Tom Smothers
Thomas Bolyn Smothers III (2 February 1937 – 26 December 2023) was born on Governors Island, New York City, and raised in Southern California. With his brother Dick he formed the comedy duo the Smothers Brothers. Smothers worked yo-yo tricks into the act, developing a largely wordless “Yo-Yo Man” routine; a 1994 Deseret News report says the term was registered in his name. The Los Angeles Times reported in 1990 that the character drew national attention on the brothers’ 1988–89 CBS series, and Billboard reported that a Yo-Yo Man instructional video launched in December 1988. In the 1990s Playmaxx, the Tucson company run by Donald F. Duncan Jr., made a Smothers Brothers yo-yo. Arizona Highways reported in March 1998 that he used Playmaxx ProYos exclusively on stage and on television, and that he headlined the 1996 Desert Yo-Yo Classic in Tucson. He died in Santa Rosa, California, at age 86.