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August 7, 2007  He was as much at home probing Carl Perkins about the origin of rockabilly music as he was grilling James Earl Ray in prison about his conviction of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King.When Tom Snyder left us last week at the age of 71, we lost arguably the last of the era of broadcasters who did not have to rely on confrontation, argumentation, or screaming to hold our attention. Many of us who were part of the college generation of the early 1970s tapped into those night owl hours on NBC while we were cramming for mid-semester exams. Tom Snyder was the reason we stayed, night after night. We first discovered him on a Tuesday morning in the fall of 1973. “Tomorrow” was never referred to as a “show” but as a “program” by Snyder. He looked directly into the camera and told us, “I will not talk down to you.” He never did. Only 37 at the time, Snyder demonstrated that rare art of turning an interview into a conversation. He never had a clipboard. He never referred to a pat list of questions. He asked the kinds of questions we as viewers would have asked had we been face-to-face with his guests. Further, he exhibited another lost skill----the act of listening. He challenged Madalyn Murray O’Hair on her efforts to remove references to God on anything tax-supported. He nudged former Atlanta Constitution editor Reg Murphy, a kidnapping victim, into saying ransom demands should always be paid, regardless of the circumstances. He sat down with Patty Hearst to discuss the circumstances surrounding her affiliation with the Symbionese Liberation Army. Yet, some of Snyder’s most memorable broadcasts were those in which he sat chair-to-chair with some of television and radio’s pioneer broadcasters. One night in 1974, Snyder visited with some of the great announcers. Don Wilson, for four decades the sidekick of Jack Benny, described how he almost lost the job as Benny’s announcer because a network executive didn’t want him. Snyder asked him if he ever went after a job he didn't get. "Sure," said Wilson. "I tried out to become Doctor I.Q. on television. I didn't get that one." Tom Kennedy did. Hal Peary, radio’s “Great Gildersleeve,” told of how his popular comedy forced a public affairs show hosted by Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt off the air. “I finally met Mrs. Roosevelt one day and I was scared to death she was going to be angry,” Peary told Snyder. “She said, ‘Oh yes, I know Mr. Peary. He’s the one Franklin listens to when I’m on.’” Tom devoted time to our favorite genre. In 1976, Mr. Snyder gathered game show legends Bob Barker, Allen Ludden and Jack Barry for a full hour. For the first time ever in front of a national television audience, Barry apologized for his company’s role in the quiz scandals of two decades earlier. “It was wrong, it was a terrible thing to do in our industry and to the viewers,” Barry said. The same night, Ludden---a former consultant to CBS News on clothing and appearance---was challenged about the CBS News of the '70s. "Allen, surely, the executives of CBS News of Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid and Roger Mudd would not concern themselves with how their newscasters look," Snyder quipped. "Oh, but they do!," Ludden answered. Ludden was given credit by Snyder for creating G.E. College Bowl, an anointment which did not reportedly endear Tom to Don and Richard Reid, the College Bowl producers. Monty Hall dropped by for an entire hour one evening and he was fuming. Not at Tom but at People magazine. In one of the earliest issues of People, Monty was interviewed about Let's Make a Deal but the writer drifted back to 1958 when Monty was tapped to substitute for Jack Barry on Twenty One for the entire summer. "You know what this guy wrote?" Monty asked Snyder. "I'll tell you. He wrote: 'He (meaning me) had nothing to do with the quiz scandals,' he claims." Livid at the connotation "he claims" suggested, Monty said: "What if I were to come on this show and say this guy's name and say, "He has never made a mistake as a magazine writer, he claims." (Note: Monty told us 25 years later he seriously considered suing People but was advised he would spend far more money in legal fees than what he would potentially win in a libel case). Garry Moore showed up for half a show with his To Tell the Truth announcer Bill Wendell, who performed the same role for Snyder's Tomorrow during its New York originations. Leroy Anderson's "Plink, Plank, Plunk," the original theme of I've Got a Secret was played for all the bumps. "We lasted for 15 years because we were allowed to be ourselves and people accepted us for that," Garry said. "Would The Garry Moore Show work today (in 1975)?" Snyder asked. "Probably not," answered Moore. "For a time, I thought we could. But when I came back with a new variety show two years after we ended the first one, I realized---even with a younger supporting cast---people had moved on. The humor is more sophisticated and the music is different. We were right for our time but not today." Chuck Barris came on shortly after The Gong Show was renewed for its second 26 weeks. He made no bones about why he ended up hosting the daytime version of the show on NBC. "We had John Barbour doing the show," Barris said. "John was a nice guy and that was the problem. He just didn't get the point of the show. He was feeling sorry for all of the contestants who were gonged. I kept telling him: this is a show about bad talent. If you start sympathizing with the losers, you lose the entire point of the comedy. John just didn't get it. We had done two weeks of shows and we finally had to let him go. We didn't know what we were going to do. Finally, Madeleine David, who's in charge of daytime at NBC, said, 'You know what you're trying to do with this better than anyone else. Why don't you do it?" A poignant visit came from Art Linkletter, who was not there to talk about game shows, House Party or any other facet of his career. He came to discuss his role as an anti-drug crusader, a campaign which began shortly after his daughter Diane died in 1970 in the midst of a bad LSD trip. Linkletter began citing specific after specific about individual drugs and their potential damage to the human body. "You really know this stuff, Art," Snyder said. "When my daughter died, I had a choice: I could sit back and have a pity party every day....or I could do whatever I could to see that this doesn't happen to another young person." Snyder rarely failed to pay homage to broadcasters who paved the way for his success. Rarely did Tomorrow involve a studio audience but Snyder made an exception in 1976 when he reunited the stars of NBC’s maiden voyage into late night television. For one signature night, Jerry Lester, Dagmar and announcer Wayne Howell re-created Broadway Open House. Snyder did what he often did best: moved out of the way and allowed his guests to create the magic of live television. Even when Lester became a bit overbearing, Snyder let him have the run of the evening. Few people remember Snyder introduced America to The Not Ready for Prime Time Players. One week before the debut of Saturday Night Live, the nine original regulars of the weekend comedyfest showed up on a special Saturday night edition of “Tomorrow.” Little did anyone realize how those young performers were about to change television. One could depend on three things in any given week of Tomorrow. At least one interview would create water cooler conversation the next morning. Mr. Snyder would likely interject some pointed barb at the NBC supervisors who offered suggestions for his program. At some point during the week, Snyder’s chain-smoking would combine with cigarettes from his guests to create the biggest fog on an interview set in television. In 1982, when Johnny Carson opted to shrink The Tonight Show to an hour, NBC decided to expand Tomorrow to 90 minutes but ultimately performed surgery which killed it. Snyder was forced to accept gossip columnist Rona Barrett as a co-host, a live audience was incorporated and the Tomorrow: Coast to Coast took on a face which resembled NBC’s ill-fated Tonight! America After Dark 25 years earlier. On his final evening, Mr. Snyder was his typically honest self. He displayed no anger, nor bitterness. Yet, he pointedly held the network executives responsible who remade Tomorrow into something it never was. After a hiatus from national television, Snyder reinvented himself in the burgeoning field of talk radio on ABC. Eventually, CNBC offered a renaissance of Mr. Snyder’s talents with a nightly hour which became the network’s top-rated prime time offering. In 1993, the man who replaced him on NBC, David Letterman, gave Tom Snyder back to America. Letterman's Worldwide Pants was given the right to produce his lead-out hour. CBS’s The Late, Late Show never drew huge ratings but Mr. Snyder’s fans celebrated the return. Night after night for five years, the same magic was back. On the CBS edition, Snyder invited us nightly to “watch the colortinis as they fly through the air.” We followed the stories he told of his mom, affectionately referred to as “Mother Snyder.” We re-connected with that gregarious laugh, a Snyder trademark. My college pal Richard Warner, a great Atlanta broadcaster, once edited together a full minute of nothing but Snyder laughter which invariably brought the same reaction from us. Once again on CBS, Snyder gave us his outstanding gift of listening. We listened, as well, as an 84-year-old Maureen O’Hara richly detailed her 60 years in movies and television. We watched as Mr. Perkins demonstrated the unique rhythm of rockabilly. We were engaged as he interviewed his own competitor, Conan O’Brien, for a full hour one evening. He even brought Bob Barker back on just before The Price Is Right's 25th anniversary special and Barker did not dodge his behind-the-scenes travails. "Is that Dian Parkinson thing over with?" asked Snyder. "No, it isn't," Barker quickly answered. "In fact, she's facing a malicious prosecution suit for what she tried to do to me." Ultimately after five years, CBS decided the post-Letterman hour was more valuable for a younger performer and wanted younger viewers than Tom's loyalists. So, the 12:35 hour became another haven for the same type of late night television you see on every network and Comedy Central. When Tom Snyder walked away from television, he walked away for good. He only left us with extraordinary memories of how conversational and pleasant television can be without an overly-hyped studio audience, without constant on-set bickering, and when one listens to one’s guests. Recently, at Game Show Congress in Hollywood, I said, “We have too many television legends to honor and not enough time to do it.” Leukemia took Tom Snyder too soon. Here’s a final colortini for all of the hours of intelligent television he gave us.   Miss Francis' gowns by Bonwit Teller © Copyright 2006 TVgameshows.net. All Rights Reserved. |
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