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In 1988 the Smothers Brothers returned to the air with a special edition of their comedy hour, which had been on CBS 1967-69. They used some of their oldest routines yet the jokes are still as fresh and timely today as they were in 1988. Here is the opener.

Born in 1900, the daughter of Jewish, socialist immigrants, who ran a tailor shop patronizes by US Navy personnel in Long Beach, CA. Malvina Milder, by this time married to Communist organizer, union carpenter,William Reynolds, earned her PHD in English at UC Berkeley in 1939. she couldn’t get a teaching position at the college level, being a Jewish female socialist so she went to work as a social worker, wrote a column for the People’s World and worked in a bomb factory assembly line during WWII. In the late 1940s Reynolds met Pete Seeger at a political event and became interested in songwriting. She returned to Berkely to study music theory and began writing songs. “Little Boxes,” “What Have They Done To The Rain” and “Turn Around” were all her songs.

Most of Malvina Reynolds’ songs had a social or political message. In this video she is on Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest television show, on a local TV station in New York. With her are Pete, in full bad sweater mode, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

Bob Dylan came into the 1963 Newport Folk Festival as an up and coming young songwriter, who had written a song “Blowing In The Wind,” which had been a hit for Peter Paul and Mary. By the time he left the festival Bob Dylan was a media superstar. In this clip he invites Pete Seeger, The Freedom Singers, Joan Baez and Peter Paul & Mary onto the stage to sing his hit song.