They were a showbiz killer app of the Kennedy years, beneficiaries of both the folk music boom and a similar one in stand-up comedy, plus they had a clean-cut suburban look and image, for those who would have preferred four more years of Ike. There was Tom (on guitar), the actual boss, though he was the goofy, spacy one onstage, and Dick (on upright bass), the stern straight man. The songs were just a prop for their comedy routines. They leveraged their fame into a short-lived sitcom (see: magic sitcoms), and later into a variety show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour; by the end of the 60s, they had become pariahs to many in their original bourgeois and Middle American audience, and heroes to the politically disaffected.