You may have been wondering why the blog has been silent for the last several weeks. There are reasons. This is the kind of blog post I hate most – the “why I haven’t posted anything for a while” post – but in the interest of disclosure, I’m writing this so you won’t think this project is abandoned.
It’s already been an interesting time here as it is. That goes with the profession I’m in. But the current health situation only made made it more interesting. We had just come back from Spring Break, and it was perhaps Wednesday when we started to get the feeling that the dominoes would topple in our direction. Sure enough, early on Friday afternoon we got the word: we would be online-only for the next two weeks, with further word to come later.
What happened next was intense. Well, for a lot of us. I had already started planning for online-only instruction and just had to take the last remaining steps. The higher-ups sent word down of a required three-day in-service session that would commence the following Monday, where we would get instruction on what to do – most of which, for me, would be redundant. I also didn’t like the idea of being in three days of all-day meetings around 60 or 70 other people, and voiced my misgivings to the higher-ups.
Fortunately, by the time Monday came around, the higher-ups had decided to follow new guidance from the health authorities. Those of us who knew our way around online learning were excused after the general sessions the first day. I retreated to my office, began putting my lessons into the course management system, and was ready for business when instruction resumed later that week. We have since been notified that we’re online-only the rest of the semester, which was no big surprise, but I was ready for that. My institution has handled this big shift very well, especially with how quickly it all happened, but we’ve done it.
I would like to say that it’s all been smooth sailing, and that it has left me copious time to work on Garroway. Well, guess again. There have been hiccups, and in some ways this has been more labor-intensive as I work to keep the students focused on what remains. There’s also the need to be available to the students during the day, which means I keep an ear out for the e-mail alerts and such, and when I’m on guard like that it’s hard to focus. There’s also the occasional moments of melancholy; I think about all the little signposts of springtime that I look forward to each year, and they’re hard to enjoy on a deserted campus. I’m especially gutted for my seniors, who were looking forward to that march across the stage in a few weeks as they got their degrees, and now that’s gone. But in hard times, you do what you must.
As for things at home, our outside interactions at present are limited to my weekly run to the store. We are taking social distancing to its extreme, perhaps, but we’re doing our part. It helps that I am an introvert who is married to an introvert. But with two cats, a good (if not great) Internet connection, and a house in the middle of a forest with plenty of wildlife to watch, it is a pleasant way to spend a quarantine period. (Sometimes it’s even blissful, as it is on days when Turner Classic Movies – for my money, the greatest cable channel in history – gets really good.)
And thankfully, our health – so far – is good. What bothers us here isn’t the current plague, but the tremendous amounts of pollen that waft through the air at present. I’m hoping we will get a good rain shower to take the edge off, at least for a bit. It’s misery to see bright, warm sunshine tempt you, only to know you’ll pay for it with tingling eyes and an itchy nose later.
What does all this mean, longer term? Well, I had hoped to get some travel done in the coming weeks and months to conduct some interviews and on-site archival work. Those plans have changed. I am working on ways to conduct my interviews remotely, but that will take time to sort out.
The good thing, however, is that I still have a mountain of material I haven’t made use of in the manuscript (or, for that matter, on this blog). I haven’t had time to go through it all – too busy with trying to stockpile it, I haven’t taken the time to figure out just where it fits in the Dave Garroway story. So it may be that the forced hiatus in travel could pay a few dividends. We’ll see, at least.
In the meantime, nothing is more important than staying healthy, and each of us doing our part to help stamp out this crud. Be well out there and I’ll see you soon with some new material.
You’ve read my musings before about how I wish more of the video and audio treasures of yesteryear would be preserved and made available through the Internet for those of us who care. And in that regard, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting is working miracles at a steady pace. But a few weeks ago, I found something that made me very happy, and I think it will make you happy too.
In 1962 Dave Garroway, seeking a new mission after leaving Today and NBC, became host of a series titled Exploring the Universe. This series, produced for National Educational Television (the forerunner, of sorts, of what we now know as PBS) with a grant from the National Science Foundation, explored different realms of the scientific world, explained various scientific concepts to viewers, and featured in-studio visits from renowned scientists who talked with Garroway about science.
I could try explaining it, or I could just let you see it for yourself, as the AAPB has brought us a collection of episodes, for you to watch at your pleasure. And what better way to begin than at the beginning? Enjoy.
— It has not been my intention to disappear as I have of late. Unfortunately, I have been suffering from something called “demands exceeding available time and attention,” a condition not uncommon to those in my line of work, especially at this point in the academic year. Be that as it may, I am happy to report that new research materials have been coming in great quantity, thanks in particular to a reader who has been extremely helpful. The materials are here, as are the ideas – I just need to free up some time to turn them into something tangible. But it will get done. As Frank McGee would say, “Don’t go far.”
January 14, 2020 is the 68th anniversary of Today, and to mark the occasion let’s not look at the program as it is now. Instead, let’s go back to the morning of January 14, 1977 and see how Today marked its 25th birthday. It was something really special.
I’ve seen several of the anniversary programs – the 25th, the 30th, the 35th, the 40th and 50th1 – but of them all, the 25th anniversary was the one that put the most effort into calling back to those first years. And while the others may have been a little more stylish, or might have even spawned a prime-time retrospective, there was something special about the 25th anniversary special that none of the others fully matched.
NBC photo
We see this special theme from the very beginning: the screen is black and white, there’s an in-studio reproduction (though not exact) of the original communicator’s desk from the RCA Exhibition Hall, and the first voice you hear is that of Jack Lescoulie re-creating a version of that very first morning’s open.
NBC photo
And there’s Dave Garroway himself, happy to see you. “Hello, old friend, and good morning, too! As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted myself, seventeen years and thirty-eight days ago, we’re about to give you the news of the morning.”2 Garroway recounts the major headline of that first day in 1952 – the captain of the freighter Flying Enterprise is about to receive a hero’s welcome – and then throws to news editor Frank Blair.
NBC photo
It’s Blair (who wasn’t on the show that first morning, of course)3 who breaks the spell. “You know, they really used to call me that, Dave, 25 years ago?” Blair pretends to read a bulletin that what you’re seeing is not a dream, but let’s go across the studio to Tom Brokaw.
Tom Brokaw, captured in the warm tones the RCA TK-44 rendered so well. (NBC photo)
And with that, we’re in color and in 1977, and everyone has a good laugh. Brokaw explains the concept: they have turned the studio into a time machine so they can revisit the last 25 years. It’s a birthday party to which we’re all invited.
The first “Today” set I remember seeing. (NBC photo)
Brokaw explains that when Today first went on the air, he was living in a place where they could barely get television, and that co-host Jane Pauley was trying to learn how to walk. “And I was bald,” she adds. (Gene Shalit, asked where he was in 1952, said he wasn’t bald.)
There’s no way he could have been. (NBC photo)
The real headlines of January 14, 1977 are presented by the current news editor, Floyd Kalber. The big stories of the morning: the death of Anthony Eden, winter storms across Europe, a good part of the United States under extreme cold, and the following week’s inauguration of Jimmy Carter as president.
The Tuna. (NBC photo)
There’s then a short local break, during which the weather from across the country scrolls on the screen, along with the affiliates’ call letters, while music plays. Keeping with the morning’s throwback theme, the music selections are big band standards as re-recorded by Enoch Light and The Light Brigade.4
Nifty anniversary version of the bumper. (NBC photo)Today’s weather scroll was soothing when it would come on and music would play behind it, a handy little break in the action. I picked this particular location on purpose because it’s not far from where I grew up. It’s a long story, but WJBF-TV had switched to ABC from NBC in 1967, but was allowed to carry “Today” in a market where the NBC affiliate (WAGT-TV) was a UHF station. There’s a lot about affiliate history that’s like trying to sort family trees in ancient mythology. (NBC photo)
After the break, Kalber revisits the top story of January 14, 1952 and we see newsreel footage of the stricken Flying Enterprise and the hero’s welcome for Captain Carlsen. Kalber then throws to Lew Wood, who does the morning’s weather.
NBC photoLew Wood fascinated me when I was a kid. He seemed like such a nice man. (NBC photo)
There’s another break, then the party begins. Brokaw is at the old desk replica with Garroway, Lescoulie and Blair.
Not the best re-creation of the 1952 set but they at least get points for effort. (NBC photo)
Brokaw begins by calling Garroway “a heroic figure to a generation of young people who grew up wanting to get into broadcasting.”
Something about Garroway in 1977 reminds me of an aged lion, worn and scarred but still proud. (NBC photo)
He then introduces a clip from October 1955 to show what the program was like back then. The clip has Garroway throwing to Frank Blair for that morning’s headlines (which, strangely enough, also involved Anthony Eden). From the vantage point of 1977, the men laugh at what they’ve just seen. Lescoulie says of Blair, “He was a little nervous in those days. It took him two Bloody Marys to get the top off his Miltown bottle!” Blair ruefully says, “That came later. That came later.”5
Hard to believe Brokaw turns 80 this year, 17 years older than Garroway was in the scene you see right here. (NBC photo)
Brokaw asks Garroway how confident he felt about the program’s prospects when he agreed to join the show. Garroway recalls that when he met the people he was going to work with, he took out a four-year lease on a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue. Prompted to recall his most memorable moment: “June 19, 1961.6 Walking slowly and regretfully out of the studio.” Common questions follow: did J. Fred Muggs really bite? Blair instantly warns Garroway, “You’re gonna get sued!” Garroway claims the NBC dispensary has multiple reports in its files of vaccinations he received after chimp bites. This prompts recollections of various incidents involving Muggs, as well as the lawsuit Muggs’ caretakers filed against Garroway, Lescoulie and NBC. And with that, we see a clip of Muggs attacking Jack Lescoulie’s desk one morning.
NBC photo
Blair also mentions that all three of them are working on books. Blair promotes the upcoming publication of Let’s Be Frank About It (and the title draws a howl from Lescoulie). Garroway mentions that he is writing “sort of an autobiography” with the working title “Garroway At Length.” Asked for a publication date, Garroway replies, “As soon as possible!” Lescoulie says he isn’t working hard on his because Blair’s would be out first. “Mine will be meaner than his,” Lescoulie says. In the meantime, he leads a good life with a lot of golf and a little writing, and he and his wife had never really given up the bright lights: “At least once a week we go over to the A&P if it’s open at night and do our shopping.”7
NBC photo
During the optional local break the discussion continues, for the affiliates that didn’t air a local news break at :25 after. Garroway tells Brokaw he didn’t feel television had lived up to its potential, that he had hoped the programming we would get would be more truthful and informative than what we ended up with. There’s also a brief discussion about lighter moments. We see a clip from the color era with Lescoulie disguised as Superman…
NBC photo
…then Lescoulie talks about a circus pantomime act he once did that stretched nearly ten minutes and left him completely spent at the end of it. Suddenly Garroway interrupts Lescoulie and tells him to smile at the camera. Lescoulie asks why. Garroway replies, “Jimmy Carter!”
The resemblance is uncanny. (NBC photo)
Brokaw asks about embarrassing moments. “The day I sat down and there was no chair there,” Garroway says. Blair remembered an event when Garroway didn’t realize his fly was open. “That didn’t embarrass me at all!” Garroway replies, deadpan. In the background, you hear the studio crew cracking up.
Network break slide. I love Rockford. I’m there, baby. (NBC photo)
The next half-hour begins with another clip from October 1955: Lescoulie introducing the segment, interrupted by Gertrude Berg:
NBC photos
Then Brokaw and Pauley preview the upcoming segments, followed by news from Floyd Kalber and weather from Lew Wood, who shows a clip of how the weather was done in 1955.
Garroway with “Today Girl” Lee Ann Meriwether. (NBC photo)
We then see a segment on all the places Today has been and the technological innovations of the last 25 years. Then Jane Pauley introduces a 1955 clip observing National Doughnut Week, in which Garroway demonstrates a series of accessories for your coffee-and-doughnut habit: a pinkie rest, a cup for retrieving your doughnut if it falls in the cup, tongs for retrieving a doughnut, and a spoon for stirring your coffee. Of them all, Garroway likes the pinky rest the best. He says it makes you feel strong all over.
Dave’s smile in the final frame sells it. (NBC photos)
Gene Shalit then introduces Lionel Hampton and His Jazz Inner Circle. They perform a medley of the program’s various theme songs8 under a montage of famous guests.
Always a good morning when Mr. Hampton provides the music. (NBC photo)
At the end of the hour is what Brokaw calls a “family portrait” – the current staff with Garroway, Lescoulie and Blair.
NBC photo
Brokaw asks Garroway to give his famous sign-off. Garroway obliges, talking about something “that we have a great deal of and need so much more of…peace.” A few seconds later, Blair softly says, “God love you.”9
NBC photoNifty shot of 3K as the hour ends. Note the top of the cyclorama, the floor director at right with hand raised, Lionel Hampton and his group to the right. The kinds of details people like me love. (NBC photo)
The next hour begins with another simulation of that first day. This time, Lescoulie introduces the Master Communicator with “here’s old four-eyes himself, Dave Garroway!” Garroway wishes the audience good morning – “Once more we meet after a quarter of a century and we’re still making it, aren’t we? You and me. And so is Today, after a quarter-century.” Garroway forgets to give a cue to Frank Blair, and there are several seconds of silence. When they realize what’s happened, everybody cracks up. “Nothing’s changed!” Once it’s all straightened out, Blair introduces “the new boy on the block, Tom Brokaw.”
Oops! (NBC photo)
After the news and weather, Brokaw conducts a desk interview with Garroway and Pat Weaver.
The Master Communicator and his most important advocate. I love this screen-grab, for their respect and regard for each other is unmistakable. (NBC photo)
The former NBC executive talks about the idea behind Today. He had known for many years there was a morning audience with a lot of potential, and he wondered if he couldn’t do something better than another morning “gang” show – instead, a show that had information, but had enough showmanship to attract an audience. And here Brokaw introduces about thirty seconds of a promotional film NBC had put together to sell the Today concept to affiliates. Over a montage of clips of Churchill, Truman, Stalin, Eisenhower and other important figures, as dramatic music plays behind, a narrator talks about how “a program like this is a magnificent use of the tool of television in its ultimate social responsibility,” and that the viewer would get information to be a responsible citizen in a free society. “His horizon will be limited by neither time nor place.”
Not that we’re trying to make an important point in this scary atomic age, but…. (NBC photo)
As the film ends and its music swells to a conclusion, we see the enormous water vapor cloud from the second Bikini atom-bomb test, and a primitive (almost frightening) Today logo. “This is the real secret weapon of free men,” the narrator says. “To know, to understand, so that John Smith is ready for today…whatever it may bring.”10
Back in the studio, Brokaw gives credit to Garroway for his talent in helping make the show succeed. Weaver recalls how Garroway came in from Chicago and asked to do the show, and that Weaver quickly realized that Garroway’s “command and serenity” in the midst of the show’s chaos would work well. Brokaw asks Weaver how he would change television in 1977. “Oh, you’ll need an hour for that,” he replies with a verbal eye-roll.
Yes, he’s Sigourney’s dad – all the more reason to love him. (NBC photo)
The discussion continues into the local-option break. Brokaw introduces a piece by Paul Cunningham on how the Today model has been adapted worldwide. After the piece, Brokaw muses that in Britain they’re called “presenters” and Weaver insisted on the title “communicators,” and now Brokaw’s title was “host,” which made him feel like he should be serving breakfast to his fellow on-air personalities. Weaver didn’t like that title. “I’d knock that off fast!” he said. Garroway informs us that to this day, he’s still remembered for Today – for every one person who remembers Garroway at Large there will be two people who know him from Today. What fascinated him, he recalled, about the Today job was that at that hour, people’s minds were open. “It’s almost a blank slate.” Brokaw thanks Weaver and Garroway for what they have done to make Today last. Weaver replies, “See you on the fiftieth!” Garroway follows: “Amen!”11
The final half-hour doesn’t have a lot about Garroway and Lescoulie and Blair, but it does begin with a nod to the storefront studio window and a simplified version of the move inside 30 Rock for the move to color broadcasting.12 There’s news, and then after a commercial we get a live spot for Alpo with Gene Shalit:
NBC photo
And Lew Wood does a spot at the desk for True Value Hardware Stores.
Lew’s telling us about a special on white paint that keeps your walls easy to clean. (NBC photo)
Then there’s a discussion about what the preceding 25 years have meant for society and the country. The panelists are Daniel Boorstin, Pulitzer-winning historian and Librarian of Congress; Charlotte Curtis, editor of the op-ed page of the New York Times; and Martin Marty of the Christian Century, who is also a professor at the University of Chicago.13 It’s a lengthy and thoughtful discussion of the sort you would never see on the modern Today program.
A sign of a far different time indeed. I shudder to think what they’d use this segment for now. (NBC photo)
After a break, we get another Lionel Hampton performance. This time, the music plays behind a montage of photos of Today‘s people from the last quarter-century. It’s a simple but really cool tribute.
After the final break, Tom Brokaw stands with the morning’s guests and the show’s current staff. He says that two prominent television critics of the day gave Today bad reviews and shares some of the more pointed quotes from them. Then Brokaw points out that both those newspapers are no longer around, but Today still is. “While much has changed over 25 years, one hope that has been with this program from the very beginning has not changed.” At which point, Brokaw nods to Dave Garroway, who says, “That hope is some love…and peace.”
NBC photoNBC photo
As the cameras pull back, you can just see Garroway move over to the giant birthday cake and pretend to give it a karate-chop, much to everyone’s amusement.
And that’s how Today celebrated its 25th anniversary: a little silly and a lot sentimental, but all of it memorable.
It’s again the time of year when the holiday specials come out – and I say “holiday specials” because we not only have the ones that are explicitly Christmas specials, but we also have specials that are more generically about the time of year itself. And all of us have our favorites – for me, unless I watch A Charlie Brown Christmas, as I have nearly every year I can remember, something just doesn’t feel right.
But in a class by themselves are the Rankin/Bass holiday specials. Probably the best-known and most beloved of these is Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. (I’ll bet you’re hearing that whistling beep of Rudolph’s nose as you read this.) You might also remember Frosty the Snowman, another Rankin/Bass holiday tradition. But those two weren’t all of the Rankin/Bass holiday specials: there was also Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town and The Little Drummer Boy, among others. And then there are some that aren’t as well remembered (see, for example, Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey. Here’s a handy list of some of the lesser-known Rankin/Bass holiday efforts).
And, believe it or not, there was even one that involved someone we know and love here.
On December 13, 1979 NBC broadcast a new Rankin/Bass production, Jack Frost. The hour-long stop-motion special told the story of the mythical winter character. As tended to happen, the production featured celebrity voice talents. Buddy Hackett provided the voice of Pardon-Me-Pete, the groundhog who narrated the story. Animation voice mainstays Paul Frees and Don Messick also contributed. The great Robert Morse (hi there, future Bert Cooper!) provided the voice of Jack Frost himself.
As the film begins, reporters and television crewmembers are waiting for the world’s most famous groundhog, Pardon-Me-Pete, to see his shadow. And who might that reporter be anchoring the live coverage?
Why, yes, it’s Dave Garroway himself – in Animagic form.
But Pardon-Me-Pete has other ideas. To tell you more would start to spoil some surprises, so let’s move ahead just slightly. Let’s just say that devoid of a story, Animagic Dave pauses to buy some chestnuts from a local vendor…and as he’s making the transaction, Jack Frost stops by and touches him on the nose.
It isn’t much – we just see Garroway for the first few minutes, and after the opening titles Pardon-Me-Pete takes the story from there. But it’s neat seeing our friend again, and on his old network, no less. By his voice inflection, he’s having some fun. At least one television columnist at the time was happy to see him, too.
Jack Frost is lost in the shadows of the better-known Rankin/Bass efforts, and it seems to be one that people either love or dislike – as you read contemporary commentary on it, there’s not much in-between. But it has seen some love in recent years, including the 2008 issue of a restored print on DVD (so easy to find that…aw, heck, just search for it and you’ll find it for sale at a hundred places). AMC has also been showing it as part of the “Best Christmas Ever” programming block. If you’ve never seen it, take some time to check it out. It’s unusual, but it has a charm all its own – and certainly, you’ll love our friend’s little cameo.
For anything and everything you’d ever want to know about the world of Rankin/Bass, let me refer you to the website of Rankin/Bass historian Rick Goldschmidt. Check it out – but be prepared to spend a lot of time there, because there’s so much there, and it’s so much fun, and Rick knows the topic inside and out, so you can’t miss.
:: And with this post, all of us at Garroway at Large World Headquarters hope whatever you celebrate this time of year, may it be full of love, togetherness and fulfillment of the most meaningful kind.
In the early 1930s Dave Garroway held some jobs that weren’t in broadcasting. His first was as a piston ring salesman, arranged through a connection of his dad’s. For two months Garroway went from garage to garage to sell Chance Piston Rings, but he found he couldn’t even give away the samples. But another connection of his dad’s led to another job, and through that connection came the lucky break that led to Radio City.
Fred Tilden, a Schenectady native, had known Garroway’s father since childhood, and had served together in the National Guard. Garroway would remember that his dad and Fred Tilden played basketball together during their Guard service. Indeed, basketball was a theme through Tilden’s life; he and his brother George played together, and George served for several years as a tournament referee.
Fred Tilden eventually got into the publishing business. He compiled a list of 550 words that were commonly mispronounced, and used them to create a story of a young Amherst graduate who embarks on a sea voyage. Scattered throughout the story were the 550 words. On the left-hand side of each spread was a chapter of the story; on the right-hand side, a list of the commonly-mispronounced words, along with a pronunciation guide. Though Tilden admitted the style of the story was “rather stilted,” he reminded the reader that the story was of secondary importance, merely a vehicle for these tricky words.
Tilden published all of this in a booklet he titled You Don’t Say! …Or Do You? The little book, bound in paper and stapled, sold for fifty cents. Tilden set out to sell copies of these booklets to schools and other educational organizations, and had received some praise from educators and civic leaders. A professor in public speaking at Harvard congratulated Tilden “in your scheme for making improvement in pronunciation both useful and entertaining,” while the chair of history and English at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called the project “novel and interesting” and said Tilden had “worked it up in a very ingenious way.” Boston’s school superintendent said Tilden’s efforts were needed more than ever “because of the spoken word on the radio.”
Tilden had managed some success in getting schools to buy his book. As Garroway recalled, Tilden would visit a school and ask to meet with the principal, who many times didn’t have that much to do and welcomed a visit from someone “who was literate and attractive, as Fred was.” Tilden would take out a copy of the book and offer a free copy to each of the principal’s teachers…that is, if the principal could read a sentence on a certain page without mispronouncing any of the words. The principal would accept the challenge, but seldom if ever passed. But that wouldn’t stop the sales pitch. Tilden would then explain how the book worked, and then hand the principal a box of the books. Each teacher was to get a copy and take it home for a few days. If they liked the book, they could bring in the fifty cents for it. If they didn’t like the book, they could return it. As Garroway remembered, “That seemed very easy to the principal, because he didn’t have to do any of the work. He could assign that to the girls in the office outside.” By Garroway’s recollection, Tilden was selling about half the books he offered.
Hiring young Dave Garroway allowed Tilden to cover an entire city more quickly. They would arrive in a town together, Tilden in his car and Garroway in his dad’s 1932 Buick, and work through the schools, often 15 in a day. They covered most of the cities in New England. Garroway remembered the profits running about $100 per week. “I’d been used to making that much playing golf, you see,” he later remembered. “And you do get spoiled, don’t you?”
In 1935 they got permission from the New York City superintendent to visit the schools in all five boroughs. Tilden and Garroway found lodging at the Y on 63rd Street and prepared to spend the next two years or so touring the schools and selling books. They were about three months in when fate turned on a dime. Garroway was leaving the Y when he happened into an acquaintance from about a decade before.14 In the course of their conversation, the old acquaintance asked, “Do you play bridge? We need a fourth.” Garroway accepted.
It was about 1:30 the next morning that the game’s hostess said she needed to shut the game down because she’d have to go to work in the morning. She said she had to fire 20 pages at NBC and hire 20 more. It turned out her job was in guest relations at NBC. Garroway remembered, “When she said NBC, those three letters came out as though they were gongs…they resonated through my skull.” He quickly told her, “You have nineteen to hire. You just hired me.” And from that, a book salesman was on his way to a broadcasting career. Garroway later remembered that his sudden abandonment of the bookselling career meant Tilden had to go back to all the schools Garroway had covered. “Poor Fred Tilden broke his back,” he said, but no money was lost. “It was the last of Fred’s many kindnesses to me because a couple of weeks later he suffered a heart attack in the Y in New York.”15
Garroway wouldn’t forget the little book, or how it helped make his career. A few years later, while working at KDKA in Pittsburgh, he came up with a quiz program that happened to be titled “You Don’t Say.”
Our hero, in a 1938 KDKA publicity still, holds a copy of the book that helped get him there.
A Pittsburgh radio columnist wrote that Garroway had written the booklet under the name of F.F. Tilden. Which, of course, wasn’t so, but it made a good story in the days before it was easier to check these things out.
And that’s how a little booklet helped make a broadcasting career happen.
…but it’s especially embarrassing when you’re a highly-regarded young announcer who’s only a few weeks into your new gig as a director of special events broadcasts for a large radio station.
And it’s even worse when it involves a local hero. As the Pittsburgh Press of July 14, 1939 was not about to let our Dave Garroway forget.
You can see more about the July 13, 1939 Billy Conn-Melio Bettina match here.
Once upon a time newspaper columnists would often compile jokes and stories told by radio personalities of the day. This one from the Sept. 17, 1950 Chicago Tribune (a joke that reads like the work of Dave’s favorite writer, Charlie Andrews) made me laugh more than usual, so here we go.
I’ve made mention a few times of another book project I’ve been working on. It just went on sale, and you can read about it (and order a copy, please!) here. No, the topic isn’t Dave Garroway, or even related to broadcasting at all (although Ed Murrow does make a few appearances), but it’s a story I feel privileged to have told. And if you want an idea of how I’ll tell the Dave Garroway story, you can consider this book sort of a prototype (although the Garroway book will be much larger because I have so much more source material to work from).
Speaking of which, work on that project continues in between day-job obligations, and the draft manuscript is a healthy size, although I expect it to grow even more. I continue to work my way through the newspaper databases, where I constantly find hidden treasures. The only problem is the short supply of time in each day, but I work around that as I can. One way or another, this will get done. Stay tuned.
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.
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.
CBS photo
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.
Garroway with producer Robert Tamplin (CBS photo)
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.
Tilden published all of this in a booklet he titled You Don’t Say! …Or Do You? The little book, bound in paper and stapled, sold for fifty cents. Tilden set out to sell copies of these booklets to schools and other educational organizations, and had received some praise from educators and civic leaders. A professor in public speaking at Harvard congratulated Tilden “in your scheme for making improvement in pronunciation both useful and entertaining,” while the chair of history and English at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called the project “novel and interesting” and said Tilden had “worked it up in a very ingenious way.” Boston’s school superintendent said Tilden’s efforts were needed more than ever “because of the spoken word on the radio.”
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.”
