.

[Malc]

I think we've talked about this previously, Roger, but I never tire of the subject of influences.
The Smothers Brothers were almost unknown in the UK when I was growing up, but as a kid who lived in Germany at the time it was twice as unlikely that I'd hear about them from British sources. Luckily, I went to school with US servicemens kids and they had LPs of the Smothers, of Newhart, of Cosby, and (later) Cheech and Chong, so I got a good grounding on what was coming out of the States.
The two things I most admire about the Smothers is that (a) they never lost sight of their "brand". They still do the famous "take it" sketch today, decades after they did it on b&w TV with new twists, and (b) they had the immense courage to stand up to the right wing political elements, be advocates for liberalism and be edgy. In fact they lost their TV show over their unwillingness to ramp down their criticism of the right wing elements and big business.