Hollywood Deep

Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow Show highlights

Tom Snyder, talk show host and news anchor, died today in San Fransisco, from complications associated with leukemia, at the age of 71. I normally try to keep it light in this space, I don’t cover many deaths. Tom Snyder, however is someone I grew up with, watching him every night. I feel like in some weird way, as quirky and straight laced as he seemed, he helped shape my sarcastic sense of humor at an early age. Snyder was the host of the Tomorrow Show, it came on after Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show for many years. Being a night owl even when I was a child, I used to sneak my TV on and watch Johnny and then Tom really late on school nights. I felt, even back then that Tom always had better and edgier guests, and carried his straight man approach, in many interesting interviews, that always had a subtle under layer of humor. In some classic interviews, a cigarette smoking Snyder asked Jerry Garcia, John Lennon, Elton John, Howard Stern, Muhammad Ali, Howard Cosell, Cheech and Chong, Charles Manson, and many of the other biggest names in news at the time, the tough questions One of the most underrated interviewers in television history, never did a cream puff interview, and always entertained. If Larry King is considered an TV icon, Tom Snyder is the forerunner that that created a format for a show like Larry King Live, and paved the way for all late night interview shows. Tom’s sense of humor was so subtle sometimes it was not recognized and he was even considered a square in the 70’s and 80’s in the entertainment world. Not until Dan Aykroyd parodied Snyder on the original Saturday Night Live was Tom Snyder’s sarcastic wit and dry sense of humor, brought to the forefront. Celebrities and news makers of the time, did The Tomorrow Show with Snyder, when they wouldn’t do any other talk show. Mr. Snyder, with a cigarette in hand, would lean in toward his guests and aggressively extract information, as if he were putting on a performance. He was happy to follow his guests wherever they might go, often turning his interviews into conversations.
Thank You Tom, for being cool in a not so cool sort of way, for that stupid laugh, and for shaping my sarcasm to this day. RIP Tom Snyder.
…deep

Classic Tom Snyder interview with Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead

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