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.