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The Who Have a Blast on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
Hope I’m deaf before I get old
“I have severe hearing damage. It’s manifested itself as tinnitus, ringing in the ears at frequencies that I play guitar. It hurts, it’s painful, and it’s frustrating.” — Pete Townsend
A defining moment in television and rock and roll history occurred on September 17, 1967, when the Who appeared on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The band performed their soon-to-be anthem “My Generation” (Hope I die before I get old!), trashed their instruments and stage gear, and, as the grand finale, an explosion from Keith Moon’s drum kit.
It was a prank meant as harmless good fun by the notoriously devilish Moon. He had a stagehand load his kick drum with explosives prior to the band’s performance. Typical Moon shenanigans. But when they were detonated, Moon was injured by shrapnel from a broken cymbal and thrown to the floor.
Singer Roger Daltrey went to check on Moon while the stage began to fill with smoke. The explosion was so forceful it blew guitarist Pete Townsend’s hair to one side and cost him 90 percent of his hearing. However, he still managed to smash Tommy Smothers’ acoustic guitar as Smothers looked on in semi-shock at the chaos.
The kids, of course, loved it. Their parents, of course, did not.
Despite their clean-cut appearance, the Smothers Brothers pushed the boundaries of what was considered appropriate for a comedy-variety program of its era. Pete Seeger made his first television appearance (since being blacklisted in 1950) on the show’s first episode of their second season in September 1967. His performance of “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” was removed from the broadcast after he refused to remove a verse from the song that CBS found offensive.
Season three opened with Harry Belafonte performing “Lord, Don’t Stop the Carnival” against a backdrop of the violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. CBS deleted this entire segment as well. This left the show a full five minutes short. The network sold the time to the Republican Party to run…
