Jodie Peeler – Page 10 – Garroway at Large

Remembering Sarah Lee Lippincott

This has been the season for passings, I’m afraid. Last week we noted the passing of Charles Van Doren, whose path crossed with Dave Garroway’s in the late 1950s. And then a couple days ago came word that Dave’s third wife, Sarah Lee Lippincott, passed away on Feb. 28.¹ In many ways she was one of the most remarkable people in Garroway’s life – but her life in itself was no less remarkable.

Sarah Lippincott was born in Philadelphia in October 1920, and through her life she would retain close ties to the Philadelphia area. From 1938 to 1939 she attended Swarthmore College. She then attended the University of Pennsylvania College for Women, where in addition to her studies she played on the tennis and basketball teams, and graduated in 1942.

Her interest in astronomy led to a long professional association with Swarthmore College. Hired as a research assistant in astronomy in 1942, she earned a master’s degree in astronomy from Swarthmore in 1950. Swarthmore promoted her to a research associate in 1952, and in 1961 she was named a lecturer. In 1972 she was named director of Swarthmore’s Sproul Observatory, and in 1977 she was named a professor. During her career, she also served as a visiting astronomer at the University of California-Santa Cruz’s Lick Observatory (1949) and at the California Institute of Technology (1978). Lippincott also went to France on a Fulbright fellowship, and co-authored the book Point to the Stars.

Lippincott conducted much research in astrometry, which looks into measuring the positions and motions of celestial bodies. Peter van de Kamp, who directed the Sproul Observatory from 1937 to 1972, was a leading researcher in astrometry. The two worked on many projects and he was a key mentor to her. In turn, Lippincott was a mentor to many aspiring astronomers. A young Swarthmore student, whose love for astronomy dated to her childhood days stargazing with her father, saw in Lippincott an example of the independent and professional woman she herself could become. However, this student noted that despite her accomplishments, Lippincott didn’t have a faculty position, and this inspired the young student to earn a doctorate so she could be faculty someday. This student went on to become Dr. Sandra Faber, whose distinguished career has included a faculty position at the University of California-Santa Cruz, development of the Faber-Jackson relation, helping establish the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, helping design a camera for the Hubble Space Telescope, along with countless other projects and publications.

In 1973 Lippincott was granted an honorary doctorate from Villanova University. That same year, she became president of the International Astronomical Union. Her work and contacts with astronomers the world over had led to some interesting connections and international projects, including opportunities in areas that would ordinarily be considered forbidden. One such project came in 1975, when she arranged a tour so amateur astronomers could visit the great telescopes of the Soviet Union, including one telescope that was the world’s largest. And it just happened that one of the expedition’s members was a bespectacled amateur astronomer who had relocated to California.

In 1983 Lippincott would recall to interviewer Terry Gross that she first met Dave Garroway on a hot August day at Kennedy airport, as the tour prepared to depart. Years before, friends had suggested she watch Garroway’s television programs because he did occasional segments about astronomy, but she never had. Because she knew of his interest in astronomy, she wasn’t surprised to meet him. She recalled that they hit it off from the beginning, as they sat together on the bus and on the airplane. She found him “such a charming person” who lived up to others’ description as “so gracious, so charming, so quiet and low-key, but an extremely high-class man of great quality.” Their friendship took root, and after they came back from the three-week tour they stayed in touch. Although they lived on opposite ends of the country, they found ways to visit each other. And, eventually, they married.

Their union brought the question of where to live. They toyed with the idea of living in California, but when Garroway found Swarthmore to be appealing, they settled there. She recalled that he once said he had 40 addresses during his life, and that he kept a list of all the places he had lived, so the move wasn’t unusual for him. In Swarthmore, Garroway developed new friendships among her circles and renewed friendships from the past. But she remembered him as circulating mostly in a small group of friends. “He was not one for being gregarious or being a party-goer.” She remembered him as “a very private person, and I think our friends respected this.” Instead, she remembered him as a very avid reader with an interest in so many things, sharing a house full of gadgets, with all different kinds of music on hand and in the air.²

After Garroway died in 1982 she and the family worked to memorialize his life and works. Garroway’s funeral was a private family observance, but when many people requested a way to pay tribute to him, the family arranged a jazz concert in early 1983 featuring his old friends like Sarah Vaughan, Marian McPartland and others. The family also helped establish the Dave Garroway Laboratory for the Study of Depression at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sarah continued with an active life, and eventually remarried.³ Swarthmore named her Professor Emerita of Astronomy and Director Emerita of the Sproul Observatory. She maintained her admiration for her mentor Peter van de Kamp; when he died in 1995, she wrote an obituary that was published by the American Astronomical Society, and when Swarthmore dedicated an observatory named for van de Kamp in 2009, she attended. Well into her 90s she kept active and stayed connected with her family. Her remarkable, productive and inspiring life came to an end on February 28, after 98 years.

I’ve gone on at length about her life in this post, and into areas not necessarily connected to Dave Garroway. But to reduce her significance merely to her friendship and marriage with him just wouldn’t be right – not after everything she accomplished⁴, and what she meant to so many people. I commemorate her here as someone who brought happiness to Dave Garroway in his later years, yes. But I also salute her for all she did for the cause of science, and as an educator myself I honor her for all she did to educate and inspire the many students she taught over the years. And I also salute her for a long life well-lived, and lived her own way.

SOURCES:

Linda L. Miller, “Sandra Faber.” In Astronomers and Cosmologists (Dean Miller, editor). New York: Cavendish Square, 2014. 51-53.
“Sandra Faber.” Wikipedia entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Faber
“Sarah Lee Lippincott.” Wikipedia entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Lee_Lippincott
Terry Gross, interview with Sarah L. Garroway, 1983. Dave Garroway Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
Tiffany Wayne, American Women of Science Since 1900, Vol. 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Group, 2011. 624-625.

Remembering Charles Van Doren

Charles Van Doren (left) with Jack Lescoulie and Dave Garroway in Paris, 1959. (NBC photo)

Charles Van Doren passed away this week at age 93. No matter what else he accomplished in those years, he is remembered forever for a decision he made in 1956, at age 30, to be a contestant on the television quiz show Twenty One. The 14 weeks he spent sealed in an isolation booth on live television, answering questions about anything under the sun, made him a very famous man. He was respected, admired, and even became something of a national crush – a charming young man with all the answers.

Or so it seemed. In late 1959 he confessed before a House committee that he had been given answers on Twenty One. And after his admission, Van Doren spent the next six decades in a sort of exile. Instead of celebrity, Van Doren labored in the world of the mind, working as an author and editor, doing some teaching, and trying his best to build a good life. He didn’t like to comment on his moment of celebrity, despite numerous attempts by many parties to get him to talk or to participate in the making of documentaries or feature films. Not until 2008 did he tell his side of the story, when he wrote an essay for The New Yorker.⁵

Charles Van Doren is so often remembered for his association with Twenty One that it’s easy to overlook what immediately followed his time on the quiz show. NBC, eager to capitalize on the appeal this brainy young man from an intellectual family could bring to the network, signed Van Doren to a three-year contract worth $50,000 a year. He would advise the network on public service and educational matters. And in that capacity, he eventually found himself part of Dave Garroway’s team on Today.

As Van Doren recalled it, NBC News was given the task of finding him something to do, but not much seemed to stick. A stint writing radio newsbreaks didn’t work, and an assignment to help out in the Washington bureau became a minor disaster. But while those chores didn’t work out, Van Doren fared much better as a contributor to programs such as Wide Wide World, where a longer-form style and a more philosophical approach let him play to his strengths. In time Van Doren became what he called a “semi-regular” on the program, and it led to his opportunity with Today.⁶

At the time Van Doren started on the program, Today was still presented live. He had to get up each morning at five to be ready to go on the air for two hours. Then he had to write the next day’s segment, and then take the subway to Columbia University for his regular teaching job, “where my sudden celebrity seemed to impress no one.”

As Van Doren remembered, he was initially awkward on Today. But Garroway eventually gave him five minutes each day for a cultural and literary segment, and on Friday Van Doren would read some of the great poems and provide some insight about their authors. Other times he might provide a brief lesson on something like non-Euclidean geometry. The segments were well-received by the audience, and by Garroway.

But all the while, stories were circulating that the big-money quiz shows had been rigged, and in 1958 an incident on another program prompted a full-blown investigation. Van Doren maintained his innocence, both before a Manhattan grand jury and before the Today audience. On the air he insisted, “I myself was never given any answers or told any questions beforehand,” and he likewise insisted his fellow contestants had received no similar coaching. And all seemed well in the world of Today.

One morning in August 1959, as Van Doren reviewed some notes just after the program went off the air, a young Congressional investigator introduced himself. Richard Goodwin⁷ was working for a House committee that was looking into the quiz shows and planned to hold hearings. Goodwin told Van Doren that the grand jury testimony of the contestant Van Doren had defeated to become champion on Twenty One contradicted Van Doren’s own testimony, and that two of the show’s producers had come back to the grand jury and confirmed the contestant’s assertion. Goodwin and Van Doren adjourned to an empty office, where Van Doren learned that other contestants had lied. “From all that he said, I realized that the committee wanted my story to come out at hearings in Washington,” Van Doren later wrote. Goodwin advised Van Doren that it would be best if he said nothing to anybody.⁸

A month later things started to happen. Van Doren had been waiting to learn if NBC would renew his contract. His agent insisted NBC was just waiting for the quiz investigations to blow over. “There’s no problem, is there?” his agent asked. But Van Doren sensed that NBC executives were feeling uneasy. On October 9, he was suspended from Today. In late October, he and another Twenty One contestant returned to the grand jury and made what the district attorney called “substantial changes” to their original statements. Soon, Van Doren’s testimony to the House committee was scheduled for Monday, November 2. As all this played out, thousands of viewers wrote to NBC and pleaded for Van Doren’s reinstatement. Some letters asked when Garroway would say something about the situation. He would, but events would intervene.

On November 2, Van Doren made a public confession before the House committee. The next day, NBC terminated its contract with him.

That afternoon, as Today was being recorded for the next morning’s broadcast⁹, Garroway finally spoke. In a five-minute talk, Garroway spoke of Van Doren as being part of “a little family on this show,” of the bonds that form when you’re doing a show in the early hours of the morning, and that while he could never defend anything Van Doren had done wrong on the quiz show, he would remember the cultural pieces and philosophical essays, the friendship he had built with Van Doren and his family. “What do you want me to say?” Garroway asked, as he held back sobs. “I can only say I’m heartsick.”¹⁰ After the segment ended, an overcome Garroway had to leave, and Jack Lescoulie informed viewers that “Dave has gone home.”

Inside NBC there was some deliberation over whether it would be appropriate to show Garroway’s emotional essay about Van Doren. But producer Bob Bendick believed that running a program as recorded was essential to the show’s credibility.¹¹ Therefore, Garroway’s teary farewell to Charles Van Doren was aired that morning, made headlines that afternoon, and was even featured in Life Magazine’s look at the aftermath of Van Doren’s confession.

The revelation that Garroway’s tearful farewell had been pre-recorded also brought fire. Critic Jack Gould slammed the “misuse of video tape recordings” as another “depressing development” in the quiz show scandal. Gould wrote that one could sympathize with Garroway’s emotions, but upon learning that the whole thing had been recorded and kept overnight to be put on the air, “there can only be one thing to say: Why?” Henry Lee of the New York Daily News wrote that NBC’s reluctance to admit Garroway’s tears were prerecorded “was TV’s fitting farewell to Charley.”

What happened to the relationship between Charles Van Doren and Dave Garroway? As Van Doren remembered, they wrote to one another a few times but eventually fell out of touch.

As for Charles Van Doren himself, the immediate aftermath of his confession meant the loss of his NBC job and his teaching job at Columbia University. He spent the remainder of his life keeping a much lower profile, finding fulfillment in being an author, editor, teacher and scholar. He turned down requests to take part in projects related to the quiz show scandals. In retirement he found happiness, living with his wife in an old house that had been in the family for a long time, finding joy in being a parent and a grandparent.

In these times we look back on the sins of Charles Van Doren and other quiz show contestants, and the whole matter seems…quaint.¹² And others can say more, much more eloquently than I ever can, about how he took his lumps and retreated, to rebuild a life with some kind of dignity. But let’s take a moment to remember him as a sometimes-overlooked member of that little family on Today.

SOURCES:

Steven Battaglio, From Yesterday To Today. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2011.
“Dave Garroway Heartbroken Over Van’s Disgrace.” Monroe (La.) News-Star 4 Nov 1959: 10.
“Garroway Cries Over Van Doren.” Pittsburgh Press 4 Nov 1959: 4.
Jack Gould, “Contempt for Law Is Most Sickening Part of Scandal.” Corpus Christi Caller-Times 8 Nov 1959: 78.
Robert Metz, The Today Show. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1977.
Gordon T. Mills, “The Way I See It….” Burlington (Vt.) Free Press 7 Nov 1959: 12.
Charles Van Doren, “All the Answers.” The New Yorker 28 July 2008.

Dave Garroway for Watkins Products, 1960

We’ve mentioned from time to time how Dave Garroway was much in demand as a spokesman. But while much has been said and written about it, you don’t often get to see him practice the salesmanship skills that made him so appealing to sponsors. There’s just so little surviving material from those times.

Thanks to the Internet Archive (and also with thanks to Brandon for bringing this film to my attention!), we now have a few minutes of Dave displaying his unique style of one-on-one messaging. From 1960, here’s a film from Watkins Products introducing its newest salesman, one with a remarkable ability to call on thousands of homes at once. More than anything else I’ve seen, this really captures just how good Dave was as a spokesman. Watch it, and enjoy.

Oops

The other day I was talking with a colleague about the realities of television production and how being in charge means handling unforeseen circumstances with decisiveness and dispatch…especially on a live show. It reminded me of a story Charlie Andrews (Dave’s favorite writer and best friend) told in an oral history interview. Since nobody could tell it as well as he does, listen to Charlie talk about a live commercial¹³ that came very close to going off the rails, and learn for yourself what separates the professionals from the rest:

A man and his Jaguar

Dave Garroway had many fascinations in life, and one of them was automobiles. Of all the cars Dave owned, none became more famous than the 1938 Jaguar SS 100 that he owned for three decades. During that time he extensively modified and personalized it, raced it, endlessly tinkered with it, and cherished it…until the day he reluctantly sold it. It’s safe to say you’ll never see another Jaguar like this one…from the bigger engine and bigger headlamps to that eye-popping alligator-hide interior, this car is truly one-of-a-kind.

In the last few decades the Jaguar changed hands a few times, and recently went up for sale again. But even if the asking price is well beyond the means of most of us (I presently drive a Toyota, so the mid-six-figures asking price was beyond my means anyway), the car’s emergence on the market has meant no small amount of the car’s history, and several photographs documenting its modifications, made it on the web – and, thankfully, the car has pretty much been left the way Dave modified it. Have a look for yourself at Dave’s prized Jaguar, and I think you’ll see more than a little of the man himself reflected in there. Let’s hope the present owner – and all its future owners – will keep it that way.

What we have, and what we’ve lost

One of the pleasures of a big and protracted research project is that you meet some really good people along the way who are engaging in interesting projects of their own. It’s always fun to compare notes and share leads, and it’s always therapeutic to commiserate about the various obstacles any researcher must overcome (time constraints, writer’s block, footage or recordings that are inaccessible, etc.). Writing and researching can be such a solitary endeavor, and it’s incredibly helpful to be reminded that you’re part of a community.

I was reminded of all this last weekend, when I had a lengthy and very enjoyable phone conversation with a fellow historian. He’s presently engaged in a highly ambitious piece of research about a topic both of us are fascinated with (and there are times I can’t figure out if I’m encouraging his efforts because I enjoy helping other researchers, or if it’s my selfishness wanting him to finish this project because I can’t wait to read it!). He’s likewise been following my work on Dave Garroway, and has frequently sent along some very helpful items his own research has uncovered.

During our conversation we often found ourselves talking in the past tense. Not necessarily because of history, mind you, but because of people important to our stories who are no longer with us. My friend had an advantage in this regard, because starting many years ago he was able to track down and get interviews with a lot of people who have since passed on. This was important, since so many of those people were carving that particular realm of the television realm out of the wilderness. I often found myself thinking, “How I would have loved to sit in on that conversation.” My friend knows how much I love this stuff, and he’s frequently shared portions of those interviews with me, and it’s fascinating to read. But it’s not the same as being there.

And it once again got me thinking about a topic I explored in a guest piece over at It’s About TV last year, or that I briefly touched on in this post some time ago. It’s how much of this history is carried around inside the minds of the participants – and how much of it we lose when those people fall ill or pass away. I think about how much I wish I’d started this project a few years earlier so I could have talked to Beryl Pfizer. Or how much I wish I had a time machine so I could sit down with Jack Lescoulie or Jim Fleming or Pat Weaver – or Dave himself – for some really long conversations. Or so many others.

Fortunately, some stories aren’t lost forever. The Television Academy‘s series of interviews is nothing short of a gift to us all – in my instance, the extended interview they did with Dave’s best friend and favorite writer, Charlie Andrews, is a gift that never stops giving. And there are so many others there, too.¹⁴ Jeff Kisseloff’s book The Box is also indispensable, and I understand there’s a ton of material he gathered that just couldn’t fit in the book. There are also archives and repositories out there – broadcast collections like those at the Paley Center, university archives where the papers from notable figures and corporations are now held, and sometimes you’ll find some great surprises there too. But without that human touch, without those interviews, without the ability to see someone’s face light up as they recall a great moment or their eyes glower as they remember some kind of executive meddling, or to hear them laugh as they recall a moment when things went horribly wrong…there’s something missing. It reminds me of a review I once read about a biography: the writer’s extensive use of archival materials meant he had done a great job covering the story of his subject, but the reader came no closer to knowing the man.

Those stories are out there. I’m grateful for the ones that have been preserved, but I genuinely grieve for those that are lost forever. It’s my hope that along the way, I’m able to capture some of those memories in my work on Dave Garroway, and that I’m able to both tell you his life story and, by the time I’m done, make you feel like you know him. It’s a big job, but our Dave is definitely worth the try.

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.¹⁵ 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.¹⁶

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.”¹⁷

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.¹⁸

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.

Busy times

It’s currently an embarrassment of riches at Garroway at Large World Headquarters: not only busy with the day job (and a few other collateral items from the business of living), but a couple days ago a very large and heavy box of Garroway documents arrived in the mail, and untold discoveries await. Let me get things in order and I should be back with something new for you next week.

The Television Circus

Much of the fun of research comes in the happy accidents. You may set out looking for a certain piece of information you’ve targeted, but I guarantee you’ll end up finding something else along the way that will delight, amaze, charm, amuse or astonish. Today’s entry is about that kind of discovery.

We know the name Bil Keane from The Family Circus. But the success of that strip obscures his other efforts through the years. One of them was a look at television, Channel Chuckles, which ran from 1954 to 1976. And sure enough, in my search through newspaper archives, I found the subject of this blog sometimes came up:

Read more about Channel Chuckles in this Comics Kingdom post.

The view from the morning after

On this date in 1952 – also a Monday, no less – Today made its debut. Some 67 years later, it’s one of the most-watched programs on television and has gone on to great popularity and acclaim.

But what did they say about in January 1952? Well, they didn’t quite know what to make of it. I thought it might be fun to collect some of the more interesting comments about that first day, as found in some of the reviews I’ve located.

“If one-fifth the money spent on cameras and technical crews and long distance phone calls and telephoto machines, had been spent instead on writing, research and editing, NBC might have something of value to say between 7 and 9 each morning. I ought to add that Garroway is a very winning, personable and intelligent ‘communicator’ – a title NBC had best just forget – and it seems a shame he has nothing to get his teeth into. If he wants a place to sink his teeth, I suggest Sylvester L. ‘Pat’ Weaver, who dealt this mess, who is largely responsible for ‘the big television’ theory with which NBC is now obsessed, and which may wind up squeezing all the common sense and humanity out of NBC television.”
— John Crosby, New York Herald Tribune

“Big, sprawling, confused, shallow and not quite satisfying…it looked like a command post for an invasion, or where one might be staved off. It was a maze – not a mess. Despite the crowded movement and skein of wires, Buck Rogers whirl of wheels and striking array of electronics, it seemed fairly well orchestrated. Meaning no one fell over anyone else’s feet. It was not so much that this mountain of communications brought forth a TV mouse. Rather, it fostered a whole parade of mice; or maybe ant hills would be the better analogy. Certainly it had all the ant marks – the hurry and scurry visible, the real purpose buried somewhere in the purposeful confusion.”¹⁹
— Jack O’Brian, New York Journal-American

“Personally, I liked the show, but I’ll be darned if I’ll look at it – except occasionally. First, it takes about 30 minutes after I get up before my eyes are open wide enough to see anything. Secondly, my morning ablutions usually consume another 30 minutes, and I refuse to lug my TV console into my bathroom’s limited space. Even if I could, it would be too dangerous. I splash around a lot, and if some water hit my cathode tube I might short-circuit myself.”
— Bob Lanigan, Brooklyn Daily Eagle

“NBC has Garroway under contract for TV and they haven’t had a sponsor. So they moved him to New York to put him to work to earn some of their tv money.²⁰ And what did Davey do? He showed the top of the RCA Bldg. in the rain and fog – the parent company of NBC, ‘blowing its top’ because NBC was spending its money so foolishly. The program proved that people like Garroway and his associates can get up at 4:00 a.m. and go to work if the boss says so.”
— Si Steinhauser, Pittsburgh Press

“Dave Garroway will have to pull something better out from behind his glasses than the opening early morning ‘Today’ show if he wants to lure viewers out of their beds or away from their breakfast foods….the program will have to rely considerably on those viewers who won’t be dashing off to work. The persons who only have a few minutes to wash, dress and eat won’t be able to spare much time at the TV set anyway. Offhand, I’d say that the capable Garroway has found the nice, warm beds to be a worthy opponent. I hope not, but don’t be surprised if Dave is kayoed.”
— Art Cullison, Akron Beacon Journal

“When a television program announces you don’t have to watch it, I suppose, reviewers should go into the other room and just listen….It seems to me that this is a fundamental weakness in ‘Today.’ If a program isn’t designed to be watched, it isn’t a TV program. It is more for radio or a party-line telephone….The studio is jammed with teletype machines, long-distance telephone and radio connections, television remote screens, wirephoto machines and at least 7,000 people milling around, mostly in each other’s way. Garroway, who still has his master’s hand at casualness, stands in the middle of this business attempting to keep things under control….Maybe – and just maybe, because it is so unwieldy – the program will work out some of its problems. But my best advice as of yesterday was to follow their advice and not look at the show.”
— John Caldwell, Cincinnati Enquirer