In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the television networks were trying to figure out how best to adapt to a younger generation. Some of that was through programming, with NBC’s innovative, rapid-fire Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In perhaps the most famous of the dozens of youth-oriented programs the networks tried during that era. But an up-and-coming generation had talent that needed to be discovered, and then given national exposure.
That, at least, was the idea of CBS Television president Robert Wood, who believed there needed to be more new and younger talent coming on television. But Wood didn’t want a show like Talent Scouts, where people competed for the spotlight. Instead, he wanted to find young professional performers and put them on a national television show.
Wood dispatched executive producer Robert Tamplin on a nationwide search for young talent. Tamplin enlisted the help of CBS affiliates to locate performers worth auditioning. As one writer put it, Tamplin “wanted no rock groups, no concert artists, no large choral groups, no mimics with a pantomime turn and no kids under 12 – and absolutely no amateur accordionists playing ‘Lady of Spain.'” Instead, he was looking for “something special or identifiable,” he said. “Those who make it big have something individual.” Tamplin watched 1,500 acts in 42 cities, visiting clubs, theaters and concerts in his search. “I feel we need to develop new people,” he said. “Television is important to building a career. If they’re good on television, they’ll catch on.”
The show Wood envisioned took the name The CBS Newcomers. It would air as a summer replacement for Carol Burnett’s show. Supporting the young talent on the show were some television industry veterans. Writers Artie Phillips, Fred S. Fox and Seaman Jacobs were among those providing the material. Nelson Riddle was musical director. Longtime director Bill Hobin, whose credits included Your Show of Shows and Your Hit Parade, would call the shots.
And the program, of course, would need a master of ceremonies. In a conversation with Hobin, Wood asked, “What’s the glue to hold it together?” Hobin replied, “I’d like somebody like Garroway.” To which Wood responded, “Why not get Garroway?”
Hobin’s suggestion of Garroway did not come out of thin air. They were both veterans of the “Chicago School,” and Hobin had directed 78 episodes of Garroway at Large before it was canceled in 1951. Though Hobin and Garroway hadn’t worked together in two decades, they remained friends.
It also helped that Garroway had moved to southern California. Since leaving Today in 1961, he had tried to get back into the television business through various means, but his efforts were stymied in part by the terms of his separation from NBC. He moved to Boston in the late 1960s to host an interview series, and there had been some hope it might catch on as a syndicated program, but those plans fell through. Garroway decided to try his luck out west, where his manager had moved. “Life is very, very pleasant out here,” he said. “All those put-downs you get from Easterners – I think they come from people who went back when they didn’t make it here.” Garroway also mentioned that during his last two years in New York, his son David had been held up and mugged three times. “He didn’t like that,” Dad said.
Garroway had been working at Los Angeles radio station KFI, doing a three-hour show six days a week that he described as “a few records, a lot of talk and a few commercials.” But that was wearing at him. Doing the show six days a week meant “you need an awful lot of things to talk about to keep that up,” he told one writer.
When the invitation came from CBS to return to national television, Garroway eagerly accepted. “I have been available,” he dryly told writer Tom Green during the run-up to the show’s premiere. Garroway admitted that he had “missed a place to sound off” and said, “I’m a ham.” He told Green that he’d expected to be off the air only one or two years after leaving Today, but events had dictated otherwise. “Of course, when you’re off television this long, the networks think you have passed into another world.” To Garroway, getting back in the game was a balm. “I went over to the studio the other day and I saw my name on that parking spot and I smelled that smell in the building, and it was like something I had forgotten all about,” he told Green.
Garroway, who would turn 58 the day after the show’s July 12 debut, would preside over a troupe of performers all young enough to be his children. The cast included a six-member comedy team called the Good Humor Company, who had impressed audiences in clubs and hotels on both coasts and gained something of a following. Comedians Joey Garza and Rodney Winfield were also signed, along with musical performers Peggy Sears, Raul Perez, Cynthia Clawson, David Arlen, Gay Perkins and Rex Allen Jr., and a choral group called The Californians. “They are all likable kids,” Garroway said of them. “I wander through each program, doing my bit two or three times.” And he hoped something good would come of it for them. “Perhaps if people see how much really good talent there is around the country, opportunities will be created to use it.”
But would something good come of it all? We’ll find out in Part 2.
SOURCES:
- “Bob Tamplin: A Familiar Face Just to Introduce New Ones,” Anniston (Ala.) Star 18 July 1971: 14.
- Don Freeman, “Unknowns Get Crack at Tube,” The Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pa.), 24 July 1971, 15.
- Tom Green, “Garroway Back on TV,” Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal, 10 July 1971: 34.
- Lawrence Laurent, “Dave Garroway Returns to TV in ‘Newcomers,'” Lawton (Okla.) Constitution and Morning Press 25 July 1971, 53.
- Cynthia Lowery, “After Trying California, Garroway Decides to Stay,” Pensacola News 9 August 1971, 10.
- Cecil Smith, “Garroway-Hobin Reunion Sparks the CBS Newcomers,” Los Angeles Times 11 July 1971.