Tom Snyder's Tomorrow -- A Breakthrough in the Night

 

Tom Snyder's classic grasp of viewers'

First World problems

 Not just cursing the darkness, but lighting a candle.

 

In 1973, American TV was three networks, half-hour newscasts, the polite comedy of Carol Burnett and a long procession of strong-jawed cops named Kojak, Banacek, McCloud and Harry O.

All in the Family was past its peak, the cynicism of St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues was yet to come, Letterman was still in Indy and Donahue in Dayton, and Walter Cronkite could not have imagined Colbert and Stewart’s live audiences.

Television was an industry resting comfortably, its finances and ratings still unchallenged by cable or the Internet. And though Richard Nixon was falling before their eyes, newscasters, actors and producers felt the American system overall was legitimate, so TV programs were deferential to the power structure.

But in late 1973, the staid institution of television was about to get a little cooler. NBC quietly gave a few intrepid viewers a more edgy and street-smart talk show than the straight up Mike Douglass, the glittering Merv Griffin, or the iconic and aloof Johnny Carson.

Tom Snyder began hosting “Tomorrow” on NBC after Carson’s Tonight Show, at a weeknight time slot drawing 2nd shift workers, insomniacs or school kids planning to play hooky. In other words, people just a little off the mainstream.

Immediately, the deep-voiced brawny Milwaukee native with the big smile and even bigger eyebrows began appealing to such viewers, cutting through the formality of network TV with a fun rebelliousness. Snyder often would turn to an unseen stage person for a little on-air banter. Sometimes he’d ask them how that night’s intro’s special effect was done, using the unscripted spontaneity of today’s in-home YouTubes, though the voice and delivery of the longtime news anchorman were fully professional.

Though respectful and engaging toward his guests, Tom Snyder would frequently rag on the layers of phoniness of his industry -- even his own employer.

“A man coming back from Disneyland asked a gas station employee where he could buy his kid a Mickey Mouse outfit. The employee responded, ‘Why don’t you buy him NBC?’ “

A booming laugh, or a sly grin would follow such comments, then Snyder would glide to the next segment or guest, always while wielding his cigarette and seated so laidback he could have been in a beanbag chair.

 John Lennon in 1975 on the music world,

 and the "bed in" for peace. 

Watching Tomorrow was like dropping in at your fav used bookstore to exchange observations with the bohemian owner. The TV screen disappeared, as though you were there with Tom Snyder and his guests. You weren’t confused or put off by his constantly talking to some off-camera person you never knew.

That device wasn’t Snyder’s only breaking of TV protocol. There was also his light regard for the powerful.

This reached a then-shocking high point in 1976 when he read before the nation a brief letter from President Ford’s re-election committee asking him to endorse the president. Snyder read it politely and professionally then, saying nothing, vigorously crumpled the letter up and thrust it toward the floor, smiling all the way as he casually segued to the next segment.

Tom Snyder’s politics weren’t left or right, but anti-orthodoxy, whether that meant hammering the hypocrisy of anti-communist bombast Billy James Hargis in 1977, or the next year reading a news story about an Inspector General report alleging that $6 billion was misspent by the department of Health, Education and Welfare.

“This isn’t six million. This is six with nine zeros after it,” Snyder said. “Bureaucracy in action, and you can depend on it!”

 

In New York, Tom shows how to start a show. The buzz eases you into watching.

 

                        ...And those effortless Segues
                                  He seemed to be at leisure rather than at work 
 

The more political Tomorrow interviews were with guests ranging from Huey Newton lauding the Cuban revolution of Fidel Castro, to Ayn Rand lauding, well, very different ideas.

Snyder’s quintessential interviews were with stars and fringe characters from pop culture, such as grown up Our Gang actors, original Star Trek cast members; Mickey Dolenz and Davy Jones 10 years after The Monkees TV show peaked; and a group of sidekick announcers including George Fenneman of Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life and Don Wilson, the second banana to Jack Benny.

                 Tom and Trekkies: a natural combo

 

Tomorrow underwent changes to try to reverse a drop in ratings in the early ‘80s, including the addition of a live audience and a nightly segment with Rona Barrett. NBC cancelled Tomorrow in 1982, but Tom Snyder reprised the show’s format twice in the ‘90s, on a cable show, then on CBS’ The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder, which ended in 1999. Six years later Snyder announced he had chronic lymphocytic leukemia, from which he died in 2007 at 71. 

As for me, I loved the no-audience, Snyder-and-guest centered years of Tomorrow. Though I was always a devoted and contented viewer of the NBC show, I sometimes bristled at Snyder’s giving undeserved attention to the outlandish, a trend epitomized by his prison interview with Charles Manson, the racist, murderous, sex offender who used media to steal a mystique.

On the sillier but still dangerous side, Tomorrow gave time in the early 1980s to the ridiculous pseudo-philosophy of "Breatharianism," interviewing Wiley Brooks, the founder who claimed he had not eaten in 17 years and that with the right spiritual mindset, all anyone needs is air and sunlight, instead of solid food. (Don't try this at home; witnesses years later said Brooks frequented restaurants and food marts for regular grub while insisting Breatharian followers need not do so.)

Happier memories are of John Lennon on Tomorrow in 1975, acclaimed news anchor Douglas Edwards in 1980, and a group of rising yet obscure TV personalities to keep an eye on for the future whom Snyder interviewed circa 1977 – one was a bit part actor and game show panelist named David Letterman. 

But night in and night out, Tomorrow guests were grass roots figures who exuded innocent quirkiness to end the day with – a woman found to have the world’s loudest laugh, a man who claimed to have been cognizant of his own birth (hard to disprove, really), and two atheists from Madison, Wisc.

I remember them for the way they raised my civic hackles by asking, “If we’re controversial in a liberal place like Madison, imagine how people would feel about us in Louisville?”

“I don’t know,” a pensive Snyder responded. “I’ve never been to Louisville.” At least he reserved judgment on our underrated liberal city, but the exchange still tarred us as the definition of a town time forgot.

 

      In 1977, Tomorrow's Visual Art 

  

Professor Abe Rezny and filmmaker Steve Cohen demonstrate a hologram

 

And of course, what anti-orthodoxy show could go nine seasons without an entire week of guests on the theme “The Business of Sex in America.” That was on Tomorrow in 1976.

And in nine years, any big star is going to have a celebrity feud or two, and Tom Snyder had one each of three varieties: the quickly settled, the drawn out, and the put on.

Rob Reiner, while guest hosting The Tonight Show, was reading a quick promo for Tom’s guests coming up and he thoughtlessly started it off by saying, “Most of you probably don’t stay up for Tomorrow, but…”

An incensed Tom Snyder on the air blasted Reiner’s dismissive line, and Reiner apologized in a letter which Tom read the next night. The All in the Family star said that intro was spoken unintentionally, and he realized how unfair it was. Tom accepted, saluted Reiner for his class and all was fine between them from then on.

But not necessarily with Edwin Newman, who called Tom Snyder “an incompetent” in news. The great upholder of standards said NBC should not have let Snyder anchor a primetime news special on rising health care costs (yep, that long ago; it’s the permanent American issue). Whether or not the two ever spoke about Newman’s criticisms isn’t clear, but when Edwin Newman was the host of Saturday Night Live in the early 1980s, Joe Piscopo played Snyder in a skit chatting with the real Newman.

Then there was the mutually beneficial “feud” that started in 1977 when Tom Snyder gave his opinion of the new Fernwood 2 Night, a parody of talk shows, by moving his thumb downward and making the sound of a bomb descending and exploding.

Fernwood star Martin Mull, in character as host Barth Gimble, jumped at the opportunity to get talked about among the more recognized shows, and explained to the Fernwood 2 Night audience that disparaging remarks from a person like Snyder could be expected “when you’re as old as he is and still haven’t made primetime.”

Tom Snyder played a clip of that remark on Tomorrow, then let out a resounding laugh, his oversized eyebrows flailing, baritone voice booming and cigarette smoke dancing in approval.

 

                 ____________

Brian Arbenz passed judgement nightly on "Tomorrow With Tom Snyder" during his college years in the late 1970s watching on WAVE-TV, Channel 3, in Louisville. 

The Amazing Contradiction -- What did and didn't upset Americans

One night in 2013, TV viewers of CBS’ Amazing Race saw a few minutes of the reality show’s contestants on a stop in Hanoi, Vietnam searching for clues that had been placed around a memorial to Vietnamese who died from U.S. bombing during the war four decades earlier.

The memorial was fashioned from wreckage of a downed American B-52 bomber, which was primarily what sparked an instant online protest, including the comment: "My father's friend was on that plane…. (I)t glorifies the death and killing of our men."

The VFW’s national commander wrote to CBS President Les Moonves charging that "the B-52 scene, as well as the young people singing a propaganda song, was totally unnecessary to the show's plot, which speaks volumes about naïve producers who think they're in charge when they are not."

Amazing Race contestants in Hanoi in 2013.

CBS, at the start of the next Amazing Race episode, apologized “to veterans, particularly those who served in Vietnam, as well as to their families and any viewers who were offended by the broadcast."

This single scene on CBS in 2013 brought forth from the grass roots of America what 168 half-hour shows on that network from 1965 to 1971 could not prompt.

Hogan’s Heroes, a CBS sitcom about American, British and French World War II Prisoners of War in the fictional German camp Stalag 13, was a huge hit during a period when TV comedies were silly escapism (talking horses, flying nuns).

At first, Hogan’s Heroes did draw criticism from reviewers and commentators for trivializing the suffering of prisoners of war and American World War II veterans overall. But from millions of people whose fathers really did endure the misery of fighting the Nazis – like, for instance me – came not a complaint. At least not enough to stop the show from being a ratings smash hit, and winning two Emmys during its six seasons.

In my childhood, I chuckled along with America at the hijinks of the good guy-ish American Colonel Hogan, the ineptitude of the unwittingly usurped Col. Klink, and the oafishness of the huggy rotund Sgt. Schultz, whose hilarious catch phrase was, “I know nothing, I see nothing.”

Beyond my knowledge back then was that Schultz’ constant repeating of this was his preparation for war crimes trials, and his fixation on their likelihood meant he was conceding the war, which he had no interest in waging in the first place.

John Banner, who played Schultz the harmless Nazi, was in real life almost killed by Nazis, who were anything but harmless, as European Jews such as him knew at the core of their souls.

Banner, an Austrian-born actor, by luck happened to be performing in Switzerland when the Anschluss, or forced annexation of Austria by Hitler’s Germany happened in 1938.

From Geneva, the place his theatrical troupe was staying, Banner applied for refugee status and was accepted by the United States.

Commenting on the contradiction between this personal history and his comedic portrayal of a Nazi soldier, Banner told the Los Angeles Times in the mid-1960s: “Some people ask me how we can be funny about a prison camp in the war. And I say to them, how was it possible to write about two little old ladies who killed twelve men and buried them in the basement and make it funny. Well, somebody did, and it was called Arsenic and Old Lace.”

That’s a somewhat fair comparison, because that 1941 Broadway hit was in fact inspired by a real-life couple in Connecticut who in 1917 were found to have fatally poisoned and buried male residents in their home for the elderly. And the story went from unspeakable atrocity to side-splitting comedy in a quarter century.

That’s the same elapsed time between the horrors of World War II and Americans tuning in to Col. Hogan outwitting Klink interspersed with laugh tracks and tooth paste commercials. It was as though being a POW in a German stalag was a rollicking week at summer camp.

It wasn't. "Rations were meagre. The men -- but not officers -- had to work, often at heavy labour," the website of the British Imperial War Museum said of German treatment of allied POWs. "(T)he days dragged and there was a constant battle against boredom. Prisoners tried to overcome this by staging entertainments and educating themselves. Contrary to the popular myth, most men were too weak from hunger and work to escape."

That site also said something that clashes with the one tasteful feature on Hogan's Heroes -- the progressive racial breakthrough role of actor Ivan Dixon. He played a black American POW named Kinchloe, who did secret radio surveillance for the allies, a role that launched Dixon on an acclaimed career as a director and actor. If the U.S. Army during the real World War II would not have treated an African-American fairly, the Nazis, or course, would have oppressed Kinchloe vastly worse.

The Museum's site said allied POWs from groups Nazi ideology considered "racially and politically inferior" were often starved and brutalized. 

In an American online remembrance of POWs, the National World War II Museum’s site said:

“In one of the coldest winters on record -- 23 December 1944 at Stalag Luft III in Sagan, temperatures hovered just below 0°F -- 80,000 Allied POWs were evacuated from camps on the eastern edge of German territory and forced, mainly on foot, to camps further away from the advancing Russians.”

I remember an adult leader in our Boy Scout troop, himself a World War II veteran (though not a POW), telling us circa 1970 about this brutal march of allied POWs in the snow. Yet he did not mention Hogan’s Heroes, apparently never regarding the then hit show’s lighthearted portrayal of the harsh life of POWs as a controversy.

Across America, there were no reports of angry letters to CBS about the nature of the show, no advertiser nervousness about supporting it, and very few if any complaints from Jewish or holocaust survivor organizations. Of course, POW camps, where prisoners got Red Cross packages and could write letters home, were not the same things as Hitler’s concentration camps, which were created to exterminate an entire people.

Yet, the reality of the holocaust was anything but removed from the set of this sitcom. Hogan’s Heroes cast member Robert Clary, a French-born Jew who played POW LeBeau, was a real-life survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp – a striking fact that serves both to dampen and inflame criticism of Hogan’s Heroes.

Adding to this elephant in the living room, actor Leon Askin, whose recurring role was no Schultz or Klink, but a real Nazi Gen. Burkhalter, was Jewish and a refugee from Vienna; and Werner Klemperer, who played Klink, was European-born to a Jewish father and gentile mother.

In the last 40 years, Clary has spoken about the holocaust on tours organized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, appeared as himself in a 1982 movie about survivors gathering in Israel, and worked with Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation archiving recordings of survivors’ recollections.

“Inevitably, at his lectures someone would ask Clary how he could work on Hogan’s Heroes after what he went through during World War II,” entertainment writer Brenda Scott Royce said in her book, Hogan’s Heroes – Behind the Scenes at Stalag 13. “He is weary of repeating himself.”

Clary told Royce: “Really, with the students, it’s the first  question they ask."  Royce's book says that among Clary’s responses are: POW camps were not death camps, the character Louis LeBeau was not Jewish, and most overridingly: “I’m an actor.”

Clary does not try to frame Hogan’s Heroes as anti-fascist commentary, or poetic justice by a troupe of European Jewish performers.

“We did not deal, really, with Nazism…. As a comedy, you cannot do that,” he said in Royce’s book. “I played Louis LeBeau… and I enjoyed it.”

And so did we, for six years.

Yet flashforward to our era, and a few minutes in Hanoi is widely condemned as cold disregard for the sufferings of POWs four decades earlier.

What explains this drastic difference in the public’s perceptions? Are we wiser? Hypersensitive? Oversaturated with 24-hour opportunities to crusade instantly with the clicking of a key? We used to leave that letter of protest sitting overnight by the car keys, enabling us to reconsider our visceral reactions before mailing it in the morning.

Today, we are lumped into algorithms and echo chambers to make online marketing more precise, and we are inflamed with catchphrases of fury to make partisan fundraisers produce more cash. Paul Ryan lied repeatedly during his acceptance speech at the 2012 Republican convention and both parties watched and learned as Ipad and laptop money donations surged with each false incendiary statement about President Obama.

In 2018, spending for those crucial midterm elections, CNN reported, tallied $5.7 billion. Compare to 1966’s midterms, when war, racial equality, immigration policy, and a backlash against a president drove donors to give $24.5 million. (Adjusted for inflation and population size, that’s about 5 percent as much.)

The 24.5 million figure was considered alarmingly high back then, but in 1966 when we got all worked up about largely the same issues as today, we still had the time – or was it the callousness – to laugh it up over POWs.