Jodie Peeler – Page 4 – Garroway at Large

Calling Uncle Miltie’s bluff, 1960

Sometimes you run across neat stories and you picture in your mind how they must have played out. Long ago I was sent the notes from an interview Garroway’s longtime associate Lee Lawrence conducted with commercial coordinator Lou Bradley, and it had this neat story in it. I wondered how it must have come across. As luck would have it, I found some photos from this very tale today, so you can both read it and see it unfold.

In mid-1960, Dave’s wife Pamela put her Ford Thunderbird up for sale. Bradley worked out a deal to buy the car from her. On June 7, he brought an envelope with the cash sealed inside and handed it to Dave, who put it in a pocket of his jacket. Bradley suggested he at least count it, but Dave went on about his business.

That day, the show’s guests included comedians Henny Youngman and Milton Berle. Berle, of course, was being full-on Milton Berle.

At one point he told Garroway, “You couldn’t pay me to do this interview.”

Suddenly, Bradley saw Garroway look at him and smile “this big, huge Garroway smile that no other human being ever had.” And out came the envelope.

As Bradley recalled, “It devastated the whole studio.”

Happy birthday, Dave! (And happy birthday, us!)

It was on this date in 1913 that the master communicator himself, Dave Garroway, was born. In all those great photos and those interesting kinescopes from back in the day, Dave seems so young and lively. It’s difficult to grasp that if he were still here, he’d be 108.¹

And it was on this date four years ago that our website officially opened. In the time since, we’ve told some stories, clarified some history, shared some neat things, and most of all we’ve chronicled the effort to finally put Dave’s life story between hard covers. We’re closer now than we’ve ever been to making that happen.²

The neatest thing of all has been meeting some terrific people along the way. I’ve had the chance to talk with people whose parents and relatives worked with Dave, with other people interested in the Garroway story, with researchers working on projects adjacent to my own. And best of all, the project has let me get to know members of Dave’s own family, some truly special people I have enjoyed getting to know. There are times the book itself seems like a happy by-product; for me, the real reward comes from the people I’ve met. Thank you all for that.

So on this 13th of July, raise a glass of something you like and remember our Dave. We didn’t have him as long as we wish we could have, but what a life he lived, and what a hard act he was to follow.

:: Yes, I know this is the first update in a long time. You can blame never-ending work issues for that. Finishing the manuscript also ran me out of gas. And in the seemingly fleeting moments I have to call my own, I have been following my own fascinations. See, like our Dave, I am an incurable collector of gadgets and curiosities, and I get too fascinated by them sometimes.³

There will be updates from time to time. I hope I find some new things to share, and of course the moment I have anything I can announce on the book’s prospects, I will share. Keep your fingers crossed…!

Wide Wide World: “The Western,” June 6, 1958

I am remiss. There, I’ve said it. I won’t bore you with the personally-related reasons for my silence⁴, though given my line of work you can imagine it’s been an interesting time. But the semester is over and I can think about other things for a little bit (well, I think I can, anyway).⁵

By way of making up for it a little, here’s a king-size treat for you: an episode of Wide Wide World from 1958, in which we take a look at westerns. By this point, Wide Wide World was no longer doing what it once did, which was hopscotching around to show amazing sights that live cameras picked up as they happened.⁶ Plus, the program’s founder, Pat Weaver, was long gone from NBC by this point and his “going places and doing things” philosophy had given way to what would become more traditional forms of program content.⁷

There are other changes you’ll notice if you’re a Wide Wide World enthusiast. David Broekman’s lush, elegant theme is preceded by an otherworldly series of notes as a crude animated globe forms.⁸

And, as it turned out, “The Western” was the final installment of Wide Wide World. General Motors, which had sponsored the series since its debut, proposed altering the format to 15 one-hour installments. But those plans never took, and no other sponsor took the show over. Wide Wide World was gone, and with it went some ambitious plans for the fourth season, including a visit to Europe and possibly a trip into the Soviet Union to interview Russian leaders within the Kremlin.

That said, when you’re able to get the likes of Gary Cooper, James Arness, Gene Autry and James Garner⁹ on your program, it’s not a small way to say farewell. So, even though it’s a blurry copy of the program, enjoy the final Wide Wide World, from June 6, 1958.

The one that got away

I had hoped to post some very happy news soon. But life, as it will, has other ideas. Let me explain.

I keep an alert active on eBay for Garroway-related items. Most of it is run-of-the-mill stuff – old press photos, copies of Fun On Wheels, etc. – and most mornings I just glance at it and then delete it. But one day last week I saw one of those listings that simultaneously made my heart leap, and sink. The reason my heart leapt? It was an auction for a kinescope of the December 6, 1952 episode of Your Show of Shows, which Garroway guest-hosted while Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca were away.

At the very least, can I save the photos from the auction?

I’d stumbled across articles about this while working on the manuscript. It was reportedly a good show, and Garroway brought back some of the offbeat stuff he did on Garroway at Large. Such as the dentist sketch, where Garroway performed a dental procedure on the viewer, a bit so effective that it made one critic’s teeth ache.

There was no way I could pass this up. But I’ve tried bidding on kinescopes before, and I know they can be in demand. I also know the bidding can get high.¹⁰ I knew I could end up spending more than I really wanted. But where else would I find this? And I also know how eBay works, and I’ve had enough items sniped from under me to know you can’t rest until the auction’s over. It felt like a fool’s errand, but I bid what I could afford, and I left it be. I tried not to think about it, but I couldn’t help myself and checked every now and again. Sure enough, another bidder swooped in and outbid me right before the auction ended, winning the auction for just a couple dollars more than my maximum bid. No kinescope for me.¹¹

Among the many things I won’t have answered now: Why on earth was Dave in **this** get-up?

I’m philosophical about it. As I said, I know how eBay works and I know how it gets used, and even if I hate the online auction format I know it’s part of the game, and I accept that going in.¹² But, still, it bums me out to have lost out on this item, and I think you can appreciate why.

I lost out, but I salute the winner of the auction, and I wish them happiness with this piece of history. And I have a request: Please don’t sit on this thing. Please don’t squirrel it away. Please get it transferred and upload it to YouTube or the Internet Archive or something. It’s Garroway while he still had a lot of the Chicago School still in him. It’s a priceless document of a particular moment in television history and in Garroway’s life, and there’s a lot of folks who would really love to see it. Please do us that favor. We would be grateful.

Remembering Hugh Downs

This post is long overdue. It’s partly out of my own reluctance, because I have grappled with how to contain this man’s career in the space of a post – because the man was so good at so many different things. But maybe some of it had to do with how familiar he was. I imagined we would always have a world with Hugh Downs in it. He had been around forever, starting out at a local radio station in Ohio in 1939, moving into television in 1950 with WMAQ in Chicago, and finally calling it a career in 1999. And back in July, we lost him at the age of 99.

With Kukla and Ollie in Chicago. (NBC photo)

In those 60 years in broadcasting, Hugh Downs did everything. He was an announcer, billboarding a show about a little clown and a dragon and their human friend. He was right-hand-man to Arlene Francis on the Home show. He was Jack Paar’s sidekick. He hosted Today. He hosted a game show, narrated documentaries, did a series about the challenges and opportunities that come with getting older. He even composed music and recorded albums.

Being Jack Paar’s right-hand man made you prepared for anything. (NBC photo)

Then came a second act, when ABC hired him to host 20/20, which had suffered a disastrous debut.¹³ It was in that capacity I first really came to know of him, as the kindly man who introduced segments and talked with correspondents and informed us that they were in touch, so you be in touch. Downs’ steady presence as host helped the program feel (if you’ll pardon the expression) anchored. 20/20 would never have the hard edges of 60 Minutes, but Downs was perfect for 20/20‘s more populist mix of investigation and human interest.

Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters with Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters. (ABC photo)

I’m not going to go through the entire career of Hugh Downs here. It would take much too long, and you can read it elsewhere anyway.¹⁴ Instead, this remembrance is more subjective, because I remember him so well from all the years I watched him.

If you watched Hugh Downs you noticed how easygoing he seemed, how low-pressure he was, sometimes to the point of seeming sleepy. A spoof of 20/20 that ran in MAD Magazine during the period had Downs asleep at the desk in the final panel as Barbara Walters closed the program.¹⁵ It may have been easy to mock, but that low-key nature had much to do with why Downs wore so well. I teach my students that to be on television is to be a guest in your audience’s homes, and the moment you rub them the wrong way, they’ll show you out. Too often people on television forget this and they wear out their welcomes in a hurry. Hugh Downs knew this. He had a terrific ability to ration his wattage, to know how to be the host who knew how to keep a program going without becoming bigger than the show or its purpose, and to do it without wearing out the viewer. He had the ability to be interesting without being dominant.

Although not everyone was impressed. (ABC photo)

It helped that Downs was a man who had a genuine curiosity about so much. He was a perpetual student, always finding something new to learn or to be interested in or to read about or to visit. He learned how to scuba dive, how to fly airplanes, how to drive a race car, sailed his own boat across the Pacific. And for a time he was a teacher, too. He lived many lifetimes within the time of his life.¹⁶

If only they’d let him fly on the real thing. (ABC photo)

In thinking about the life and career of Hugh Downs, I’m struck by the similarities between him and Dave Garroway: both versatile broadcasters with a cool presence that wore well, especially on longer-form programs like Today (and it’s worth noting that when Downs took over Today after the John Chancellor experiment didn’t work out, more than one reviewer favorably compared Downs’s style to that of Garroway). Both of them were fascinated by so many interests and knew so much about so many things, and their knowledge informed the shows they hosted. On occasion I have wondered if Dave Garroway, had he the benefit of modern treatments for depression and other issues, might have been like Hugh Downs and likewise been able to make his career as long-lasting.

This much I do know, and it’s that Hugh Downs never lost his high regard for his friend Dave Garroway. Many years ago a friend was hoping to produce a documentary about Garroway, and one of the people he called on during his initial investigation was Hugh Downs. Not only was Downs happy to learn of the project, he offered to narrate it. Alas, the documentary never happened, and with it went the chance to hear Downs tell the story of his friend and colleague. It’s my hope, however, that they’re now reunited in the hereafter, maybe hanging around with Studs Terkel and Burr Tillstrom telling stories about the good old days in Chicago.

If there are morning shows in heaven, you know that with Dave Garroway and Hugh Downs at the anchor desk, it’s got to be worth watching.

Holding on the line

I wish I could tell you there were super-exciting reasons why there’s been no posts of late. Instead, the photo of our Dave up above sums it up: a cluttered desk and some sort of business captured in midstream. February has been a diabolical month and the demands on my time and brainpower have been ceaseless, but it’s an occupational hazard in my line of work. It has also involved a lot of getting up way too early and staying too late, and in a weird way those goofy hours have made me feel a kinship with what our Dave went through during his years on Today.

The manuscript’s first draft, however, remains complete (what, you thought I was going to un-complete it, maybe?) and I’m sort of letting it rest until things settle down here. Then I will go through a paper copy of it and do my usual mark-up process before getting into revisions, and once everybody in the process is happy with how things are going I will begin shopping the manuscript. But things here have been so busy that it hardly seems it’s only been two months since that first draft was completed. A lot has happened, and when it’s appropriate I may talk about some of it, but not right now.

I hope to be back with some new content soon, and if things will ease up at work, it may be sooner rather than later. That’s my hope, anyway. Regardless, stay tuned and thank you as always for stopping in.

Dave Garroway talks with Studs Terkel, 1975

One of the blessings of the Internet era is that many archives have opened up and a lot of material has become available. Today’s post is about one such archive, available for endless hours of enjoyment.

Maybe you know the name Studs Terkel from his books, such as Working or The Good War. Maybe you’ve seen him in the occasional film role. Maybe you’ve seen him pop up in documentaries. It doesn’t matter, because the man could do anything and, through his long life, often did. But he had a particular talent for conversation, the ability to talk to anyone about anything, which he parlayed not only into his best-selling books but also into a radio series on WFMT in Chicago.¹⁷

And, as it happens, our man Dave Garroway stopped in to talk with Studs one day in 1974. Dave and Studs had known one another since the late 1940s, both as up-and-coming disc jockeys, and subsequently as television stars in the Chicago School firmament (Dave on Garroway at Large, Studs on Studs’ Place). Thanks to the wonderful Studs Terkel Radio Archive¹⁸, you can listen to the two old friends talk about a number of things: broadcasting, jazz, race relations and more. Take about an hour and let yourself be entranced by a master communicator and a master conversationalist.¹⁹ (Then when you’re done listening to that interview, take a look at the other interviews available in this magnificent collection and enjoy them, too. There’s only about 5,600 shows to go through, so make some time.)

A man and his son, 1962

Inauguration, 1961

Today a new president takes the oath of office.²⁰ Sixty years ago today a new president²¹ took the oath of office, and Dave Garroway and Today were there to cover the impending transfer of power.

Here’s Dave talking with Sen. Mike Mansfield, Sen. Everett Dirksen²², Rep. Charles Halleck, and Rep. Sam Rayburn.²³ At right is Martin Agronsky of NBC News.

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.

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.

Dave during a break in the program, framed against the Capitol’s pillars.

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.

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…

…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?

“Today” at 30

On January 14, 1982 Today marked its thirtieth anniversary.²⁴ 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.²⁵ 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.²⁶

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.

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!”²⁷ 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,²⁸ and as evidence shows the magazine’s “Distinguished J. Fred Muggs Awards.”²⁹ 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?”

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.”³⁰

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,³¹ and the time Newman interviewed himself about his book Strictly Speaking.³²

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.

We then see some other historic moments, such as greetings from Pope Paul VI via satellite:

…then a clip from the program’s visit to Romania:

…and the Orient:

…and to London.

And then there’s top-of-the-hour greetings. Some views of the set:

Note 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.

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.³³ 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.³⁴ 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:

And her response:

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 Downs³⁵ 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.”

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 abrasive³⁶, 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.”³⁷

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,³⁸ 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.”

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.

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.”³⁹

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.

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.”

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.

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: