Lost Garroway: “Sunday With Garroway”/”Friday With Garroway”

It’s a little hard to think these days about Dave Garroway as the ubiquitous face of NBC – especially since if you ask the average person who Dave Garroway was, they’ll probably give you a blank expression. But at a certain point in the 1950s, Dave was everywhere – not only five days a week on Today, not only in a weekly prime-time program, not only in numerous cameo appearances on other programs, but also on radio.

In March 1954 rumors began to circulate that Dave was working on a weekly two-hour program for NBC Radio. At first it was thought the program would air on Fridays, but by early April NBC had slated it for Sundays. It would be titled, appropriately, Sunday With Garroway. Jim Fleming, who had been Today‘s original news editor, would help with the program. NBC announced that the program would feature live and recorded interviews, news and recorded music. Fleming would provide news updates at intervals during the program.

The bulk of the program was pre-recorded, except for Fleming’s late news inserts. NBC provided Garroway with “a private studio” that was kept ready at all times. Garroway could come to the studio to record material after his Today duties were done. “If a new idea occurs later, he’ll return. By this piece-meal method he can fit the program into his busy day without too much strain.” Garroway insisted that the program wasn’t meant to compete with Today, or be a disc-jockey program, but “a magazine of the air with a news format.”NBC characterized the series as “all about topical things which arise during the week.”

The debut program, on April 18, would feature the ringing of the bells in Boston’s Old North Church; an interview with Malcolm Muggeridge of the English humor magazine Punch; a piece about the opening of Japan’s baseball season, complete with play-by-play of a game taking place in Tokyo and a Japanese recording of “Casey at the Bat”; visits from Gene Fowler, Billy Rose, and Carol Channing; and a discussion with NBC reporter Earl Godwin. Win Fanning of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote, “The net says the show will be something like its TV Today, on which Garroway also officiates from 7 to 9 a.m. daily. Thus, if you have a TV set and a radio you need never fear being without Garroway – Loudly sing cuckoo.” As it happened, Sunday would even include highlights from that week’s Today programs.

As an example, the first hour of the May 2, 1954 edition began with a quick look at the headlines by Jim Fleming, then went into a comic sketch with Charlie Andrews based on news about the fling between playboy Porfirio Rubirosa and Zsa Zsa Gabor; an interview with Nebraska Senator Eva Bowring; a visit with Gisele Mackenzie of Your Hit Parade, featuring a few of her hit recordings; a clip from a Today program from the previous week in which Dave and Jack Lescoulie demonstrated a solar battery unit developed by Bell Labs; a visit with Billy Gaxton and a commemoration of the closing and demolition of the Center Theater at Rockefeller Center; and a (live) news update from Jim Fleming.¹ The second hour began by exploring the theme of man’s survival in the age of the H-Bomb and featured a conversation with Dr. A. Powell Davies of All Souls Church, a long-distance conversation with classical scholar Dr. Gilbert Murray of Oxford University, and excerpts from a speech by Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss. The second half of the second hour featured an extended visit with drummer Gene Krupa, during which the entirety of the original “Sing, Sing, Sing” was played.

Sometimes the programs got profound, with interviews with the likes of Bertrand Russell, United Nations Secretary-General Trygve Lie, or author Aldous Huxley. Sometimes the content took a distinctive turn toward entertainment, with guests such as Eddy Arnold, William Holden, Helen Hayes or Liberace. And sometimes Garroway’s guests had a distinctively personal angle. On the May 9 program, one of his guests was Pat Kelly, supervisor of NBC’s announcers. During Kelly’s visit, Garroway re-enacted his first audition with NBC.²

Cincinnati radio/TV critic Magee Adams characterized Garroway’s program as not “the kind of thing that keeps ears glued to loudspeakers. But, taken in judicious doses, it is pleasanter listening than the glorified deejay show it might be suspected of resembling.” Adams wrote that the easygoing Garroway style dominated the program, leading to a “mellow, don’t take it too big, mood,” and added, “Two hours of this could leave dialers slumped as deep in their chairs as Garroway. But it can be nibbled at random with an excellent chance of hitting a tasty tidbit.” But within weeks Adams had soured on the program, saying it “bears less and less resemblance to major evening programming as it goes along” and finding fault not with Garroway or the individual segments, but “the uneasy sense of being left at a loose end. Despite all the diverting snacks, you wind up the two hours with the feeling of having missed a full meal.” Adams lamented the loss of programs like Star Playhouse, and wrote, “The moral seems to be that, for keeping listeners listening, even Dave Garroway is no substitute for major evening programming.” Adams also expressed concern that Garroway was turning the program into a “super-duper deejay affair” with music being played for its own sake, but applauded the program’s eventual shift to interviews “with a minimum of spacer music.”

Sunday with Garroway was a Sunday program only a few months. Effective October 8, it moved to Friday nights, with an appropriate change to its title. Magee Adams again weighed in on the program, calling out for particular praise the Nov. 12 edition of Friday with Garroway, which “for more than 45 minutes…held this dialer’s rapt attention with nothing but interviews.” Those interviews included one with a man who specialized in making recordings of everyday sounds, and another with a man who taped interviews with pioneers from the frontier history of the Southwest. “This showed how much interest can be packed into 45 minutes without a single platter,” Adams wrote. “Besides his skill at interviewing, Garroway was able to do that by tapping the resources of what he aptly called “exciting sound.” Peg Simpson of the Syracuse Post-Standard praised the program for offering “a little of everything – intelligent discussions, intellectual ideas, music, humor and just plain pleasant entertainment,” and detailed a hope that “as the show develops, controversial subjects will play an important part in the programming with qualified exponents of differing views participating.” Language columnist William Morris praised Garroway, whom he called “among the more literate of radio commentators,” and said his Friday programs “constitute just about the best argument for turning off TV and going back to old-fashioned radio.”³

But the days were numbered for Garroway’s weekend radio program. Some of the first inklings came in April 1955 when columnists began writing about an ambitious plan NBC had for a weekend programming service, presenting 40 hours of news, music, live remotes, and anything else that could be presented in sound. This service, which premiered June 12, was known as Monitor. This new concept, another of Pat Weaver’s innovations, ran for nearly 20 years in some form or another and helped breathe new life into network radio. And Dave Garroway was soon signed to be one of Monitor‘s hosts – or, in Weaver-ese, “communicators.” But with the birth of Monitor came the end of Garroway’s weekly show.

Sunday with Garroway and Friday with Garroway have since fallen into the memory hole. It was an unusual program, caught between Garroway’s little 15-minute Dial Dave Garroway and the phenomenon that was “Monitor,” and with wide-ranging content that made the show hard to characterize. But listening to the small amount of it that is available, it remains a very pleasant way to spend a couple hours – Garroway at his unhurried best, at the helm of a program as wide-ranging as the interests of its hosts.⁴

SOURCES:

Magee Adams, “Radio: Music Listings Shocked Into Popular Classics.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 9 May 1954, 32.
Magee Adams, “Radio: Networks Fighting Outlets On Who Sells Spot Time.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 6 Jun 1954, 30.
Magee Adams, “Look and Listen: Garroway Clicks in Interviews.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 19 Nov 1954, 45.
C.E. Butterfield, “Radio Cuts Costs: Budget Is Problem For Summer Shows.” The Miami News (Miami, Fla.), 10 April 1954, 6.
Art Cullison, “Garroway On New Show,” Akron Beacon Journal, 18 Apr 1954, 22B.
Win Fanning, “Radio-Television,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 13 April 1954, 27.
Bob Foster, “Radio-TV: Hollywood Stunt Man TV Success Story.” The Press-Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.), 8 April 1954, 9.
“Garroway Show On Radio Prepared At His Leisure,” The Indianapolis Star, 30 May 1954, 10.
“Garroway To Return To Air In New Program On WFBC,” Greenville (S.C.) News, 18 Apr 1954, 29.
“Look and Listen: New WSAI Forum Notable Fare.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 23 Apr 1954, 35.
“Menotti on KSD: Composer of Amahl ‘Best of All’ Guest.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 23 Jan 1955, 71.
William Morris, “Words, Wit and Wisdom,” The Decatur Daily Review (Decatur, Ill.), 15 Feb 1955, 6.
“Radio-TV Highlights: Stage Set For Dramatic Action.” Indianapolis Star, 9 May 1954, 19.
Peg Simpson, “Radio and TV: Garroway Series On Friday Nights Good Listening,” The Syracuse Post-Standard, 14 Jan 1955, 30.

The top stories of the day included the ongoing Army-McCarthy hearings and the ongoing developments at a place called Dien Bien Phu.
Radio historian Martin Grams Jr. has compiled a handy listing of Sunday With Garroway episodes here.
Not all Friday with Garroway programs were hosted by the man himself; while Garroway took a vacation in January 1955, Jack Lescoulie and Charlie Andrews guest-hosted.
At present I’ve only been able to find the May 2, 1954 episode, which has circulated on a couple of websites. But I would love to find more episodes. If you have any, or if you know where they may be found, please drop me a note via the “contact” page.