And here we are, as another year wheezes to its inevitable conclusion. I’ve thought sometimes about how the end of one year and the start of another is more psychological than anything; it’s not like the planet goes over a speedbump at midnight on New Year’s or anything like that, for life just goes on.1
Be that as it may, the last year has been eventful for the Garroway book project – at long last, the book got published in three delicious varieties, and it’s been well-received and some people have written and said some especially kind things about it, which has been gratifying. (And the book’s been published in time for the holidays, too. It makes a terrific gift. Just saying.)
What’s ahead for the Garroway project in 2024? Well, you’ve no doubt noticed our tempo here has eased; that’s the inevitable result of the book getting published, not to mention other projects demanding my attention. This website, however, is not going away any time soon, and as we discover new things we’ll share them here. I’ve learned from previous ventures in research that publication is sometimes just the beginning for new discoveries and adventures, and I feel there’s still new discoveries in the Dave Garroway story yet to come…and as I find them, I want to share them with you.
For instance, here’s ten wonderful minutes of excerpts from about this time in 1954. What better way to get ready for Christmas than a few minutes with our Dave, along with Arlene Francis2 and Betty White? Enjoy.
Thank you, 2023, for all you brought us. To the new year: please be kind and generous. And to all of you out there: thank you for being with us throughout this whole adventure. Stay tuned for more discoveries.
Happy birthday to Dave Garroway (he’d be 110 today, you know!) – and happy birthday to our website, too. Six years ago today we went live with this ongoing tribute to our Dave, and the book was but an aspiration. Six years later, the book is now an actual thing that you can buy (and if you haven’t…well, what’s keeping you? Hmmm? C’mon…you know you want it!).
In these six years we’ve chronicled a good bit of Garroway lore and made several friends, some of whom provided important insights and materials for Peace. There have been times I wished the book could have been out years before, but if that had happened, we would have missed out on several discoveries that made the book that much better. Sometimes a project knows its own timing better than we do, and we have to take a step back and let things unfold at their own pace, and a miracle happens. That certainly happened here.
Right now I can’t tell you what’s to come in the ongoing story of the Dave Garroway story, and that’s because the project has yet to decide where it wants to go next. There could be follow-on projects, perhaps, if the opportunities present themselves. I’ve ruled nothing out. For now, it feels like enough of a victory to finally have the book out there. I thank all of you who have bought it and read it, and I hope you’ll spread the word.
— And word is getting out. My employer issued a nice press release about the book a few weeks ago, and a local radio station had me in for a brief interview about it, which I enjoyed because it was a chance to be in a good old-fashioned radio studio for the first time in forever. Earlier this week I gave an online presentation to a local group, and that was a lot of fun. I am hoping more opportunities to speak are to come (and if you’re interested in having me speak, drop me a note through the contact form).
Not to mention, this very, very kind review was published last week. I’ve known this writer for years and have high regard for his work, both in newspapering and in his own books, and I’m still floored that he wrote so kindly about something I had a hand in creating. Wow.
A few years back I wrote about the 1954 and 1955 productions of “Babes in Toyland,” staged by Max Liebman with an all-star cast that, not incidentally, included our own Dave Garroway. In the spirit of the season, a kind soul has posted the 1954 production, and I present the link for your enjoyment. Be sure to catch all the inside jokes in Santa Dave’s conversations with his young friend (not to mention the “sweater girl” comment that was axed from the 1955 production after being criticized as too racy for young ears).
From all of us here, whatever you celebrate or observe, may it be wonderful, and may it be filled with…peace.
I don’t know if you felt a little shift in the universe or not a little after 2 p.m. our time Sunday. If you did, it was caused by a Microsoft Word document, about 412,000 bytes, being transferred via e-mail to the publisher.
I wish I could say it prompted great celebration here, or even some kind of release. But, to be honest with you, it was the culmination of several straight days of making last edits, hoping to be sure the format met as many of the publisher’s requirements as possible. I went through that document – all 494 pages of it, by the time it was done – several times. By Sunday afternoon, I had officially reached the “I’m done” point, and sent it on. Not only was I satisfied things were as in order as I could make them, but I was tired from reading it, and I just wanted it over with. I was numb.1 I went in the kitchen and got a can of Coke2 and a little snack. And that’s how I celebrated.
What happens next? Well, the publisher will send the file to a copy editor, who will go through it very, very carefully. Anything that’s amiss in it, I’ll have to correct or otherwise bring in line with house style. Nor is my work completely done, either, because I have two or three photographs that still need resolution of rights and permissions.3 Once all of that is squared away, I can forward the image files and captions to the publisher.
Then, for the most part, my work will be done for a while, at least until it’s time to review edits and then (soon, I hope) galleys. Then, at some point after that, along will come completed books. And then, I hope will follow the really fun part, which will be some kind of tour (I hope) and speaking engagements and what not, and those are fun, and I hope there will be more than a few of those.
Anyway, for now, there you are. This project is a lot closer to being done, and the dream Dave Jr. had for so long is a lot closer to coming true. I wish Dave was here to see it, but I can’t help thinking he knows.
:: As horror has unfolded on another side of the world over the last month, this is a time more appropriate than most others to pray for the thing Dave Garroway wished: peace. Do so, please.
Today a new president takes the oath of office.1 Sixty years ago today a new president2 took the oath of office, and Dave Garroway and Today were there to cover the impending transfer of power.
NBC photo
Here’s Dave talking with Sen. Mike Mansfield, Sen. Everett Dirksen3, Rep. Charles Halleck, and Rep. Sam Rayburn.4 At right is Martin Agronsky of NBC News.
NBC photo
Here Dave is interviewing Pat McMahon, who was a member of the PT-109 crew. McMahon was badly burned in the aftermath of the accident and unable to swim. His commanding officer, John F. Kennedy, saved his life. McMahon and Garroway are standing in front of the Kennedys’ house in Georgetown.
NBC photo
Dave has a cup of coffee and shares a laugh with Joseph Donahue, chairman of the inauguration parade committee, and Maj. Gen. Charles K. Gailey of the Military District of Washington. Kennedy’s inauguration was famously chilly, so I hope there was a lot of hot coffee available all around.
NBC photo
Dave during a break in the program, framed against the Capitol’s pillars.
NBC photo
Dave in the seating for the inauguration parade outside the White House. Here you can see just how deep the snow was prior to the 1961 inauguration. We won’t get that this year, alas.
NBC photo
And here’s Dave visiting the big reviewing platform where the new President would watch the parade. He’s standing with a couple of very special people. Who might they be? Let’s take a closer look…
NBC photo
…and look who it is! It’s Dave with daughter Paris and stepson Michael, who accompanied him to the inauguration. What a memory to have, no?
On January 14, 1982 Today marked its thirtieth anniversary.1 As it tended to do on its milestone anniversaries, Today devoted much of the program to a big celebration. The 1982 anniversary special was unexpectedly poignant, and it’s for a reason we’ll get to in a little while.
As most Today anniversaries do, this one began with a glimpse at a few moments from that very first telecast.
I think there’s a law that mandates the use of footage from that kinescope. (NBC photo)
Then we return to the studio, where we see Jack Lescoulie and Dave Garroway joking with each other about the spelling of Lescoulie’s last name.2 The rapport between the two melts away the years, and for a moment it’s like 1954.
It’s as if they never stopped being on the program together. (NBC photo)
Bryant Gumbel – who had just taken over as co-host after Tom Brokaw accepted the NBC Nightly News anchor slot – introduces the men he calls “the originals,” Lescoulie, Garroway and Frank Blair.3
Lescoulie, Garroway, Gumbel, Blair and Jane Pauley. (NBC photo)
Gumbel asks Garroway what they were thinking the first day. And at this point, Garroway sounds like a grandfather dispensing advice. “You are now in the first phases of the beginning of your real life, Bryant,” he says. “You’ll find that out in the years to come. At least, I did.” Gumbel asks if it really was an adventure for him. “It changes you from one man into another. Did me. And you will feel differently about the world, very much so, if you’re on like three, four, five years.”
Gumbel notes that Lescoulie was called “the saver,” and Lescoulie described the origins of that: Garroway instructing him to walk in if he ever thought Dave was getting dull or an interview wasn’t going right. “Now, that kind of trust you don’t get very often!” Lescoulie said. Garroway mentions hearing Lescoulie as host of The Grouch Club, and suggesting him to Pat Weaver as a result.
Old Reliable. (NBC photo)
Frank Blair remembers the task they had, which was to get people to watch at seven in the morning. He and Lescoulie recall John Crosby’s famous “What hath God and NBC wrought?” review, and that the show couldn’t last beyond thirteen weeks. At this point, Garroway jumps in: “Well, all the pioneers, you know – Copernicus, Galileo, we all suffered the first year or two!”4 There’s a little laughter from the panel. “That’s true!” Lescoulie says. “You’re putting us in pretty fast company, though.”
This comes from the next segment, but I can’t help putting it in here. The old Dave – funny, playful – showed up that morning. It was magic. (NBC photo)
Jane Pauley asks Garroway about his statement on the first program “to be informative without being terribly stuffy.” She asks why Garroway was afraid of being stuffy. “I don’t like stuffy things, or people, very much, I guess,” he says. “And there was so much to talk about, and do, and there still is in the world, that I don’t find it a very stuffy world even today. And if you can get the world over to them, it’s great.” And with that, the inevitable topic of J. Fred Muggs comes up. “You didn’t consider that at all demeaning because you’re not a stuffy guy, eh?” Pauley asks. “No!” Garroway says. “He was a charming, marvelous beast.” At which point Garroway pulls out a TV Guide and says that Muggs is more in the public eye today than he has ever been,5 and as evidence shows the magazine’s “Distinguished J. Fred Muggs Awards.”6 To which Garroway says, “This chimpanzee has been off the air for twenty-one years! And yet he’s still in the public eye!”
Dave shows off the “J. Fred Muggs Awards” in “TV Guide.” (NBC photo)
After a break – or as Gumbel says to Garroway, “what you used to call a recess” – Pat Weaver joins the panel. Gumbel asks why a chimpanzee joined the program. “Well, a pleasant little small ape – you know, if you got a gorilla, it might have scared Dave and Jack! I don’t think it would have worked with a gorilla!” Weaver explains that one of the problems they faced was that children would turn the set to cartoons, so they needed something that could effectively compete. “When Muggs did happen, it was the ideal solution to a problem that we faced in the early days, which is how to get the kids to like the show.”
Pat Weaver joins in. I wish they hadn’t bounced Jane Pauley, though. (NBC photo)
In the next segment, Gumbel talks to John Chancellor and Edwin Newman, who joined Today when Garroway left. “You replaced Dave Garroway,” Gumbel says to Chancellor. “Tough act. What were your thoughts?”
(NBC photo)
Before Gumbel can finish his question, Chancellor slumps over, puts his head on Gumbel’s shoulder, and snores loudly. Then he snaps back up. “Well, that was one of my thoughts,” Chancellor says. “I couldn’t believe we were on that early. It was a very difficult act to follow, and I’m not sure I was really able to fill those shoes, which I learned to be about size eighteen. Dave was one of the most magnificent communicators I had ever known and I suppose some of us learned – I think maybe Edwin did, too – from David and from Jack Lescoulie to be a little easier on television. I think most of us were very solemn when we were doing the news, and I loosened up a lot when I was on the Today show, and I think Ed did too.” Chancellor talks about how serious the show was when he took over, with a lot of heavy global and national topics balanced with some of the lighter things they did. “And they’ve threatened me by showing some of the lighter things that we’ve done.”7
Gumbel then asks Newman about a couple of famous moments from his time on Today, including the time he abruptly cut off an interview with George Jessel that was going off the rails,8 and the time Newman interviewed himself about his book Strictly Speaking.9
Edwin Newman interviews Edwin Newman. (NBC photo)
Throughout the morning there are birthday wishes at the end of segments. Here’s one from the Blues Brothers.
Belushi and Aykroyd. Less than two months later, Belushi would die. (NBC photo)
Later segments are less Garroway-centric, but still give us glimpses of a bygone era. Here, Gene Shalit has a few minutes with Barbara Walters, who talks about how she was the last person hired when Dave Garroway was still there, so there was really nobody on the show she didn’t know.
NBC photo
We then see some other historic moments, such as greetings from Pope Paul VI via satellite:
NBC photo
…then a clip from the program’s visit to Romania:
NBC photo
…and the Orient:
NBC photo
…and to London.
NBC photo
And then there’s top-of-the-hour greetings. Some views of the set:
NBC photoNote Gene Shalit’s hair, spectacular as ever. (NBC photo)Bryant Gumbel and Willard Scott. I predict a beautiful friendship between the two, in which nothing can ever possibly go wrong. (NBC photo)
But even in the midst of celebration, the world continues to turn, and the second hour begins with a news update from Chris Wallace in Washington. The big story was the previous day’s crash of Air Florida Flight 90 after it took off from Washington National Airport.
NBC photo
After some updates on the crash and investigation from correspondents in Washington, Wallace talks to NBC technician Jim Bigger, who had been returning to the Washington bureau from an assignment at the Pentagon.
Jim Bigger, who had been close enough to the doomed 737 to be glad he was no closer. (NBC photo)
Bigger was less than half a mile from the scene – as he tells Wallace, “close enough to know I was glad that I was no closer” – and provides a chilling report, saying it looked for all the world like the plane was going to land on the bridge, that the plane was in a stall configuration with nose up and tail down, and a lot of noise.10 The plane, Bigger says, settled on the span of the bridge and then disappeared. “There was almost an eerie sense of silence,” he says. “There was nothing, and the aroma of jet fuel began to permeate the air and we knew there was an aircraft in the river. There was no place else for him to go.”
Then it’s to Willard Scott with the weather. He begins by acknowledging the crash – “Our hearts go out to everyone down there” – and the big weather story, which is a huge winter storm system covering much of the United States.11 Willard mentions that Phil Donahue had been scheduled to appear on today’s program but was stuck in Boston. “Enjoy your second cup,” Willard advises him.
That big winter storm got to us down here, too. (NBC photo)
Gene Shalit does a longer interview with Barbara Walters, mentioning a time that “a really tough subject almost got the better of Barbara Walters,” and asks that a monitor be nearby for her to see the clip. But it’s not of a prime minister or celebrity trying to squeeze out from a hard question; instead, it’s this:
NBC photo
And her response:
NBC photo
Walters talks about how the times have changed for women; when she started on Today as a writer, they only had one female writer at a time, and they only wrote women’s stories. Producer Shad Northshield championed her, saying that Walters was capable of writing about anything, so she wrote about more topics and eventually became an on-air reporter. When she sees someone like Jane Pauley in a prominent role, she says, it is a sign that times have changed since those early days.
They would be reunited on “20/20.” (NBC photo)
The interview continues after the break, as Hugh Downs12 joins Shalit and Walters. “I would not have been on the air were it not for Hugh and his generosity,” Walters says, “because they didn’t take writers and put them on the air. And so many of the opportunities I had were because this was a man who was never jealous, and never small.” They talk about her reputation as a tough questioner, and she talks about how she gets people to open up on sensitive topics. Downs backs her up, saying he’s never heard her be mean to an interviewee.
Then there’s a segment about Joe Garagiola that turns into a roast, of sorts. But it takes a serious turn when Gumbel talks about being offered the Today job; when the offer came, Gumbel knew there was someone who could give him advice about moving from sports to a general-interest morning program, because he’d done it. Gumbel thanks “my buddy here” and says “I will forever appreciate it. Thank you.”
NBC photo
Jane Pauley references the station break cue “We’ll be back; don’t go far,” and how that was the trademark of Frank McGee. She introduces Jim Hartz, who was McGee’s longtime friend and who succeeded McGee as Today host when he died in 1974.
The often-forgotten Jim Hartz, low-key and easygoing, speaks from the heart about his friend and fellow Oklahoman Frank McGee. (NBC photo)
Hartz, an Oklahoman like McGee, talks about their close friendship and remembers McGee’s distinguished career. “As a reporter he was all business – no nonsense, nothing fancy,” Hartz says.
Frank McGee in one of his signature roles, holding the desk during NASA missions. (NBC photo)
“On camera he was blunt, sometimes abrasive13, but never lost what one critic called his ministerial dignity. Away from here, though, on the farm down in Virginia, Frank was relaxed and warm and funny. One of the things he told me he liked most about the Today show was the luxury of enough time to be himself, to let the other side of his personality come out.”14
A clip from New Year’s Day 1974, in which McGee talks about his childhood experiences watching movies, poking fun at himself for not realizing the same people got shot every week and how many times he saved Ronald Colman’s life. (NBC photo)
In the next segment, a clip of Dave Garroway doing the weather with the help of Lee Ann Meriwether is followed by Willard Scott doing that day’s weather with the help of Lee Ann Meriwether. She remembers how the weather was outlined on the map in red, which couldn’t be seen on black-and-white television, so they only had to trace over it. “And it made me look so intelligent!”
Lee Ann Meriwether helps Dave Garroway with the weather..…and helping Willard Scott with the weather. (NBC photo)
After they ham it up for a few minutes, Jane Pauley and Gene Shalit visit with Tom Brokaw. He remembers coming to New York for the World’s Fair and looking in the window at the Today Show,15 and holding up a sign plugging Today in Omaha. “I thought that was going to be my one network shot, and as a penalty I had to come back and do it for five and a half years.”
NBC photo
After a segment showing times when presidents had given interviews to Today, including Harry Truman’s post-presidency strolls past the big windows, Gumbel throws to Willard Scott, who’s on the 49th Street sidewalk opposite the old Exhibition Hall.
NBC photo
After talking to a woman who said she remembers watching the first Today program, Willard just happens to bump into David Letterman, whose new NBC late-night program begins Feb. 1. Letterman congratulates everyone on Today on the show’s thirtieth anniversary – “and I know that means a lot coming from a guy whose own show lasted eighteen weeks.”16
No mistaking that grin. (NBC photo)
And then one more celebrity greeting, this one from Steve Martin.
“Well, the Today show is thirty years old. Happy birthday, and remember: don’t trust anyone over thirty.” (NBC photo)
As the two hours come to an end, Gumbel talks about all the hours of programming on over 7,810 broadcasts – “and if that doesn’t humble you a little bit on this January 14th, 1982, then I am not sure what does” – and then each Today alum identifies themselves.
NBC photo
One is saved for last – as Gumbel says, a very special goodbye from a very special man. “Sentimental Journey” comes up in the background.
“I’m Dave Garroway…and peace.”
NBC photo
There is applause. Gene Shalit hands Garroway the first piece from the enormous birthday cake. Lee Ann Meriwether, Florence Henderson, Helen O’Connell and Betsy Palmer – former Today Girls – gather around Garroway. He holds the plate and says to them, “I said ‘peace’ and I got one!” They laugh and hug him.
NBC photo
No one knew how poignant the moment would be. Six months, one week and one day later, the same studio that hosted a joyous celebration, and some of the same people who had gathered for that celebration, would be holding an on-air memorial for Dave Garroway, who had died the day before. No one knew, or could have known. In a thank-you letter to producer Steve Friedman, Garroway had written of the fun he had coming back for the show. He ended the letter, “Now, let’s talk about 1987.”
If only it could have been.
Here are a few more photos to supplement the screengrabs above:
NBC photoNBC photoDave with Estelle Parsons, Florence Henderson, Jane Pauley, Lee Ann Meriwether, Betsy Palmer and Helen O’Connell. (NBC photo)From left: Jack Lescoulie, John Chancellor, Hugh Downs, Pat Weaver, Jim Hartz, Betty Furness, Gene Shalit, Bryant Gumbel, our Dave, Helen O’Connell, Florence Henderson, Betsy Palmer, Lee Ann Meriwether, Frank Blair, and Estelle Parsons (hidden behind teleprompter hood). (NBC photo)
January 14, 2020 is the 68th anniversary of Today, and to mark the occasion let’s not look at the program as it is now. Instead, let’s go back to the morning of January 14, 1977 and see how Today marked its 25th birthday. It was something really special.
I’ve seen several of the anniversary programs – the 25th, the 30th, the 35th, the 40th and 50th1 – but of them all, the 25th anniversary was the one that put the most effort into calling back to those first years. And while the others may have been a little more stylish, or might have even spawned a prime-time retrospective, there was something special about the 25th anniversary special that none of the others fully matched.
NBC photo
We see this special theme from the very beginning: the screen is black and white, there’s an in-studio reproduction (though not exact) of the original communicator’s desk from the RCA Exhibition Hall, and the first voice you hear is that of Jack Lescoulie re-creating a version of that very first morning’s open.
NBC photo
And there’s Dave Garroway himself, happy to see you. “Hello, old friend, and good morning, too! As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted myself, seventeen years and thirty-eight days ago, we’re about to give you the news of the morning.”2 Garroway recounts the major headline of that first day in 1952 – the captain of the freighter Flying Enterprise is about to receive a hero’s welcome – and then throws to news editor Frank Blair.
NBC photo
It’s Blair (who wasn’t on the show that first morning, of course)3 who breaks the spell. “You know, they really used to call me that, Dave, 25 years ago?” Blair pretends to read a bulletin that what you’re seeing is not a dream, but let’s go across the studio to Tom Brokaw.
Tom Brokaw, captured in the warm tones the RCA TK-44 rendered so well. (NBC photo)
And with that, we’re in color and in 1977, and everyone has a good laugh. Brokaw explains the concept: they have turned the studio into a time machine so they can revisit the last 25 years. It’s a birthday party to which we’re all invited.
The first “Today” set I remember seeing. (NBC photo)
Brokaw explains that when Today first went on the air, he was living in a place where they could barely get television, and that co-host Jane Pauley was trying to learn how to walk. “And I was bald,” she adds. (Gene Shalit, asked where he was in 1952, said he wasn’t bald.)
There’s no way he could have been. (NBC photo)
The real headlines of January 14, 1977 are presented by the current news editor, Floyd Kalber. The big stories of the morning: the death of Anthony Eden, winter storms across Europe, a good part of the United States under extreme cold, and the following week’s inauguration of Jimmy Carter as president.
The Tuna. (NBC photo)
There’s then a short local break, during which the weather from across the country scrolls on the screen, along with the affiliates’ call letters, while music plays. Keeping with the morning’s throwback theme, the music selections are big band standards as re-recorded by Enoch Light and The Light Brigade.4
Nifty anniversary version of the bumper. (NBC photo)Today’s weather scroll was soothing when it would come on and music would play behind it, a handy little break in the action. I picked this particular location on purpose because it’s not far from where I grew up. It’s a long story, but WJBF-TV had switched to ABC from NBC in 1967, but was allowed to carry “Today” in a market where the NBC affiliate (WAGT-TV) was a UHF station. There’s a lot about affiliate history that’s like trying to sort family trees in ancient mythology. (NBC photo)
After the break, Kalber revisits the top story of January 14, 1952 and we see newsreel footage of the stricken Flying Enterprise and the hero’s welcome for Captain Carlsen. Kalber then throws to Lew Wood, who does the morning’s weather.
NBC photoLew Wood fascinated me when I was a kid. He seemed like such a nice man. (NBC photo)
There’s another break, then the party begins. Brokaw is at the old desk replica with Garroway, Lescoulie and Blair.
Not the best re-creation of the 1952 set but they at least get points for effort. (NBC photo)
Brokaw begins by calling Garroway “a heroic figure to a generation of young people who grew up wanting to get into broadcasting.”
Something about Garroway in 1977 reminds me of an aged lion, worn and scarred but still proud. (NBC photo)
He then introduces a clip from October 1955 to show what the program was like back then. The clip has Garroway throwing to Frank Blair for that morning’s headlines (which, strangely enough, also involved Anthony Eden). From the vantage point of 1977, the men laugh at what they’ve just seen. Lescoulie says of Blair, “He was a little nervous in those days. It took him two Bloody Marys to get the top off his Miltown bottle!” Blair ruefully says, “That came later. That came later.”5
Hard to believe Brokaw turns 80 this year, 17 years older than Garroway was in the scene you see right here. (NBC photo)
Brokaw asks Garroway how confident he felt about the program’s prospects when he agreed to join the show. Garroway recalls that when he met the people he was going to work with, he took out a four-year lease on a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue. Prompted to recall his most memorable moment: “June 19, 1961.6 Walking slowly and regretfully out of the studio.” Common questions follow: did J. Fred Muggs really bite? Blair instantly warns Garroway, “You’re gonna get sued!” Garroway claims the NBC dispensary has multiple reports in its files of vaccinations he received after chimp bites. This prompts recollections of various incidents involving Muggs, as well as the lawsuit Muggs’ caretakers filed against Garroway, Lescoulie and NBC. And with that, we see a clip of Muggs attacking Jack Lescoulie’s desk one morning.
NBC photo
Blair also mentions that all three of them are working on books. Blair promotes the upcoming publication of Let’s Be Frank About It (and the title draws a howl from Lescoulie). Garroway mentions that he is writing “sort of an autobiography” with the working title “Garroway At Length.” Asked for a publication date, Garroway replies, “As soon as possible!” Lescoulie says he isn’t working hard on his because Blair’s would be out first. “Mine will be meaner than his,” Lescoulie says. In the meantime, he leads a good life with a lot of golf and a little writing, and he and his wife had never really given up the bright lights: “At least once a week we go over to the A&P if it’s open at night and do our shopping.”7
NBC photo
During the optional local break the discussion continues, for the affiliates that didn’t air a local news break at :25 after. Garroway tells Brokaw he didn’t feel television had lived up to its potential, that he had hoped the programming we would get would be more truthful and informative than what we ended up with. There’s also a brief discussion about lighter moments. We see a clip from the color era with Lescoulie disguised as Superman…
NBC photo
…then Lescoulie talks about a circus pantomime act he once did that stretched nearly ten minutes and left him completely spent at the end of it. Suddenly Garroway interrupts Lescoulie and tells him to smile at the camera. Lescoulie asks why. Garroway replies, “Jimmy Carter!”
The resemblance is uncanny. (NBC photo)
Brokaw asks about embarrassing moments. “The day I sat down and there was no chair there,” Garroway says. Blair remembered an event when Garroway didn’t realize his fly was open. “That didn’t embarrass me at all!” Garroway replies, deadpan. In the background, you hear the studio crew cracking up.
Network break slide. I love Rockford. I’m there, baby. (NBC photo)
The next half-hour begins with another clip from October 1955: Lescoulie introducing the segment, interrupted by Gertrude Berg:
NBC photos
Then Brokaw and Pauley preview the upcoming segments, followed by news from Floyd Kalber and weather from Lew Wood, who shows a clip of how the weather was done in 1955.
Garroway with “Today Girl” Lee Ann Meriwether. (NBC photo)
We then see a segment on all the places Today has been and the technological innovations of the last 25 years. Then Jane Pauley introduces a 1955 clip observing National Doughnut Week, in which Garroway demonstrates a series of accessories for your coffee-and-doughnut habit: a pinkie rest, a cup for retrieving your doughnut if it falls in the cup, tongs for retrieving a doughnut, and a spoon for stirring your coffee. Of them all, Garroway likes the pinky rest the best. He says it makes you feel strong all over.
Dave’s smile in the final frame sells it. (NBC photos)
Gene Shalit then introduces Lionel Hampton and His Jazz Inner Circle. They perform a medley of the program’s various theme songs8 under a montage of famous guests.
Always a good morning when Mr. Hampton provides the music. (NBC photo)
At the end of the hour is what Brokaw calls a “family portrait” – the current staff with Garroway, Lescoulie and Blair.
NBC photo
Brokaw asks Garroway to give his famous sign-off. Garroway obliges, talking about something “that we have a great deal of and need so much more of…peace.” A few seconds later, Blair softly says, “God love you.”9
NBC photoNifty shot of 3K as the hour ends. Note the top of the cyclorama, the floor director at right with hand raised, Lionel Hampton and his group to the right. The kinds of details people like me love. (NBC photo)
The next hour begins with another simulation of that first day. This time, Lescoulie introduces the Master Communicator with “here’s old four-eyes himself, Dave Garroway!” Garroway wishes the audience good morning – “Once more we meet after a quarter of a century and we’re still making it, aren’t we? You and me. And so is Today, after a quarter-century.” Garroway forgets to give a cue to Frank Blair, and there are several seconds of silence. When they realize what’s happened, everybody cracks up. “Nothing’s changed!” Once it’s all straightened out, Blair introduces “the new boy on the block, Tom Brokaw.”
Oops! (NBC photo)
After the news and weather, Brokaw conducts a desk interview with Garroway and Pat Weaver.
The Master Communicator and his most important advocate. I love this screen-grab, for their respect and regard for each other is unmistakable. (NBC photo)
The former NBC executive talks about the idea behind Today. He had known for many years there was a morning audience with a lot of potential, and he wondered if he couldn’t do something better than another morning “gang” show – instead, a show that had information, but had enough showmanship to attract an audience. And here Brokaw introduces about thirty seconds of a promotional film NBC had put together to sell the Today concept to affiliates. Over a montage of clips of Churchill, Truman, Stalin, Eisenhower and other important figures, as dramatic music plays behind, a narrator talks about how “a program like this is a magnificent use of the tool of television in its ultimate social responsibility,” and that the viewer would get information to be a responsible citizen in a free society. “His horizon will be limited by neither time nor place.”
Not that we’re trying to make an important point in this scary atomic age, but…. (NBC photo)
As the film ends and its music swells to a conclusion, we see the enormous water vapor cloud from the second Bikini atom-bomb test, and a primitive (almost frightening) Today logo. “This is the real secret weapon of free men,” the narrator says. “To know, to understand, so that John Smith is ready for today…whatever it may bring.”10
Back in the studio, Brokaw gives credit to Garroway for his talent in helping make the show succeed. Weaver recalls how Garroway came in from Chicago and asked to do the show, and that Weaver quickly realized that Garroway’s “command and serenity” in the midst of the show’s chaos would work well. Brokaw asks Weaver how he would change television in 1977. “Oh, you’ll need an hour for that,” he replies with a verbal eye-roll.
Yes, he’s Sigourney’s dad – all the more reason to love him. (NBC photo)
The discussion continues into the local-option break. Brokaw introduces a piece by Paul Cunningham on how the Today model has been adapted worldwide. After the piece, Brokaw muses that in Britain they’re called “presenters” and Weaver insisted on the title “communicators,” and now Brokaw’s title was “host,” which made him feel like he should be serving breakfast to his fellow on-air personalities. Weaver didn’t like that title. “I’d knock that off fast!” he said. Garroway informs us that to this day, he’s still remembered for Today – for every one person who remembers Garroway at Large there will be two people who know him from Today. What fascinated him, he recalled, about the Today job was that at that hour, people’s minds were open. “It’s almost a blank slate.” Brokaw thanks Weaver and Garroway for what they have done to make Today last. Weaver replies, “See you on the fiftieth!” Garroway follows: “Amen!”11
The final half-hour doesn’t have a lot about Garroway and Lescoulie and Blair, but it does begin with a nod to the storefront studio window and a simplified version of the move inside 30 Rock for the move to color broadcasting.12 There’s news, and then after a commercial we get a live spot for Alpo with Gene Shalit:
NBC photo
And Lew Wood does a spot at the desk for True Value Hardware Stores.
Lew’s telling us about a special on white paint that keeps your walls easy to clean. (NBC photo)
Then there’s a discussion about what the preceding 25 years have meant for society and the country. The panelists are Daniel Boorstin, Pulitzer-winning historian and Librarian of Congress; Charlotte Curtis, editor of the op-ed page of the New York Times; and Martin Marty of the Christian Century, who is also a professor at the University of Chicago.13 It’s a lengthy and thoughtful discussion of the sort you would never see on the modern Today program.
A sign of a far different time indeed. I shudder to think what they’d use this segment for now. (NBC photo)
After a break, we get another Lionel Hampton performance. This time, the music plays behind a montage of photos of Today‘s people from the last quarter-century. It’s a simple but really cool tribute.
After the final break, Tom Brokaw stands with the morning’s guests and the show’s current staff. He says that two prominent television critics of the day gave Today bad reviews and shares some of the more pointed quotes from them. Then Brokaw points out that both those newspapers are no longer around, but Today still is. “While much has changed over 25 years, one hope that has been with this program from the very beginning has not changed.” At which point, Brokaw nods to Dave Garroway, who says, “That hope is some love…and peace.”
NBC photoNBC photo
As the cameras pull back, you can just see Garroway move over to the giant birthday cake and pretend to give it a karate-chop, much to everyone’s amusement.
And that’s how Today celebrated its 25th anniversary: a little silly and a lot sentimental, but all of it memorable.
In this screengrab from the July 16 webstream of the CBS News coverage of the Apollo 11 liftoff, Arthur C. Clarke talks with Walter Cronkite. (CBS photo)
As I write this, we’re observing the fiftieth anniversary of the flight of Apollo 11. There’s a list of on-air commemorations as long as your arm, airing on all kinds of channels. Some of them are good, even if some of them have hit the same beats that every documentary already has. A handful have been truly excellent, unearthing new material and new perspectives (see the wide-ranging, unexpectedly moving Chasing the Moon or the outstanding Apollo 11).
But one media organization did something truly spectacular. On July 16, CBS streamed its live coverage, as originally aired that day 50 years before, of the launch of Apollo 11 (and made it available afterward on YouTube). It wasn’t just the highlights, either – the stream began with the start of that morning’s coverage, at 6 a.m., and carried you through until the astronauts were in Earth orbit. It was nearly four and a half hours of coverage. Better still, you truly saw it as it aired – with network commercials still there (a young Ali MacGraw wearing a paper bikini in an ad for International Paper; a bizarre minimalist ad for Maxim freeze-dried coffee; a really mod commercial for Corn Flakes with a multi-picture montage straight out of Saul Bass; Western Electric musing that this new innovation called a laser could revolutionize communications). Not only that, but the CBS Morning News from that morning was also included, and there you could find glimpses of what else was going on in the nation and the world that historic morning. And since the recording originated at the CBS O&O in New York, you even got local breaks and station IDs from WCBS-TV. All in about as good a transfer from the original videotape as you could ask for, looking vivid and colorful.
To me, what CBS did was like Christmas morning. It hit so many sweet spots for me: my love of spaceflight history, my love of broadcast history, my love of those little time-capsule moments that let you experience how a moment must have felt. It lets you realize that even in historic moments, life isn’t a highlight reel. There’s a lot of waiting. Sometimes the most interesting thing is Wally Schirra, retired astronaut who’s there as the color guy, pointing out to Walter Cronkite that a clock in the little studio at the Cape isn’t working. Sometimes it’s dull. But so did it happen in real time, in 1969. There’s no narration, no editing beyond what the director called during the broadcast that morning.
CBS gave us all a wonderful gift by putting this coverage out there, as it aired. Yeah, so it has those banners across the bottom, but to me the wonder of seeing so much that I’d only heard of, but never been able to see, could make me overlook that. Streaming this coverage was, in many ways, the perfect way to observe this anniversary. It’s fun. It generated a lot of happy buzz around the Interwebs. And it makes me wish we saw this kind of thing more often.
I think, for instance, about the archival Garroway material that I’ve seen and heard. I remember how much of it was listed on the old NBC News Archives site, some of which was actually posted for viewing in screener form. There was no better way for me to understand the tenor of Garroway in any given period than to watch some of that footage. But then NBC’s archive changed its website, and its policies, and what was there is no longer accessible. A valuable resource to my research was suddenly gone.
I know that network archives can be extensive, and are understaffed. I also know it takes effort and equipment to digitize old media, and that it costs to do it. I also know that in some instances you get into various licensing issues, too. But I also know there’s a lot of it out there that’s already been digitized – and I know this because I’ve seen it, from official network sources. And sometimes that’s the rub. The material exists, but you can’t see it, and not unless you’re a documentary or feature film producer with deep enough pockets will you see it.
The archives are valuable properties for licensing. And I get that. And this footage is the property of the networks, and it’s theirs to do with as they wish. But I also think about the value to history that exists by making this stuff available for people to view and to experience once again, in all their imperfect splendor. If you want people to experience a moment, there’s no better way.
That’s why I applaud CBS for what it’s done with its Apollo 11 coverage. It was a bold thing to do, but it was the right one, and it’s an example of the flexibility the online streaming platforms allow these days. May we see more networks follow the lead of CBS, crack the doors of the vaults a little wider, and share more widely the moments from the past, exactly as they were back then.
On this day in 1913, our Dave Garroway was born. On this day in 2017, our website went live. In the time we’ve been on the Internet, we’ve had quite the adventure. We’ve met new and interesting people, gone places and done things, and even had the privilege of befriending members of Dave’s family and enlisting their support on the book.
Today I can say it’s all continuing to be worth it. The raw manuscript is very close to the halfway point. New material is coming in on a routine basis, and I’m constantly learning things about Garroway that leave me interested and amazed and amused. He was a man of many facets, and he packed a lot of living into his 69 years. He was many things, but “boring” was never one of them.
There’s a lot to look forward to. In the coming year there’s going to be at least one, and probably two (if not more), major research trips on behalf of the book, to sift through archives and conduct some extended interviews. There’s still a ton of newspaper archives I need to sift through – although that first draft of history can be imperfect, it’s still invaluable for understanding things in the context of a moment in time. And, of course, there are always the little discoveries that come completely by surprise, and that leave one astounded.
There is a lot to be done, and it will be a challenge finding time in an already busy life to get it all done. But I find myself in a happy place with this project. For a long time I dreaded the possibility that the farther I got into researching Garroway the man, I’d find something about him that would turn me against him, as can so often happen when you dive into the life of a celebrity. That hasn’t happened – at least, not yet. Has everything I’ve learned been positive? Of course not. But none of it has put me off. I haven’t discovered any kind of weird secret life or untold stories of evil or anything. Instead, I’ve learned about an interesting man of many interests, a man who had his flaws as any of us do, but who tried hard to do his best. I’ve learned some stories about Garroway that are sweet, some that are heartwarming, some that are bizarre, some that are funny, some that are heartbreaking. And none of it discourages me from moving ahead. All these stories are vital if I am to understand Garroway, and if this project is going to give you a full measure of the man. But if where we are now is any indication, you’re going to enjoy reading about him when this book is a reality. He was quite a guy.
Mr. Garroway, this is quite the journey we’re on, but it’s never, ever a boring one. Happy birthday to you, sir.
