The Tomorrow Show

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This article is about the American network talk show. For the American podcast, see The Tomorrow Show with Keven Undergaro. For the Taiwanese drama, see Tomorrow (Taiwanese TV series).
The Tomorrow Show
TomorrowShowTSLogo.jpg
Intertitle
Also known asTomorrow with Tom Snyder
Tomorrow Coast to Coast
GenreTalk & interview
Infotainment
Variety show (1980–1981)
Presented byTom Snyder
(October 1973–December 1981)
Co-host: Rona Barrett
(October 1980–June 1981)
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Executive producers
  • Bruce McKay (1973–1974)
  • Pamela Burke (1975–1980)
  • Roger Ailes (1980–1981)
Production locationsNBC Studios, Burbank, California (1973–1974, 1977–1979)
RCA Building, New York City (1974–1977, 1979–1981)
Running time60 minutes
(October 15, 1973–September 5, 1980)
90 minutes
(September 8, 1980–January 28, 1982)
Release
Original networkNBC
Original releaseOctober 15, 1973 (1973-10-15) –
December 17, 1981 (1981-12-17) (reruns continued until January 28, 1982)
Chronology
Followed byLate Night with David Letterman (1982–1993)
Related showsThe Late Late Show with Tom Snyder (CBS; 1995–1999)

The Tomorrow Show (also known as Tomorrow and, after 1980, Tomorrow Coast to Coast) is an American late-night television talk show hosted by Tom Snyder which aired on NBC from 1973 to 1982. Among many notable guests were Ken Kesey, Charles Manson and Ayn Rand. Musicians featured on the program included The Clash, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, KISS, John Lennon (in his last televised interview), Paul McCartney, Public Image Ltd, the Ramones, U2 (in their first American television appearance), Anne Murray and "Weird Al" Yankovic (in his first televised appearance). Los Angeles news anchor Kelly Lange, a colleague of Snyder, was the regular substitute guest host.

History and format overview[]

In fall 1973, NBC's decision to launch a nightly program after the Tonight Show was prompted by the 1970 Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act which banned tobacco advertising on television in the United States, resulting in a loss of revenue for the network. The thinking was that extending the broadcast day by one hour could help recover some of that income.[1] NBC had begun programming the 1:00 a.m. time slot on early Saturdays (late Fridays) with The Midnight Special, which began regular airings (initially brokered) eight months before Tomorrow launched; the success of The Midnight Special was a likely factor in expanding programming in the time slot to five days a week.

Overseeing implementation of the new Monday to Thursday nightly program was New York City-based president of the NBC television network Herbert Schlosser who had also had a hand in putting The Midnight Special on NBC eight months prior and had previously spent years as the RCA Corpration-owned television network's vice president for programs on the West Coast.[2][3] With a job description involving program development among other duties, in the case of launching Tomorrow, Schlosser—reporting to NBC president Julian Goodman—ran into bureaucratic obstacles within the network and in order to try to expedite the internal approval process, on Goodman's advice, decided to leak information about the planned weeknights program to Variety's television beat journalist Les Brown.[4]

The Tomorrow hosting duties were given to thirty-seven-year-old Tom Snyder who had been working as a local news anchor at NBC's Los Angeles affiliate KNBC where his co-workers included more future prominent names on the U.S. national-level commercial corporate-owned broadcasting scene such as thirty-three-year-old correspondent Tom Brokaw and twenty-five-year-old upstart sportscaster Bryant Gumbel.[5]

Debut[]

The show premiered on Monday, October 15, 1973 with a panel discussion on groupies as a social phenomenon and lifestyle choice with three of its adherents, teenage groupies Sable Starr, Queenie Glam, and Chuck, followed by an interview with the second guest, private eye Jay J. Armes.[6]

Established as more of an intimate talk show, Tomorrow differed from Tonight and later late-night fare, with host Snyder conducting one-on-one interviews sans audience, cigarette in hand, alternating between asking hard-hitting questions and offering personal observations that made the interview closer to a genuine conversation. It was originally broadcast from the NBC Studios in Burbank, California. NBC's Los Angeles station KNBC, where Snyder simultaneously worked as an evening news anchor, was also located within the facility; Snyder would tape Tomorrow after signing-off from KNBC's 6:00 pm newscast. In addition to host Snyder, the show staff behind the camera included executive producer Bruce McKay and television director Joel Tator.

Making the new late-night show work financially became a challenge for NBC due to extremely low prices for commercial spots that a program at 1 a.m. could command. Since, according to Snyder, a 30-second spot on the show brought in only US$3,000, the network's primary concern initially was cutting production and distribution costs. As satellite transmission was only used for rare special events at the time (the seminal Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite had just unveiled the technology earlier in 1973), the show was sent from coast to coast over the terrestrial microwave facilities (also used for long-distance telephone calls as well as broadcast video & audio at the time) of AT&T Long Lines and it reportedly took NBC the entire first year of Tomorrow broadcasting before they succeeded in getting lower usage tariffs from AT&T.[1]

Unique and often revealing one-on-one exchanges were the program's staple. As Johnny Carson had mostly abandoned the highbrow, intellectual guests that were common on The Tonight Show in its early years (especially during Jack Paar's hosting run), and during the show's run from New York, many of those types of guests ended up on Tomorrow. Notable interviews included those with author Harlan Ellison, actor and writer Sterling Hayden and novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand. A one-on-one program with David Brenner as the sole guest revealed that Snyder and Brenner worked together on several documentaries. In a 1979 interview the author and activist James Baldwin explained why he first left the United States to live in Europe. Furthermore, as decided on and implemented by its director Tator and host Snyder, the show featured distinct visuals during interviews such that, as the conversation progressed, extreme closeup shot of the speaker's face would be shown. The practice would go on to become one of the show's most recognizable traits.[7][8]

Although best known for hosting writers, authors, film directors, actors, musicians, etc. for in-depth conversations, on most nights Tomorrow assumed the framing of a news program with protagonists of the big news stories of the day appearing as guests. Along similar television newsmagazine lines, other episodes of the late-night show were panel discussions focused around a single issue such as group marriages, suicide, male prostitution, rock-music groupies, and film censorship.[9] Due to being launched in the middle of Watergate, during its first year on the air, Tomorrow featured most of the players in and around this major political scandal in the United States, such as: former U.S. Vice-President Spiro Agnew who had just resigned the post over the scandal, special prosecutor Leon Jaworski, United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell's wife Martha Mitchell, and attorneys and U.S. President Richard Nixon's political operatives/advisors Donald Segretti and Charles Colson.[9]

Early into its second season on the air, in late September 1974, it was announced the show would be moving to New York City in December 1974.[10]

Move to New York City[]

From December 2, 1974 the program began to be produced out of the RCA Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, with the first show from New York featuring a packed lineup of guests: NYC mayor Abraham Beame, composer Meredith Willson, journalist Gloria Steinem, NBC staff announcer Bill Wendell who simultaneously began announcing for the show going forward, investigative journalist Jimmy Breslin, and stripper Fanne Foxe who had been the protagonist of a sex scandal involving congressman Wilbur Mills.[11] Concurrently, Snyder took on additional anchor duties for NBC News: with NBC Nightly News on Sundays and on the network's flagship station WNBC-TV's evening news at 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, replacing Jim Hartz who was promoted to Today show.[10]

The daily tapings of Tomorrow in the RCA Building's Studio 6A would usually start around 7 p.m. EST, some thirty minutes after Snyder finished up anchoring his WNBC evening news broadcast.[12] In addition to the personnel that came over from L.A., the show added some new staff—including segment producer Andy Friendly (the son of TV veteran Fred Friendly) and Rick Carson (Johnny Carson's son).[13]

The John Lennon interview[]

John Lennon talks with Tom Snyder in April 1975

On Monday night, April 28, 1975, Tomorrow aired what eventually became one of its most talked about and enduring moments: John Lennon appeared on the show for the full hour. Recorded twenty days earlier, on April 8, 1975, the interview contains two distinct parts. Since at the time Lennon faced deportation proceedings from America over his 1968 misdemeanour conviction for cannabis possession in London, after the first part of the interview during which Snyder covered the regular topics such as the famous thirty-four-year-old's musical career and time with The Beatles, Lennon's legal representative—immigration attorney Leon Wildes—joined Lennon on the panel to discuss the details of the case, as the musician directed his message at the American public in an appeal of sorts to be allowed to remain in the United States.

Lennon's appearance on Tomorrow would begin gaining added significance five and a half years later, in late 1980, after the globally-known musician's life was cut short and it became clear this was his last televised interview. The night following his murder, it was replayed in its entirety on Tomorrow and soon even released on home video where it became a cult favorite. In addition to stating on the night of its commemorative replay that the interview is "not terrific, not terribly entertaining or enlightening, containing no historical information or anything new", throughout the years following Lennon's murder, Snyder—frequently asked about the interview—maintained that "it was not a great one" in his view and that "it would have long since lapsed into obscurity had Lennon not been shot".[14]

Saturday Night Live and Dan Aykroyd's impersonation of Snyder[]

NBC occasionally used Tomorrow to plug various holes in its late-night schedule. Following the end of The Best of Carson weekend reruns of the Tonight show, Snyder stepped in to do a special Saturday 11:30 p.m. ninety-minute broadcast of Tomorrow with Jerry Lewis as the only guest on 4 October 1975 because a new program meant to premiere that evening was not ready to launch. Lewis was interviewed for one hour and fifteen minutes, before Snyder brought out the "Not Ready for Primetime Players" (Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, and John Belushi) for the last fifteen minutes of the show so that the national audience could meet the debut cast of the network's new sketch series Saturday Night (the Live would not be appended to the title until 1977).

When not grilling guests, Snyder would often joke around with off-stage crewmen, frequently breaking out in the distinctively hearty laugh that became the basis for Dan Aykroyd's impersonation of Snyder on Saturday Night Live, which the comedian first did in April 1976. Audience's positive reaction would lead to Aykroyd doing ten more Snyder sketches on SNL over the following three years.[15] Further lampooned in the sketches were the Tomorrow host's seemingly mismatched jet-black eyebrows and grey hair in addition to his mercurial manner and self-indulgent, digressive way of asking questions as well as his clipped speech pattern.[16] Being the subject of satire on the highly-rated sketch-variety show greatly raised Snyder's profile; due to SNL having a much larger audience than Tomorrow, many viewers saw the impression before knowing the man's own work.[17]

Not long after the launch of SNL, Tomorrow moved from the RCA Building's Studio 6A to Studio 8G, down the hall from SNL's famous Studio 8H.[13] After Aykroyd's departure from SNL in 1979, Joe Piscopo took over the Snyder impersonation. Furthermore, Snyder was the inspiration for the cartoon "Tom Morrow", which appeared in Playboy in the late 1970s.

Return to Los Angeles[]

Snyder on set of the program in 1977

In June 1977, the show returned to Burbank. This time around in California, Snyder was free of local news anchoring duties, devoting his full efforts to Tomorrow that taped in the evenings around 6 or 7 p.m. PST at NBC Studios' studio 1, the same studio also used by the Tonight Show.[13] Right after Carson finished his Tonight taping, crew people would rush in to rearrange the set for Tomorrow.[13]

Snyder would let his flamboyant side take over from time to time such as a 1978 show when he had on one of NBC's West Coast staff announcers, Donald Rickles, one day after interviewing the same-named comedian Don Rickles. During the course of their segment, Snyder and Rickles (the announcer) spent ten minutes playing the then-new electronic game, Simon.

On May 26th, 1978, Snyder hosted a three-person panel of young comedians and comedy writers—thirty-one-year-old David Letterman and his twenty-nine-year-old girlfriend Merrill Markoe, as well as thirty-year-old Billy Crystal—each of whom had recently moved to Hollywood in search of a career in show business, appearing on Tomorrow on this occasion to discuss their lives as struggling comics.[18] The encounter would prove significant for Snyder's own future television career prospects as it marked the beginning of his acquaintance with Letterman that over subsequent two decades evolved into friendship and even business relationship.

Back in New York City again[]

In 1979, Snyder's Tomorrow once again began originating from New York. Simultaneously, from June 1979, Snyder signed on to host Prime Time Sunday, a weekly newsmagazine airing Sundays at 9 p.m. on NBC, thus marking his return to NBC's news division following more than two years of solely hosting Tomorrow.[9] The host additionally agreed to do three celebrity interview specials for NBC's entertainment division.[17] The new contract—outlining the terms of Snyder's US$1 million annual compensation at NBC—reportedly came following negotiations over a two-year period between the network and Snyder's Hollywood agent Ed "The Hook" Hookstratten.[17] With the relocation of Tomorrow back to New York and the announcement of his new prime time program, Snyder was subject of a lengthy Washington Post profile by influential television critic Tom Shales with discussion of the seeming dichotomy within Snyder's career in broadcasting—being both a newsman and a showman—dominating the piece.[17]

From the beginning of its second New York stint, the title card on Snyder's late-night show featured dovetailed "Tom" and "Tomorrow" by highlighting "Tom" in a different color.

Tomorrow's guests supplied the program with plenty of bizarre moments such as an August 1979 appearance by the twenty-four-year-old Chicago shock-jock Steve Dahl who had gained a measure of national attention in the United States earlier that summer for taking part in the infamous Disco Demolition Night promotion at a White Sox game at Comiskey Park.

The same year on Halloween 1979, perhaps the most outrageous interview seen on Snyder's show occurred when the rock band Kiss appeared to promote their album, Dynasty. During that 25-minute interview, the conversation degenerated into a somewhat chaotic exchange between Snyder and a very drunk Ace Frehley who picked up Snyder's teddy bear, put the wristlets from his costume on the bear, and laughed, "the only Spacebear in captivity! I've got him — he's captured!" When Snyder asked Ace if his costume was that of some sort of spaceman, Frehley quipped, "No, actually I'm a plumber." Snyder shot back, "Well, I've got a piece of pipe backstage I'd like to have you work on." The inebriated Frehley replied "Tell me about it!", and clapped his hands and cackled hysterically at the exchange. Years later, Gene Simmons revealed on his website that he felt "betrayed" by the other band members during this interview. Shortly thereafter, drummer Peter Criss officially left the band and subsequently appeared on the show, making Snyder the first host to have a member of KISS appearing without makeup in public.

Another run-in Snyder had with petulant rock stars occurred on June 27, 1980 in a cigarette smoke-filled appearance of Public Image Ltd.'s John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) and Keith Levene, whose thoroughly uncooperative twelve-minute interview on the show acquired a long-term notoriety.[19] Snyder called it "one dumb moment of television", but TV Guide listed it among the 10 greatest rock and roll moments in the history of television.[20]

As stipulated in his contract with NBC, Snyder did multiple celebrity interview specials in 1980. Named Tom Snyder's Celebrity Spotlight and airing in prime time at 10 p.m., the first one saw Snyder interview Cher, Jack Lemmon, Loni Anderson, and Chevy Chase. Other instalments saw him interview Clint Eastwood, James Cagney, Carroll O'Connor, and Bo Derek.

Snyder's weekly Prime Time Sunday newsmagazine was cancelled in spring 1980 with Snyder replaced by David Brinkley and, according to his own words, "thrown out of NBC News".[21]

While negotiating with their top star Johnny Carson throughout the early part of 1980—in anticipation of likely having to budge on his demands of reducing the Tonight Show's running time down to one hour[22]—NBC brass began preparing changes to their late-night lineup by placing the Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels's recently-established production company Broadway Video in charge of developing a new thirty-minute nightly show, tentatively named Yesterday, that was to roughly follow the format of SNL’s Weekend Update, be produced by Herb Sargent, and be placed in the 12:30 a.m. time slot between Tonight and Tomorrow. However, in May 1980, with Carson finally signing a new contract that gave him control of the time slot immediately following his Tonight show, plans for Yesterday were shelved.[23] Instead, the network decided to fill the extra thirty minutes by extending Tomorrow to ninety minutes.

Retooling the format: 90 minutes, studio audience, Rona Barrett joins, and Tomorrow Coast to Coast[]

Rona Barrett (seen here in 1975) briefly co-hosted the show from October 1980 to June 1981

From late summer 1980, as a consequence of Johnny Carson's legal battle with NBC over the terms of his contract that was settled out of court and led to the powerful and authoritative host finally succeeding in scaling The Tonight Show down to an hour (something that he had been petitioning NBC for years), Tomorrow's starting time was moved half an hour earlier to 12:30 a.m. while its run time expanded to 90 minutes. To fill the extra 30 minutes, NBC decided to turn Tomorrow into a more typical entertainment talk show by taping it in front of a live studio audience, including live musical performances, and announcing the addition of gossip reporter Rona Barrett as co-host. Snyder resented all three changes, repeating his often stated discomfort with doing "big television", instead preferring the intimate setting that allows real conversations as well as sincere and genuine personal moments to take place. He also felt live audiences turn up at TV shows for specific reasons such as winning prizes or getting uproarious laughs, and since Tomorrow provided neither, he thought them entirely unnecessary on his program.

The first episode in the new time slot aired on September 8, 1980 with Snyder interviewing Rona Barrett as guest and announcing her arrival on the show on October 27.[24] Earlier that year, NBC had managed to lure Barrett away from her prominent on-air correspondent position at ABC's Good Morning America with an offer of joining NBC's Today show along with additional programming opportunities across the NBC television network, one of which turned out to be getting attached as co-host to the Tomorrow late-night show as part of its major overhauling. The program began alternating between Snyder, who was in New York City, interviewing general interest guests and Hollywood-based Barrett filing entertainment reports and/or talking to celebrity guests.

As a consequence of its changed starting time and uncertainty over its viewership ratings performance, NBC affiliates began dropping the show, most notably Group W-owned sister stations KYW-TV in Philadelphia (where Snyder had worked as a popular local news anchor and talk show host earlier) and WBZ-TV in Boston, both of which replaced the program with reruns of Hawaii Five-O.

Co-hosts Snyder and Barrett developed a frosty and antagonistic relationship almost immediately. Snyder refused to acknowledge Barrett as co-host—referring to her only as a "correspondent"—while further not allowing her segment to lead the show even on occasions when she had a major celebrity interview lined up. Seeing Snyder frustrated with the celebrity gossip tone and direction the show had taken since the arrival of the high-profile entertainment reporter in addition to being displeased about having to share the spotlight and Barrett unhappy over her marginalized status on the program despite officially being its co-host, NBC responded by hiring a new executive producer, forty-year-old former Nixon presidential campaign staffer Roger Ailes, tasking him with controlling the co-anchors who the network believed were being petty and immature.[25] Bringing Ailes in meant the removal of existing executive producer, Snyder's live-in girlfriend Pamela Burke, which further angered the host.[25]

Following John Lennon's murder on December 8, 1980, his 1975 Tomorrow interview with Snyder was replayed in its entirety the following night on the show. Introducing the five-year-old interview about to be replayed, Snyder referred to it as "not terrific, not terribly entertaining or enlightening, containing no historical information or anything new, but having little bits of stuff and substance of a man who was part of change, a revolution if you will, in popular music during the 1960s".[26]

The relationship between the two co-hosts soon turned into an open feud; in late December 1980, Barrett even walked off the show as a result of Snyder refusing to "throw it to her" by not introducing her entertainment segment during a Tomorrow taping. By early January 1981, Barrett was persuaded to return to the show whose name was changed to Tomorrow Coast to Coast with an adapted instrumental version of Dan Hartman's "Relight My Fire" as its new opening theme. Executive producer Ailes' plan was to make Tomorrow Coast to Coast into a talk-variety show and build up its audience by slotting regular, reoccurring features into it when viewers can expect to see them.

The network wanted the show to attract younger viewers and thus started booking younger musical and entertainment acts for interviews followed by performances. These would on occasion cross over into bizarre territory such as a March 1981 appearance by the Plasmatics punk band during which lead singer Wendy O. Williams sledgehammered a TV in the studio. The explosion disrupted a live broadcast of NBC Nightly News with anchorman John Chancellor being produced in a studio two floors above. Snyder himself referred to this occurrence on a May 1981 follow-up appearance in which the Plasmatics blew up a car.[14]

As revealed in the January 2018-released FBI files on Roger Ailes, during the same spring 1981 period, the recently inaugurated U.S. president Ronald Reagan would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. was found in possession of a pair of tickets to the March 2, 1981 taping of Tomorrow Coast to Coast.[27][28] The FBI files further reveal that on April 3, 1981—four days after Hinckley's March 30, 1981 attempt on Reagan's life—the show's executive producer Ailes was interviewed by FBI agents who were particularly interested whether the March 2 show guest list featured either Jodie Foster or Robert De Niro due to Hinckley's by then known obsession with the two Taxi Driver actors.[27] The files go on to reveal that Ailes provided the agents with information about the March 2 Tomorrow Coast to Coast guests being comedian Pat Cooper, Mafia expert and former former NYPD detective Ralph Salerno, and singer Leo Sayer; the FBI agents were further given a videotape of the March 2 show but were unable to confirm Hinckley's presence at the said taping of the show.[28]

"Weird Al" Yankovic's first television appearance was on the April 21, 1981 installment of the show, where he performed "Another One Rides the Bus". A few months later, in June 1981, Irish rock band U2's first American television appearance also took place on Tomorrow Coast to Coast.

The Charles Manson interview[]

In an effort to attract more viewers, NBC turned to spectacle television. On Friday, June 12, 1981, as a special edition of Tomorrow Coast to Coast, a 53-minute edit of Snyder's prison interview with mass murderer Charles Manson aired, reportedly secured by Ailes via a "US$10,000-consultation fee" paid to Manson's former prison buddy Nuel Emmons who had been looking to monetize his access to Manson in addition to seeking a publisher for his book on the convicted murderer.[29] Recorded six days earlier on June 6 at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville where he was being incarcerated, Manson was by turns quietly mesmerizing and disturbingly manic, suddenly getting a wild look in his eyes and spouting wild notions at Snyder before temporarily returning to a calm demeanor.[29] In keeping with the singular event nature of the broadcast, the day before the interview was set to air, NBC organized a special screening for journalists followed by press conference where the show's host Snyder and executive producer Ailes took questions from the thirty gathered reporters.[29] Snyder stated on the occasion that "interviews with Charles Manson don't grow on trees, I was there when the tree opened up" while adding that "there's not one person in this room who wouldn't have done this interview".[29]

Though it brought the show a huge ratings number (22.2 million viewers instead of its customary 6.9),[25] Snyder would eventually publicly voice his reservations about the appearance, expressing in a later interview that it "established absolutely nothing, other than what was already well known—that Manson is a nutcase".

Decades later, in spring 2017, in the wake of Roger Ailes' resignation from Fox News amid allegations of sexual harassment, a Hollywood production company announced development of a film project about the events surrounding Manson's 1981 interview on Tomorrow Coast to Coast.[30]

Barrett quits[]

The uneasy truce between feuding co-hosts Snyder and Barrett soon crumbled as Barrett quit the series on June 16, 1981, which resulted in the entertainment reports being eliminated from the show. However, the series kept the title Tomorrow Coast to Coast, essentially reverting to one-on-one interviews while retaining the live studio audience and musical guests.[31]

Snyder the sole host again and cancellation[]

The show ended up lasting for only fourteen months in its new format and less than a year with the Coast to Coast name. Among the terms of Carson's 1980 agreement to stay with NBC was that he would gain control of the time slot following The Tonight Show.[32] On November 9, 1981, NBC and Carson's production company Carson Productions announced the creation of Late Night with David Letterman, a program set to premiere in early 1982 in the 12:30 a.m. time slot Monday through Thursday. NBC offered Snyder the opportunity to continue as host of Tomorrow in the 1:30 to 2:30 a.m. time slot following Letterman, but he refused—feeling that 1:30 in the morning is "just too late" for the kind of broadcast he's interested in doing—and the show was canceled.

The last first-run Tomorrow Coast to Coast aired Thursday, December 17, 1981, with Snyder's old favorite Chevy Chase as the final guest; Chase famously criticized the network during the broadcast for cancelling the show. Chase's segment was followed by one of earlier guest Peter Allen performing his song "I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love". Reruns subsequently aired until Thursday, January 28, 1982.

The 1:30 a.m. slot Snyder had been offered had he agreed to continue the show was given to NBC News Overnight in July 1982. In 1988, NBC launched Later with Bob Costas, a half-hour long-form interview show with a similar format to Tomorrow, in the slot and which Snyder occasionally guest hosted.

David Letterman and Snyder already had a history together: a 1978 Tomorrow episode hosted by Snyder was almost exclusively devoted to a long interview with up-and-coming new comedy talents Letterman, Billy Crystal and Merrill Markoe. Two years later on September 22, 1980, Letterman (then the host of a morning program on NBC) appeared once more on Tomorrow (now in its new 90-minute format with studio audience). The two remained on good terms even after Letterman took over Snyder's 12:30 a.m. slot on NBC. Letterman often expressed his admiration for Snyder's style and would occasionally call-in to Snyder's radio show on ABC Radio/NBC Talknet and his television CNBC talk show during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1995, Letterman handpicked Snyder to host a late night talk show following his Late Show on CBS - The Late Late Show, produced by Letterman's Worldwide Pants Incorporated, aired until 1999.

Awards and nominations[]

The show was nominated for three Emmy Awards: one in 1976 for Outstanding Achievement in Technical Direction and Electronic Camerawork and two in 1981 for Special Classification of Outstanding Program and Individual Achievement.

DVD releases[]

Three DVD compilations of footage of The Tomorrow Show have been released by Shout! Factory to date:

The Tomorrow Show – Tom Snyder's Electric Kool-Aid Talk Show

A compilation featuring interviews with 1960s counterculture figures.

The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder – Punk & New Wave

A compilation of punk rock and new wave acts that appeared on the show.

The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder – John, Paul, Tom & Ringo

Three whole shows on which former members of The Beatles appeared. (The compilation title refers to the absence of George Harrison, who never appeared on Tomorrow.)

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Tom Snyder on Later, 1994
  2. ^ Krebs, Albin (20 June 1973). "Herbert Schlosser Named President of N.B.C.‐TV". New York Times. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  3. ^ Brown, Les (6 January 1977). "Schlosser Gets Top NBC Post". New York Times. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  4. ^ "Herbert S. Schlosser, executive". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. 28 August 2018. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  5. ^ Rosenthal, Phil (31 July 2007). "Tom Snyder recalled as TV's master storyteller". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  6. ^ "Premiere episode of The Tomorrow Show starring Tom Snyder". Metacritic. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  7. ^ Du Brow, Rick (18 January 1994). "Still Brash After All These Years : Television: Tom Snyder's CNBC show is a cross between the talk show that made him a star and today's phone-in format. He's as breezy as ever, with his trademark laugh punctuating the action throughout". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  8. ^ Marchese, David (2 June 2014). "Normcore: Norm Macdonald's Quest to Host 'The Late Late Show'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b c Los Angeles Times (31 July 2007). "Tom Snyder: 1936 - 2007". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  10. ^ Jump up to: a b "NBC 'Tomorrow' Show to Move to New York". New York Times. 25 September 1974. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  11. ^ "Premiere episode of The Tomorrow Show starring Tom Snyder". Metacritic. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  12. ^ Malkoff, Mark (12 October 2017). "Andy Friendly". The Carson Podcast. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Friendly, Andy (1 April 2016). "Book Excerpt: An Unforgettable Bond with Johnny Carson's Son, Rick". The Carson Podcast. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  14. ^ Jump up to: a b Snyder on Later with Bob Costas
  15. ^ "Tom Snyder played by Dan Aykroyd". The SNL Archives. Archived from the original on December 19, 2016.
  16. ^ "'Tomorrow' host Snyder dies at 71". AP Wire. Archived from the original on September 17, 2021. Retrieved 2007-07-30.
  17. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Shales, Tom (15 April 1979). "The Prime Time of Tom Snyder". Washington Post. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  18. ^ Ess, Ramsey (3 February 2012). "Watching Tom Snyder Interview Young Versions of Letterman, Markoe and Crystal". Vulture.com. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
  19. ^ Blevins, Joe (12 May 2016). "In 1980, Tom Snyder had an epic late-night standoff with John Lydon". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  20. ^ Snyder vs. Lydon
  21. ^ Bedell, Sally (16 August 1982). "The Hot Agent and Tom Snyder's Happy Ending". New York Times. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  22. ^ "Carson wants shorter show". Daytona Beach Morning Journal. Florida. Associated Press. March 5, 1980. p. 2A.
  23. ^ Hill, Doug; Weingrad, Jeff (2011). "32". Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. Untreed Reads. ISBN 9781611872187. Retrieved May 1, 2015.
  24. ^ Tomorrow;8 September 1980
  25. ^ Jump up to: a b c Ross, Shelley (12 July 2017). "Roger Ailes Sexually Harassed Me. I Thought I Was The First and Last". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
  26. ^ Tomorrow Coast to Coast;9 December 1980
  27. ^ Jump up to: a b Lewis, Andy (26 January 2018). "FBI Reveals Files on Roger Ailes". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
  28. ^ Jump up to: a b Garbitt, Devin (28 January 2018). "FBI releases files on Roger Ailes and former Putin aide found dead in hotel room". CNN.com. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
  29. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Levy, Steven (12 June 1981). "Helter Skelter, Cont'd". The Washington Post. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
  30. ^ McNary, Dave (12 April 2017). "Movie About Charles Manson, Tom Snyder, Roger Ailes in the Works at Bohemia". Variety. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
  31. ^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1981/06/17/the-rona-syndrome/7408d69b-0db4-42e1-b90d-0ca341878e18/
  32. ^ Bushkin, Henry. How Johnny Carson Nearly Quit 'Tonight' and Scored TV's Richest Deal Ever. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 4, 2014.

External links[]

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