Tom Synder: TOMMORROW

Television:

I don't know whether Snyder had writers on "Tomorrow," but unlike most such hosts, he wasn't a comic. Save for an ill-fated experiment in "variety" toward the end of its run, there was no attempt at comedy, apart from the sort of funny stories and not-always-successful jokes (usually directed toward the crew) that anyone might tell killing time before work began. There was no monologue, no cast of wacky characters, no stupid human tricks besides the ones that the guests naturally brought with them -- as when Wendy O. Williams, of the punkish Plasmatics, memorably destroyed a television, and topped it on a return engagement by demolishing a car.That the Plasmatics had a return engagement speaks [email protected] http://www.latimes.com/entertainment

Books:

Ayn Rand on “The Tomorrow Show” On July 2, 1979, Ayn Rand was interviewed by Tom Snyder, proving to be an articulate and entertaining guest. Tom: Now you’ve seen the real Charles Manson. Hardly the glowering, sinister and assertive mastermind that was pictured of his life before and after the Tate/LaBianca killings in Los Angeles. The real Charles Manson appears to be confused and frightened. Confused if you recall his admission that we look at ourselves to better understand him. Yet each time I pressed him on the details of the murders, Manson couldn’t even look at himself, nor his relationships with his mother, his wife and his son. And he’s frightened. During our conversation, you recall Manson said “I’m living aren’t I? They let me live didn’t they?” followed by that little nervous laugh. The man does not want to die. I think he’s frightened by death and I think he is as scared of us as we are of him. I get the feeling he’ll be quite content to spend the rest of his life playing mind games in the jail house. And I also believe that Charles Manson knows exactly what he’s done. A word about what you might think was my belligerence with Manson. I lived in Los Angeles all during his trial. I still live there from time to time. In a quiet neighborhood just across the canyon from where Sharon Tate and the others were murdered. At work by day I broadcast the six o’clock news in Los Angeles. The whole story of the trial. The shaved heads, the carved foreheads, the harangues and threats in the court room. And by night I tried to assure my young daughter, that yes even though the murder house was close by, Charles Manson and company were under lock and key and there would be no creepy crawlers in the night. So it was that Manson I was listening to, not the one that sits alone in a far away prison, where baring a most perverse miracle, he will spend the rest of his life. Thank you everybody for watching and goodnight. thelede.blogs.nytimes.com As Tom Snyder was about to break for a commercial, Johnny Rotten hissed and pleaded, “Humor me.”Snyder replied, with a sideways glance, “Not for long.”Beautiful.— Posted by Chicago readerI have been a huge fan since the start of the Tomorrow Show. I will miss him. He was not only a truly brilliant interviewer, he did it with a pinache that is rarely seen. I still wonder why his eyebrow fell out all those years ago and that he considered a woman with a good apetite for food someone with an apetite for - other things. People who wouldn’t be interviewed by anyone were interviewed by him…they beat a path to his set. I literally lost sleep in order to watch his shows and never regretted the time. Thanks Tom.— Posted by RustyI met TS twice. The first time was outside the ABC studios in NYC when he was doing his overnight radio show in the early 90s. (I was later a guest, on the Late Late Show with Tom Snyder and Elliott Forest, but was interviewed by Elliott, Tom’s co-host.) The second time we met was at CBS’s television City, in November or December of ‘96, shortly I moved to LA, and after a taping of his show. I rode my bicycle passed the security guard and through the parking lot as Tom and his producer were leaving the studio. We had a long chat, and I gave him some tapes of my cable TV talk show, Russel Harvey Almost Live. He said he’d watch them. Who knows if he ever did? Tom was a major influence on my work, and I told him so. I was in awe. He was one of the few people I’ve ever been nervous talking to, (the others were Jerry Lewis and Francis Ford Coppola), though he quickly put me at ease. He said, “what are you nervous about? You’re a nice young man and we’re just talking.” We talked of my ambitions as a broadcaster and he gave me some sage advice. Coincidentally, during the years he did the Tomorrow show, Tom lived very near to my childhood home. I grew up on the Larchmont side of the Winged Foot Golf Club, and Tom lived on the Mamaroneck side. He shopped at Fava’s market almost every day. In August ‘96, I had driven a U-Haul out to LA, and was staying in a Hampton Inn while I was looking for an apartment. I was on the phone with Angelina Jolie, my closest friend in LA, at the time, (long story, for another show). The TV was on mute, but I noticed Jon Voight was popping up on Tom’s show. I said to Angelina, “Hey, you’re dad’s on Tom Snyder.” She said, “when?” I said, “right now. It’s just starting.” Angie said, “Oh, I’ve got to watch that.” That’s the kind of guy Tom was: he could even bring Angelina Jolie and Jon Voight together. Russel Harvey http://www.RusselHarvey.com http://www.myspace.com/Russel_Harvey— Posted by Russel HarveyHis program was addictive- a true “no-spin zone” in his hands. He was great- I love Letterman today, but was incredibly disappointed when he bumped Snyder off the air. One of the greatest talk shows ever- you saw celebrities behind the mask. It was shocking.— Posted by auramacOnly Snyder could bring you to tears, laughter and solumn awe at an interview-then have as a guest somone playing a stringed I-beam as a cello…the whole time making you think as well as enjoying yourself. Goodbye Tom. Maybe you can interview God in Heaven.— Posted by DaveA great TV moment nobody noticed: TS had Melvin Dummars, the guy who claimed that he’d come across Howard Hughes in the desert outside Las Vegas and had given him a lift, and that HH had then left him tons of money–he had a copy of a will, I believe. There was a moment when the subject of the talk was the terrible condition HH had got into at the end of his life–when those inner-circle Mormons (I think they were) had him isolated–when suddenly the camera left whoever was speaking (Tom, or maybe Melvin’s lawyer, who was there) and closed in tight on Melvin’s face. Tom didn’t seem to have noticed, but the director evidently had: There was a shiny trail of tears down Melvin Dummars’ cheek. He explained then, absolutely artlessly I’d swear, that it was just that his friend Howard had been a nice man who shouldn’t have been treated that way.— Posted by George ErnsbergerMy favorite guest list of his, one night in 1978: Ed “Too Tall” Jones and the Dalai Lama. Not together, unfortunately. Tom, of course, would have seen nothing odd in the pairing. His curiosity was, so to speak, omnivorous.— Posted by estivOne of my favorite Tom Snyder quotes is about death. He said people always say when speaking about the possibility of someone dying “God forbid. And do you now what ? He never does.”— Posted by LDBGoodbye my friend. I was saddened to hear of Tom’s passing. Like others, I felt as if watching his Late Late show was akin to chatting with a friend. Tom unknowingly got me through some tough nights (or early mornings) where I was learning to deal with anxiety/panic attacks. I don’t know if it was his sense of humor, the timbre in his voice, or those hearty open-mouthed laughs, or all of the above that would make me forget why I was still awake! The most memorable TV moments were the final week of his show, where the always-delightful Bonnie Hunt and the surprisingly-hilariously-funny Alec Baldwin were guests. I have NEVER heard a talkshow host laugh so hard in my life. I too, had hoped he would make another appearance on television, but I guess he was content with his off-air life. Again, goodbye my friend, you are now with your beloved Mom & Oliver. Thanks for the good times however brief…— Posted by Lenny D. (from Mtl, QC)I was a producer for Tom — back at ABC in the summer he was hired to fill in before Oprah arrived. All his producers were women, and we all suffered for being so. Staff and execs saw us as the stopgap we were and it would have been an intolerable gig but for Tom — who would say after every show “another stinkbomb fucking show” but who was always proud of the work we did for him — no matter how trivial (and seriously, throwing to Paul was a trial for Tom). I will NEVER forget, however, how Tom handled to explosion of the Shuttle Challenger — he cancelled the “celebrity twins” show and focused entirely on Challenger and what that tragedy meant to all of us. I was privliged to produce that show and to know Tom — as a fair, caring, informed and dedicated journalist. I admired him enormously and always will.— Posted by MJSI recall his early days in Philly. He was a matinee idol, my sister and her friends all had crushes on him. He was bigger than life and he quickly left Philly for New York and national stardom. But he was always the same Tom and he always was himself and this came through clearly and made us feel like he was asking the questions just like we would like to. So long Tom Mark— Posted by Mark PolowayThirty-five years ago, I was a news editorial assistant at KNBC in Los Angeles, where Tom Snyder was the 6 p.m. news anchor (Tom Brokaw was the 11 p.m. anchor). Since I was the first female to hold the EA position, I was always the butt of “women’s lib” jokes, and Tom Snyder — who in all ways was the star of that newsroom — was the leader of the pack. In fact, for my 25th birthday, he wrote and read a series of hysterical “telegrams” purportedly from broadcast news bigwigs. Tom taught me how to play at work; he was bigger than life and loved to dump wastebaskets (in those days filled with typewriter paper) on people’s heads. It was the Fischer/Spassky era of chess, and he I played — I always losing to his aggressive, caution-be-damned style. But Tom was so much more to me than an engaging broadcast icon — he was an accessible icon. One day, overcome with the worries of an uncertain professional future at the advanced age of 25, I timidly knocked on his office door and asked to see him, intuiting he would be the right person to talk to. He was. He took the time to not only talk to me about MY career aspirations, but also to share personal thoughts about his own. When I left NBC to move on to other broadcast news opportunities, he took me out for a farewell drink — but in true Tom Snyder style, it wasn’t a quiet cocktail over subdued conversation. Instead, he ordered me a Harvey Wallbanger and taught me a raucous drinking song that literally knocked me off my chair.Ah, Tom — no matter how many imitations of you there were, they never held a candle to the real thing.— Posted by Paulette LeeThe Fat Lady sang at the end of Tom’s final late night television broadcast. Even after the TV picture faded to black, the audience couldn’t let go. We sat silent, tears flowing, mourning the end of a great late night affair which lasted for years. Finally, Peter Allen, a favorite of Tom’s and a guest on this final program, ventured out on the stage to sing and attempt to lift the spirits of the audience, at least enough so we could gather enough strength to be ushered out of the studio. We were already missing him that night and we miss him many times more tonight. The opera is over.— Posted by JB WARD KIMBALL WITH TOM SNYDER
An amazing 45-minute interview from Tom Snyder's NBC talkshow Tomorrow, ca. 1978.---------------------------------------------- After Tomorrow: Tom Snyder (born May 12, 1936 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American television personality best known for The Tomorrow Show. Soon after the cancellation of The Tomorrow Show, Snyder worked as a New York news anchor on WABC-TV's Eyewitness News. In 1985, he returned to the talk format at KABC-TV in Los Angeles, with a local afternoon show he had planned to gear up for national syndication the following year; those plans were scratched after Oprah Winfrey's Chicago-based show entered the market first and took over Snyder's time slot on KABC-TV.
An older, slightly more mellow Tom returned to virtually the same format on ABC Radio. The show's format was a natural for Tom an hour chatting with a celebrity guest, an hour with someone in the news and an hour chatting with his legion of fans. Occasionally the caller would be a well known fan like David Letterman or Ted Koppel. The "Tom Snyder Show," for ABC Radio Networks went off the air in late 1992, Tom then returned to television on CNBC in the early '90s, adding the opportunity for viewers to call in with their own questions for his guests. Snyder nicknamed his show "the Colorcast," reviving an old promotional term NBC-TV used in the early 1960s to hype its color broadcasts. Meanwhile, Letterman had moved on to CBS and was given control of creating a new program to follow his at 12:35 am; Letterman—who had idolized Snyder for years — hired Snyder in 1995 as host of The Late Late Show. (The idea had actually begun as a running joke on Letterman's show, that Snyder would soon follow him on the air as he'd once followed Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show; the unlikely suggestion caught on.) This show aired live on the East Coast and was simulcast to other time zones on radio to allow everyone a chance to call in. (Snyder's CNBC show was taken over, largely unchanged in format, by Charles Grodin.) In 1999 Snyder left The Late Late Show, which was then reformatted for new host Craig Kilborn. It has since been turned over to Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson.
He also hosted a video called "A Century of Legendary Lionel Trains", commemorating 100 years of Lionel Trains. Additionally, he hosted a model train video called "Celebrity Train Layouts 2: Tom Snyder." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Snyder

Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air

Heroes:

David Letterman was obviously a major fan, and put Snyder .. his own show when he moved to CBS. My second favorite moment from Snyder's Late Late Show was an interview he did with Robert Blake (prior to Blake's, uh, troubles), when Blake told a story about shooting a movie in New Orleans --- one night he spies a guy running full speed away from a number of pursuers. As the guy gets closer, he sees it's Steve McQueen, who yells "Run Bobby!" Blake starts running with McQueen, who eventually takes off on his own, leaving the angry guys chasing Blake --- they corner Blake and seem about to pound him when out of nowhere McQueen reappears on a fire escape, with a shotgun, and chases the mob off with a warning shot. Snyder loved it (he had Blake on a number of times and seemed to really get a kick out of his stories)
My favorite moment on the Late Late Show came about a week or two later, when TS had Letterman on. Dave started off with, "I was in New Orleans with Steve McQueen..." http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2007/07/tom-snyder.html There was a touch of Edward R. Murrow in Tom Snyder. He would sit back in a chair, cigarette dangling in one hand, and very formally inform the audience that his guest that night was “Mr. Johnny Rotten”. kenlevine.blogspot.com/2007/07/tom-snyder.html Bits and pieces of Snyder in his element, and in his glory, circulated yesterday on the latest medium to threaten television, the Internet. There was Snyder again, grilling guests pugnaciously or roaring that expansive laugh. On a computer monitor, the pictures were small again -- but Tom Snyder was still a giant. On July 30, 2007, Conan O' Brien honored Snyder during his late night show on NBC, by detailing during an extended monologue about how Snyder influenced him and how Snyder was a guest on one of his first shows. After his monologue, O'Brien also paid tribute to Snyder, saying that the nation had lost a great television personality.