Lost Garroway: “The CBS Newcomers,” 1971 (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1.)

There was hope on the eve of Garroway’s return to television. “It’s good to have Garroway back with us,” said writer Tom Riste. “This man has too much talent to languish on the sidelines.” Cecil Smith of the Los Angeles Times wrote of watching a dress rehearsal of The CBS Newcomers, being impressed by the young talent on display, but finding that “the glue was Dave.” Smith watched Garroway close the show with a story about telling Dave Jr. a few years back that he was headed to a banquet to honor Dr. Jonas Salk. Dave Jr., who was ten when the story took place, didn’t know that name, so Garroway explained that Salk discovered the polio vaccine…only to hear Dave Jr., who had never known the dread that word once posed, ask “What’s polio?” Garroway then raised his hand and gave his familiar “peace” benediction. “It’s good to have him at large again,” Smith wrote. Others took a wait-and-see attitude. “Comedians, singers and a choral group perform, and if it looks a little like Laugh-In, they’ll probably deny it,” went a preview in the Sioux City Journal.

Garroway with “Newcomer” Peggy Sears (CBS photo)

As the show began, Garroway looked into the camera with a smile. “My name is Dave Garroway. Do you remember?” (As writer Don Freeman put it, that question wasn’t a mere gimmick for the show: “In television terms, nine years is nine eons.”) He continued, “I did my first show in 1948, and here I am tonight – a newcomer. But it’s a kick being here even if some of the newcomers weren’t even born when I was doing TV in Chicago. That was a long time ago, back when Ed Sullivan was just one of the kids on Juvenile Jury.”

Freeman praised Garroway’s return to television. “If the performers here are only recently out of the ranks of the amateurs, Garroway is the epitome of easygoing professionalism, a sure-handed master of the subtle intimacies of the medium.” He held out hope that the performers would “wear well,” though hoped the writing “will gain in sharpness and believability.”

But The CBS Newcomers fell flat with other reviewers. UPI television writer Rick DuBrow said that while there was “some pleasant talent exposed here and there,” the overall feeling was entertainment “of such an ordinary caliber – with several disastrous acts thrown in” that he found it hard to believe the claims CBS had made of an extensive national search. DuBrow also didn’t care for “the awful cuteness of the show as put together by the pros who should know better. Poor Garroway, along with the youngsters, was victimized by the foolish and self-consciously cute dialogue.” The one bright moment DuBrow saw for Garroway was when he was given a few minutes to talk, in classic Garroway form, about fountain pens and how they were an old-fashioned contrast to a world in which so much was disposable. “Perhaps it wasn’t a great Garroway dialogue,” he wrote, “but it did allow him to be himself, and it was miles ahead of the caliber of the rest of the hour.” Overall, however, DuBrow felt CBS had spent all this effort to find new talent but constrained them within an old format with corny jokes. “It was a visualized generation gap,” he wrote.

Steve Hoffman of the Cincinnati Enquirer called it “a bomb” that “never even got to the stage of fizzling. This hour has to be one of the worst I have seen on TV since moving to this desk 22 months ago.” Not only did Hoffman say the show “fumbled and bumbled” with talent that was “mediocre at best” and a format that was “an Ed Sullivan show in slow motion,” but he was especially disappointed by Garroway. “If you expected an erudite Garroway, you got blah. Only in the show’s opening did Dave show any of that academic charm that won him a tremendous following on NBC-TV’s Today show. He turned out to be another Major Bowes or Ted Mack by the end of this hour.” Hoffman was especially disappointed that Garroway let himself fall into trite interviews with the new talent. “‘How did you react when you heard you would be on the show?’ That got to be a sickening line of conversation.” On the whole, Hoffman likened the program to “a game of checking the clock to see how soon the misery would be over. Instead of entertainment, it was like sitting in your dentist’s chair.”

Judy Bachrach of the Baltimore Sun was even less impressed, calling it a “stuffed turkey” that left her speechless. Not only did she find the talent unsatisfactory (“either something is gravely wrong with present-day talent or something is gravely wrong with CBS talent scouts”), but she singled out Garroway, who “should know better. He started being gravely wrong when he launched into the achingly predictable me-a-newcomer??? jokes. He followed those up with a deadpan recitation of the lyrics to ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’ And the lyrics to ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ chanted in Garroway alexandrines take second place in meaning, depth and scope only to ‘Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry.'” Nor did she care for Garroway showing the audience his trick of folding a $20 bill into a triangle: “My Uncle Paul used to do similar things with nickels at cocktail parties. Generally he was never invited again. Definitely nobody paid him for it.”

Two weeks into its run, rumors circulated that the CBS brass hadn’t been overly impressed with the program. Garroway expressed hope the show might catch on as a midseason replacement after its scheduled run. “I don’t know our chances,” he told writer Cynthia Lowery, “but they are keeping the costumes and scenery intact, which should mean something.”

The program experimented with different things. While many comedy shows featured sketches called “black-outs,” The CBS Newcomers tried something called “light-ups,” which reversed the principle. A segment introduced a couple weeks in, spoofing “man on the street” interviews, had Garroway asking members of the Good Humor Company questions in the style of Fred Allen’s “Allen’s Alley.” And on the final episode in September, Garroway even joined in what was termed “a comedy-and-music romp.”

Minneapolis Star critic Forrest Powers wrote that The CBS Newcomers “was based on the results of a nationwide talent search. If that’s all the goodies they found, we’re in real trouble.” Colby Sinclair of the Orlando Sentinel said The CBS Newcomers “was so bad the first week I returned again and again, hoping to see the reason for the production. I never did.” To Sinclair, “the show served one purpose. It put new life and hope into every third-rate performer in the country who, after viewing the talent selected to entertain, must have been certain that they were better than anyone on that program. For the most part, these kids need to be returned to a merciful oblivion.” Instead, Sinclair saw something in the “off-beat” charm of a variety show CBS had tried out, hosted by a couple named Sonny and Cher. Though “Sonny makes me so nervous I can hardly bear to watch him,” Sinclair had kind things to say about Cher, and praised the writers for “refreshing ideas.”

As it turned out, the off-beat charm of Sonny and Cher resonated with viewers, and CBS picked it up for a successful three-year run. Not so fortunate were the Newcomers, and soon the sets and costumes, the signs of Garroway’s hope the show would be picked up, were disposed of. Garroway would try a few more times in coming years to pitch ideas to broadcasters, but aside from the occasional guest appearance, The CBS Newcomers was Garroway’s last network hurrah.

SOURCES:

  • Judy Bachrach, “TV Notes: Rendered Speechless By CBS’s Newcomers,” Baltimore Sun 13 July 1971, 17.
  • Don Freeman, “On CBS Newcomers, Unknowns Get Crack at Tube,” The Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pa.), 24 July 1971, 15.
  • Steve Hoffman, “Did You See The Worst Show on TV?” Cincinnati Enquirer 13 July 1971, 17.
  • Forrest Powers, “TV ‘Freeze’ Drives Him Up Ladder,” Minneapolis Star 6 September 1971, 25.
  • Tom Riste, “CBS To Offer 10 New ‘Stars,'” Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, Arizona), 12 July 1971, 27.
  • “Shows to Watch,” Sioux City Journal 11 July 1971, 32.
  • Colby Sinclair, “Fall Season Has Only Just Begin,” Orlando Sentinel 19 September 1971.
  • Cecil Smith, “Garroway-Hobin Reunion Sparks the CBS Newcomers,” Los Angeles Times 11 July 1971.
  • “TV Tonight,” Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, 6 September 1971, 40.