Last week we lost another longtime NBC crewmember. Phil Hymes, a lighting director whose NBC career began in 1951 and spanned decades, with a credits list including everything from Your Hit Parade and The Bell Telephone Hour to Late Night with Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, passed away last week at age 96.
In reading the obits for Phil Hymes you find phrases like “the best” and “creative” (mixed in, of course, with comments about how opinionated he could be – “brutally honest,” Fallon said, and that’s a recurring theme. Yes Please by Amy Poehler includes one such story of Phil being extremely candid). But as you read, you’re also struck by the span of the man’s career, how much he saw, and how many shows he worked on. Some of them didn’t last, some of them are forgotten, but some have endured. His most famous work was helping light Saturday Night Live, and as I work my way through the DVDs of the first five seasons, more often than not I see Phil Hymes among the familiar names on the credit scroll at the end of each episode.
And one of Phil’s first jobs at NBC? Lighting Today. That’s right, he would have been responsible for making Garroway and company look good from the very earliest days of Pat Weaver’s morning experiment. I don’t even want to know what had to go into figuring out how to make the interior of the RCA Exhibition Hall look so presentable on television (especially in those early days), but he somehow helped get it done.
People like Phil Hymes – and I’ve said things like this over and over, but I do so because it’s a point that cannot be overstated – are the people who helped carve a medium from the wilderness. They arrived as television was on the way up; they helped figure out how to make it work; and so much of how it’s now done, they wrote the book on. So many of them stuck around for so long, leaving their mark on generation after generation of programs. Along the way, they not only became part of the institutional history, but they retained so much of what they did and what they witnessed. Every television industry veteran with whom I’ve had a conversation…oh, the stories they can tell, the bygone eras they bring back to vivid (and sometimes hilarious) life, and what understanding they can help you reach about how it really was and how things worked back then. And every time we lose another one, we lose their stories, their perspectives, and so much more.
It’s inevitable that we will lose these people. But it also makes me thankful for initiatives like the Television Academy’s interview project, for the work of people like Stephen Bowie and Kliph Nesteroff, and all the others who work with industry veterans to record their memories and stories and perspectives. But it also makes me think about all those who vanished before we could get their contributions down for the record. And it again makes me think I need to do more than I have to help this cause.
Phil Hymes was a giant. And now, here’s hoping that what Lorne Michaels said has come true: “If God has him now, despite all the arguing, heaven will be much better lit.”
Thanks to the Middlebury College Archives (and thanks to my collaborator Brandon for discovering this!), there’s some further vintage Garroway to enjoy: about ten minutes of a program titled Kickoff 1953, a program introducing the college football season (and promoting NBC’s efforts to cover said season, a hosting job that perhaps was tied in with appearance obligations in his NBC contract). It’s not the complete program, but it’s still a treat. Here you see Garroway in fine handsome form, at the height of his easy charm, his voice still a purr, able to make hosting a complicated program with a lot of scripted lines seem as spontaneous as a warm conversation with a friend. There’s plenty there in this wonderful time capsule, so go check it out.
:: We’ve been silent of late, I know. It’s for good reason: I’ve been busy overseeing about a dozen day-job things (it’s our summer break, but the work never ends) and about a dozen other demands on my time. The good news is that my muse has apparently returned from sunning itself in Boca Raton or whatever, and I’ve begun again to chip away at the manuscript for the book. Good things are happening. Stay tuned.
Today‘s first home, the RCA Exhibition Hall on 49th Street, is an ongoing fascination for me. Unfortunately, among the buildings of Rockefeller Center, it’s too often lost as an obscurity.
via Science History Institute
The building itself is still there – it’s now occupied by Christie’s auction house, which extensively remodeled the place but kept those big windows – but good luck finding much about its past. Which is why a find like the one you’re about to see is something else.
Let’s take a moment to look back on that first day of Today, January 14, 1952:
NBC photo
This is as far to the viewer’s left as the set went, and it’s where the big newspaper board was set up. But in some shots you can tell there’s something more back there, and it looks like people are looking on from behind the newspaper board. Why is that? Because only a portion of the RCA Exhibition Hall was used for the Today set.
Thanks to the January 1954 issue of RCA’s house publication, Radio Age, we can get an idea of what you would have seen on the other side of that board.
RCA photo
That panoramic view shows you the remainder of the RCA Exhibition Hall, which continued to serve its original function. (There wasn’t really a big white line; that’s an artifact from how the magazine printed the photo across two pages.) On the right-hand side of that panorama, look at what you see:
RCA photo
Just up that set of steps is the Today set. Which, believe it or not, was incorporated into the Exhibition Hall as a display in itself. When the building opened to the general public in late morning, after Today had gone off the air for the day, visitors could get a look at it as an example of how RCA technology was involved in the production of a daily news program.
Many thanks and much gratitude to the folks at American Radio History for digitizing this and hundreds of other vintage broadcast industry publications. You can check out this issue of Radio Age – and dozens of others – here.
The battle over color television – the RCA “compatible color” system against the CBS-developed mechanical color system – is an epic in itself, and has been ably chronicled by others. (A great place to start is here.) That said, the years-long effort left us with some interesting artifacts, and if you’re fortunate you can find some surprises.
Some time ago, some good people compiled and restored a whole lot of kinescoped episodes of Kukla, Fran and Ollie.1 The restored episodes have been released on DVD, and they’re a fun way to visit the gentle world Burr Tillstrom created. They have a time-capsule quality to them, and not just because the commercials are still in them. Sometimes famous people from the era make guest appearances: Dennis Day, Jose Greco, and even a certain bespectacled former disc jockey we know and love.
Burr Tillstrom and Oliver J. Dragon with our Dave. (NBC photo)
In the third disc set is a special treat: a compilation of footage from experimental color broadcasts, as well as footage of some of the Kuklapolitans goofing around before a performance recorded for the 1964 World’s Fair. (All, unfortunately, are only in black and white. The color tests were not preserved on color film.) The first color test, done in 1949, is a simple affair that was done as a limited broadcast to the FCC and RCA officials. But the 1953 color test, which was aired over the network as a real test of compatible color2, pulled out the stops. For this special broadcast, NBC presented Kukla, Fran and Ollie in a production of “St. George and the Dragon.” They had performed it in Boston on June 7, with Arthur Fiedler conducting. It had been received very well. So NBC decided to stage a repeat performance as part of a color test, and it aired August 30. For one afternoon, the Colonial Theater in New York – where NBC learned how to work in color – became the Kuklapolitan Opera House. Arthur Fiedler would again conduct for this very special performance, this time leading the NBC Summer Symphony.
Really neat title card. I bet it looked great in color. (NBC photo)
And they’d need a host. Someone who could lend the appropriate dignified whimsy to the proceedings. Who might that be?
“How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?” (NBC photo)
There he is: our Dave, speaking to us from Box 44 at the Kuklapolitan Opera House in New York3, from which point NBC is about to bring us another afternoon of fine opera.
(NBC photo)
Dave’s doing his imitation of Metropolitan Opera radio host Milton Cross as he introduces the performance. You may not be able to tell from the screen grab, but he’s having fun with the Milton Cross style, too. The broadcast was sponsored by the Society For Improving Relations Between Dragons and Other People.
You knew it was coming. (NBC photo)
And at the end of the performance, of course, it wouldn’t be Dave without his trademark benediction. “From the Kuklapolitan Opera House, we bid you good afternoon…and peace.”
Really classy closing credit card. That was NBC, though, back in the day. (NBC photo)
To find out how to get your own set of these priceless compilations, go here. They’re highly (and warmly) recommended.
My colleague Brandon alerted me to a nifty flashback item on the Saturday Evening Post‘s website. In February 1956, the Post published an article under Garroway’s byline (well, an “as told to” byline, at least) titled “I Lead a Goofy Life.” In it, Dave talked about the strange occurrences that happen when you host an early-morning program, set in a big fishbowl of a studio, in which your assistants include a Miss America and a young chimpanzee. Better still, there’s a link to the entire article, viewable in its original layout, at the bottom of the entry. It’s a fun article. Go check it out.
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.4
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.5
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.”
NBC photo
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 Goodwin6 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.7
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 broadcast8, 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.”9 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.10 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.11 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.
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.12 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.13
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.”14
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.15
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.
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.”16
— 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.17 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
This image wasn’t from “Babes in Toyland.” It’s from “Today,” and that’s Florence Henderson next to Santa Dave. It’s the best I could do on a moment’s notice. (NBC photo)
We all have our ideas of Santa Claus. For some it’s the image of Santa as immortalized by Coca-Cola. For others it’s the Rankin-Bass Santa Claus who finds room in his team and in his heart for a certain unique reindeer. Or maybe you think of the jaded department store Santa from A Christmas Story. But would you believe that for two years, Dave Garroway was Santa Claus? It really happened.18
Let’s go back to 1954. NBC Television faced a problem: staving off the heavy competition CBS was putting up in prime time. Key to NBC’s efforts to fend off this threat was an idea that the always-innovative Pat Weaver had: a collection of ambitious, creative 90-minute productions called “spectaculars.” Aired in prime time, these programs were meant to draw eyes over to NBC to see something they wouldn’t see anywhere else. These presentations were produced by Fred Coe as Producers’ Showcase and by Your Show of Shows impresario Max Liebman19 as Max Liebman Presents.
Some of the “spectaculars” fared better than others. NBC’s first presentation, Satins and Spurs with Betty Hutton, was relentlessly promoted and set high expectations, but laid an egg. Others, however, became beloved classics, as happened with the Fred Coe-produced Peter Pan with Mary Martin. And not only were the spectaculars meant to lure eyes to NBC, but they were also aimed at promoting the color television system pioneered by the network’s parent company, RCA.20
In late 1954 NBC announced a special Christmas-themed spectacular, an adaptation of Victor Herbert’s musical Babes in Toyland, to be aired on Max Liebman Presents. It was adapted by a team of very talented writers, which included a young Neil Simon. The cast was a who’s who of the day’s television and radio stars, including Wally Cox (of Mr. Peepers), comic Jack E. Leonard, and Dennis Day (well-known from being the resident tenor on Jack Benny’s programs). Bil and Cora Baird would create marionettes especially for the program. Oldsmobile’s dealer network would sponsor the program. And holding it all together as the department store Santa who narrated the proceedings? None other but our own Dave Garroway.
Babes in Toyland aired on December 21, carried both in black-and-white and in color, and met good reviews. It was a charming program with moments that could be enjoyed by children and adults alike. And Dave Garroway made for a droll, delightful and slightly bemused Santa, keeping a lost little girl entertained at the end of a wearying day. Reviews were good. One columnist decried some “inappropriate Broadway-type wisecracks” the writers put in Garroway’s mouth21, but considered the production “well done” and wrote that it “should become as much of an annual classic for TV as Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ for radio.”
Liebman later said he began planning a rebroadcast for 1955 as soon as the good reviews came in. NBC liked the idea. When a re-staged Babes in Toyland was announced for Christmas Eve 1955, it was eagerly anticipated. One paper called it a “TV treat” and looked forward to its return. Liebman told a reporter that it would be much the same production as the year before, using the same scenery and much the same cast22, and that modifications would be minor. There was some concern that with the program airing for 90 minutes starting at 9 PM on Christmas Eve, it would interfere with the tradition that children would need to go to bed early so Santa could do his work. But Liebman said otherwise. “I have it on the very best authority that Santa isn’t going to start making the rounds this year until after 10:30. He’s going to be watching Babes in Toyland.”
Liebman had hoped Babes in Toyland could become an annual tradition, and told a reporter, “I was discussing the matter with Garroway the other day, and we agreed that if we all could get just a little more money, it would almost be practical for us to put on this show once a year and do nothing else.” But it was not to be, and the Liebman production of Babes in Toyland wasn’t presented again after 1955.
Although it wasn’t aired again, both years’ presentations were preserved via kinescope (only black-and-white, alas; the color presentation is lost forever).23 A few years ago, the kinescopes were made available on DVD, and you can watch, compare and enjoy whenever you like. Having watched them both, it’s easy to see just why adults and children alike were so charmed by this presentation. And it’s a glimpse at a whimsical side of Dave Garroway, too. Why not pick up a copy and make it part of your own Christmas tradition?
Sources:
Jack Gaver, “‘Babes in Toyland’ Changed Little,” Louisville Courier-Journal, Dec. 19, 1955: 15.
Women have always been an integral part of Today, from the very beginning when Mary Kelly and Estelle Parsons were among the first hires for the program staff and even did some on-camera work. And women even served sometimes as substitute hosts when Dave Garroway was elsewhere. But when women are mentioned in the context of the first decade of Today, it’s often in reference to the Today Girls, the sort of little-sister/next-door-neighbor member of the on-air staff whose role was to bring a little light and a little beauty to the morning’s proceedings. Several famous women carried the Today Girl title, among them Lee Ann Meriwether, Betsy Palmer, Helen O’Connell, Florence Henderson.
But one Today Girl’s path to the seat next to Dave Garroway wasn’t through a pageant, a movie studio or a singing career. Instead, she was promoted from the program staff because Dave Garroway considered her “the perfect woman.” She was a writer, producer, and a keen observer with a sharp wit – and she left us with witty and candid recollections of her eight months on the air and her time working for Dave Garroway. And after she left Today, she went on to a brilliant career as an award-winning writer and producer for television and radio. Today, let’s meet Beryl Pfizer.
A New Jersey native, Pfizer graduated from Hood College with a music degree in 1949. She then moved to New York City to fulfill her dream of living there. Pfizer worked on the staff of Arthur Godfrey’s CBS programs, then joined NBC and worked as a writer on Home. In 1960, she was assigned as a writer on Today. Before long, she ended up getting more than she imagined.
During this period, the Today program was going through writers, producers, and Today Girls at a rapid pace. Things looked placid to the viewers at home, but behind the scenes was what staffers characterized as chaos and uncertainty.24 Dave Garroway’s power and influence as host reached their height just as his personal life was itself a handful (and that will be discussed more in the book, of course, but let’s say that Dave’s tendency to burn the candle at both ends was catching up with him). If the ratings slumped, or if Garroway decided someone didn’t have the magic, that person might find themselves replaced. Author Robert Metz, in his history of Today, wrote that Garroway’s high expectations, forged after years of carrying the show on his back, left him “always looking for someone who could bring perfection to the show.”
The Today Girls were no exception. Pfizer wrote years later that her tally of Today Girls came to 30 during the Garroway years. Sometimes they had left for personal reasons, as Florence Henderson had when she was expecting a child. But other times, “whenever Dave grew restless with the show, or there was any dip in its sales or popularity, they threw out the old Today Girl and got a new one.” And it was under that kind of circumstance that Beryl Pfizer would become one of those thirty.
Dave Garroway and Beryl Pfizer, 1961. (NBC photo)
Dave Garroway had long been fascinated by her. According to one account, he had first seen her on a bus in Manhattan one day and thought she was the perfect woman. But before he could walk up and introduce himself, she disappeared into the crowds walking along the city’s streets. Which left him surprised the day he was in the studio and saw that “perfect woman” show up – turned out, she worked for Today. And before long, that “perfect woman” experienced the glare of the spotlight, promoted to Today Girl.
Pfizer later wrote about her experiences on Today, praising Garroway as a gifted communicator and an observer with an offbeat point of view. But she also remembered his “great ability to inspire rage, just as he had a great ability to inspire loyalty in those around him.” She remembered him as “a disorganizer” with “an incredible ability to create chaos out of order…he would arrive at the studio at the last minute and find fault with everything.” Sometimes he’d reorganize the program at the last minute and have the second hour’s guests on during the first hour, which prompted a frenzy of staffers hurriedly reshuffling things at the last second.
Years later she wrote of the daily journal she kept, recording Garroway’s daily eccentricities, sayings and claims. Sometimes she never knew how to take what she saw and heard: for example, his claim that during his transit from his home to his studio, somebody or something turned his undershorts around backwards. Or the morning “DG came back to desk, dipped hairbrush in tea, brushed hair, then drank some of the tea.” Pfizer wrote that staffers sometimes called him “Big Spooky” because of his fascination with strange happenings.
If Garroway’s antics weren’t enough, Pfizer found being an on-camera personality its own handful. She wrote a 1961 TV Guide article about how her seven-month on-air tenure was marked, from beginning to end, by others’ constant obsessions with how she looked on television. Everyone from the makeup man to the producer, the lighting director, and others on the staff had some idea of something she should change: make her upper lip appear thicker, change her hairstyle, make her chin look less pointed or her cheekbones less prominent. If it wasn’t that, others were suggesting changes to her wardrobe. The publicity photographer even suggested she wear a set of falsies that he kept in his desk. And as if the comments from program staff weren’t enough, the viewers’ mail brought complaints and suggestions of their own.25
And, she wrote, one day she took all this to heart, and the day she was doing everything properly, in came a letter from the NBC Talent Department notifying her that she was being dismissed from the program. She said that although it was well-known that Garroway made those decisions, he hated to be the bad guy and wanted someone else to pin the blame on. She remained on the show for a few weeks after she had been served notice that she wouldn’t be renewed. As she remembered, “General David Sarnoff26 was a guest in the studio one day. Dave turned to me and said, ‘Want to meet the man who fired you?’ I did meet the General, who winked at me and said, ‘My wife and I have coffee with you every morning.’ It was obvious he not only hadn’t fired me, he didn’t even know I was fired.”
But her dismissal from Today didn’t slow Pfizer’s career, and she worked elsewhere for NBC News as a writer and producer, working on convention broadcasts, on NBC Radio’s Monitor service, and even wrote and produced a Pink Panther series for NBC television. Her NBC Radio series The Women’s Program was awarded a commendation from American Women in Radio in Television in 1979, and the following year she won an Emmy for producing Ask NBC News with John Chancellor. Outside broadcasting, she wrote the “Poor Woman’s Almanac” feature for Ladies Home Journal. She also loved being physically active, and was an avid runner and tennis player. She also did volunteer work for a local hospital.
When Dave Garroway died in 1982, she was approached about saying something about him. She found herself choked up “not with sadness, but with rage,” she wrote, for Garroway’s suicide shook her to the core. Recalling how he would turn broadcasts upside down at the last minute, she likened his suicide to “his final act of defiance…here was Old Dave again, taking us off-guard, refusing to let thing go along in any normal, orderly fashion.” She wrote of her belief that his famous benediction of “peace” was “more a personal plea than a political one. After two hours of jousting with his own peculiar talents, his intellectual curiosity, his restless need to depend on gimmicks, his insecurity about his own abilities, he must have said that word in a plea for some inner peace for himself.”27
Beryl Pfizer (right) with Estelle Parsons at a 60th anniversary celebration for Today in 2012. (NBC photo)
Beryl Pfizer lived a long and active life, and stayed in touch with her friends from the broadcast world, attending Today‘s 60th anniversary in 2012. Her friendships extended throughout the industry, and she helped establish a scholarship at Hood in honor of her friend Andy Rooney.
Well into her 80s she remained active, continuing to do volunteer work and being active in her community. She even ran a race only a month or so before she passed away in February 2016 at age 87.28
This entry is a little far afield from our usual focus on Dave Garroway, and Beryl Pfizer was only in his orbit for a brief period. But it’s through her that we get an unusual, perceptive, and unique view of what he was like. Besides that, her story means something to every woman who’s working in mass communications today. It was the Beryl Pfizers of the world, blazing a path in times that weren’t the easiest, that made it possible for all of us to do what we do. All of us owe something to her.
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.
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.
