Yo-Yo Man (Tom Smothers) and Riley Rose

During the 2009 Sebastiani Theatre Christmas show in Sonoma, I was able to pass to Jeff Gilbert, also known as "The Last Crooner", three jokes that I had personally written for Tom Smothers to perform during his imitation of the late, great Johnny Carson.

With no advance notice, Tom looked over the jokes and with the prodding and help of Jeff Gilbert, somehow got the audience to laugh at these two.

One might hand Tommy Smothers the words to just about anything and somehow he could figure out a way (perhaps with only a look) to make an audience laugh.

Like so many Americans of my generation, my older brother Steven and I spent countless hours in our living room playing guitar, while listening to the 33 LP's of the Smothers Brothers. We would take turns being the straight man as we would cover such Smo Bro classics as "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" and "John Henry."

Not too many people can say they've written jokes that have been performed by Tom Smothers, so thank you Tom for this experience, it was truly an unexpected and a positive grand addition to an otherwise turbulent year.

Riley Rose you are a trooper

Sound Man: Greg Rank
http://gregrank.com
Video by Mary Sue Ulven

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Yo-Yo Man
• Yo
• Tom Smothers
• Tommy Smothers
• theater
• Johnny Carson
• Jeff Gilbert
• The Last Crooner
• Sebastiani Theatre
• Sonoma