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.
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.”4
— 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.5 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.6
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 Liebman7 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.8
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 mouth9, 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 cast10, 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).11 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.
By early 1954 Today was doing well. Part of it came from the program finding its focus. Part of it came from the addition of J. Fred Muggs to the program. But to the executives whose decisions meant life or death for a television program, what mattered was the revenue. And thanks to a talented and motivated sales staff, Today had become a solid and successful buy for advertisers of all sorts – many of whom wanted Dave Garroway to do the commercials for them.12 And thanks to Sponsor Magazine senior editor Charles Sinclair, who was given an unusual assignment in early 1954, we have an inside glimpse into the advertising aspect of Today – and of what it was like on the inside during an average day’s routine.13
Sinclair’s boss had assigned him to spend time with the Cunningham and Walsh agency14 and write about what the average agency man went through in a week. His very first assignment? Assisting with the live spots that the E.R. Squibb company had purchased on Today. So at 5:30 on Monday morning, he was shivering outside the Exhibition Hall15, waiting for the account’s supervisor, Tom De Huff, to arrive. When he did, a few minutes later, the two entered the building. “Garroway had just arrived and was surrounded, like a Queen Bee, by a covey of production coordinators, sports writers, newsmen and technical men,” Sinclair noted.
Garroway with Charles Sinclair (center) and agency rep Tom De Huff. (Sponsor Magazine photo)
Sinclair and De Huff walked down the long ramp to the downstairs reception room, near the control room. He noted “a long table around which sat half a dozen people drinking coffee poured by a white-coated waiter everyone called ‘Major.'” De Huff, who knew the program’s customs, explained that this was known as the “Telop One Club.”16 Over coffee and cigarettes, they discussed the spots Garroway would do for Squibb products. Dick Jackson, the network’s senior unit manager for Today, soon joined them and said the spots for Squibb appeared to be simple enough. “That’s a break for us today because we’re loaded to the top,” Jackson said, naming at least seven major clients who had booked time on the broadcast.17 “We think Garroway works best when there are no elaborate gimmicks, no tricky cues and no fancy art.”
When De Huff was a little concerned how the package would look on television, Jackson took the package upstairs and the two ad men went down the hall to a nearby viewing room to watch the camera check. In the room were a couple of representatives from other agencies. One of them, a pretty young girl, said she thought the whole thing was a lot of fun. “Not if you have to come in from Westport,” grumbled the other ad rep, fighting off drowsiness at ten after six. Over the monitors in the screening room the men watched Garroway rehearse each commercial in the lineup. He soon got to the Squibb spots, and they noted with approval the way Garroway read the copy and displayed the products.
At seven the program began, and after a news break the Squibb commercial went as scheduled, with no surprises. Sinclair told De Huff that he’d hate to be up at 4:30 each day “just to play nursemaid to a minute’s worth of commercial.” De Huff replied that he only had to be there about two times a month, when Squibb had a new product or a new pitch. “The rest of the time we let Garroway do the commercial in his own style.” He then suggested the two adjourn for some breakfast. “It was 10 minutes after eight,” Sinclair wrote. “The sun was up, people on their way to work were staring through the huge glass windows at Garroway; the Telop One Club was in full swing.”
Today is Election Day here in the States, and all of us here at Garroway at Large World Headquarters are gonna go to the polls and do our civic duty. (We certainly hope you’ll do the same.) I’ll be spending the evening helping some students put some local election returns on our little radio station. My hope is that the local results will come in fairly quickly, we can wrap up our coverage at a reasonable hour, and we won’t end up with our own version of what happened on the night of November 8, 1960, when – as many of you know – things literally went all night and into the next day.
Many years ago the A&E cable network (back when you could tell the name stood for “Arts and Entertainment”) carried a two-hour highlights package of NBC’s coverage of that election. It’s really interesting to watch; you get to see Chet Huntley and David Brinkley in prime form, broadcasting from their perch above Studio 8H; you get to see John Chancellor and Sander Vanocur and Frank McGee and Merrill Mueller anchoring the regional desks; you get some really cool Hjalmar Hermanson set design, including the trademark X-shaped anchor desk; and you get all sorts of period-appropriate fun, including Richard Harkness minding a snazzy RCA computer that’s worked into the coverage as a neat bit of corporate synergy. It’s a good way to spend a slow afternoon. And as it becomes apparent the story’s not going to end any time soon, you get to see the anchors and correspondents deal with the fact they’re getting tired and nothing is happening.
But when the story stretches into the next morning, there’s a really nifty surprise, because look who stops by the aerie high over 8H:
(Bonus content! For another view from a little later, here you go.)
Our journey through TV Guide‘s examinations of Dave Garroway continues on. Today’s piece examines a big and slightly controversial change at how his flagship broadcast was produced.
TV Guide photo
“Garroway No Longer Will Work By Dawn’s Early Light” read the headline in the August 1, 1959 TV Guide. “Thanks to tape, Dave will be able to live like most of us,” read the sub-head. NBC would begin videotaping each Today program the preceding afternoon starting in September.
Producer Bob Bendick told TV Guide the change would allow more scope. “There are more things happening at 4 in the afternoon than at 7 in the morning,” he said. “We’ll be able to cover many stories that we could never do before, including activities on the West Coast.”
Garroway and most of his staff were reportedly happy with the change, though they would miss the amusing little things that could happen when guests had to be awakened to be on the program. Dave told a story of when production assistant Estelle Parsons was sent to pick up Ava Gardner at her hotel, only to find Gardner had locked the doors and refused to answer through any means Parsons tried. “So Estelle returned to the studio and we put her on camera to impersonate Ava,” Garroway said. “She did a beautiful job.”
TV Guide photo
In another instance, Garroway remembered when the United States Olympic weightlifting team appeared on the program. Before the program, they asked for some coffee. Five minutes later, one of them “sheepishly” asked an attendant for help…because he couldn’t pull the stopper from the coffee jug. The attendant popped it right out. “At least we won’t be serving so much coffee when we move to afternoons,” Garroway laughed. Other incidents, including the morning George Jessel foiled an invitation for Harry Truman to come in, were mentioned.18
Bendick explained that an afternoon taping would allow the staff to keep a better grip on what’s going on. He explained that at 7 a.m., they could never get a good report on what was going on in Congress. “At 4 p.m., Congress is in session. We hope to be able to move our cameras someday right into the Senate corridors, into committee rooms.” Afternoon tapings might also open opportunities for Garroway to go on location – for instance, to a Broadway theater to talk with performers while an afternoon rehearsal was underway. Likewise, they could drop in on baseball or football games in progress, with Jack Lescoulie covering them. “And if we want to interview a baseball personality such as Casey Stengel or Yogi Berra, think how much better it will be for Jack to talk to them at Yankee Stadium. Until now, we had to invite them to visit our studio at 7 a.m,” Bendick said.
While the bulk of the program would be taped, the periodic news reports from Frank Blair would continue to be done live. Bendick promised that if a big story broke during the night, “we’ll be prepared to go live with the entire show,” with the entire staff notified to show up and go on live.
The article stated Garroway and the staff saw the benefits of videotaping during Today‘s visit to Paris. They also learned that it was better to do the entire program straight through, as if being done live, rather than taping segments out of sequence and assembling them for broadcast.
One more issue Bendick hoped the move would solve was the search for a new “women’s editor.” Betsy Palmer had left the show some months before, and the early hours played a role in her departure. Several women had tried out for the role after Palmer’s departure. Bendick hoped an afternoon taping might make an aspirant more likely to stay on, which meant “her personal and professional lives will not have to conflict.” He noted, however, that “no girl who has auditioned has complained that the 7 a.m. starting time was too rough.” Bendick also said they’d know when they’d found the right girl: “All the meters in the place will go ‘boing’ at the same time.”
Jack Lescoulie had just settled into his new job at CBS when an opportunity came to audition as announcer for a new early-morning program NBC was putting together. Lescoulie tried out for the job and was quickly hired. On January 14, 1952, his was the first voice that viewers heard as the new Today program made its debut.
Lescoulie’s role was not that well-defined at first. “When I first went to work on Today, I did not have a strong role,” he said. “I did the announcing at the top of the program and at the end of the breaks and that was it.” Surviving footage from Today‘s early programs bears this out; on the first program, for example, Lescoulie mostly does the announcements, occasionally interacts with people on the set, and does a sports-related report near the end of the second hour.
In his search for the right role on the program, Lescoulie did some research. “Since Today was designed to be a television newspaper, I went to the city room of a New York newspaper to observe,” he said. “While there, I found a young man who used to come and just kid everybody, and no one seemed to resent it. When I tried that on the set it worked beautifully, and did for many years.”
Lescoulie with Frank Blair, Dave Garroway and J. Fred Muggs (NBC photo)
Lescoulie had battled some doubts, as well. “Frankly, I didn’t think I could make it [in television],” he said. “I believed I was unphotogenic. But suddenly there I was, the third man between Dave Garroway and Frank Blair.19 I knew if I were to make it on the show, I’d not only have to blend with the personalities of those two men but create one of my own. So I became the smiling, mischievous clown, the good-natured everyman. It worked.” Although Lescoulie would later wonder if that on-screen persona had limited his opportunities, it was key to a long-lasting relationship with Today, and a style that drew appreciation from viewers.
NBC photo
Lescoulie’s abilities also drew appreciation from the program’s “master communicator,” Dave Garroway, who placed an unusual amount of trust in him. “There was a great rapport” between the two men, Lescoulie recalled. “Garroway told me several times that if I felt an interview or particular segment on the program was dying, I should step in and ‘save’ it.” That’s how Lescoulie came to be known as “the saver.”20
Lescoulie in a fencing match on the “Today” program (NBC photo)
And it was in those years Lescoulie became the member of the Today team whose job it was to do anything for the cameras. At the Bronx Zoo, he wrestled a walrus named Herbert (who won, best two falls), and walked into a penguin cage and asked a penguin what brand of cigarette it smoked.21 He let an archer shoot an arrow off his head, William Tell-style. He played opposite Jayne Mansfield in an on-set scene from Cleopatra. He scrimmaged with the New York Football Giants. He faced off against Olympic athletes in their specialties, including water polo. Once he was sent to Palisades Park for a segment on the kiddie rides. “That almost did me up, and I was dizzy for three days,” he said. Almost as demanding was the segment tied to a national magazine feature in which Lescoulie had to eat six different breakfasts in succession and render a verdict on which was best. “The whole project just ruined my lunch that day,” he said. Some of the demands of the role led him to muse to a reporter that “reporting bombing raids was rather placid” by comparison.
Yet Today wasn’t the only outlet for Lescoulie’s talent. He was in demand as an announcer, too. He did advertisements on the Milton Berle program in 1954 and 1955, and was also sought after to be the voice of several products. Lescoulie knew his own value and was careful about the jobs he accepted. “It’s not a secret that I’ve always played the game rough, and not been easy to get,” he said. “I take on only a few accounts.” That care ended up making him one of the highest-paid announcers in the business.
But one job Lescoulie was happy to take on was being the announcer for his friend Jackie Gleason, who years before had promised, “Someday I’ll be the greatest and you’ll be with me.” From 1952 to 1959 Lescoulie was the voice of Gleason’s programs. “The Great One” placed complete trust in Lescoulie. One night, a piece of scenery fell backstage. Without a second’s hesitation, Gleason told Lescoulie, “Ad lib three minutes while I find out what’s happening back there.” And Gleason insisted that Lescoulie be the voice of his program, not of its commercials. “I want you,” he said. “Let the sponsor get his own man.” NBC had considered asking Lescoulie to sever his association with Gleason because he was on a competing network, but Lescoulie pointed out that he didn’t have a contract with NBC, instead working on a week-to-week basis.22
As if that wasn’t enough work, in July 1956 Lescoulie began hosting a Saturday sports interview program called Meet The Champions. With all these duties – five days a week on Today, his work for Gleason, hosting the Saturday program, and doing advertisements – Lescoulie later reflected that “I was seen by more people than the president.”
But in January 1957, Lescoulie left Today to enter the realm of late night. When Steve Allen left Tonight, NBC restyled the program into a live, roving look at the country’s nightlife. The new Tonight! America After Dark promised live remotes from different points around the country to see what was going on. It took cues from Today, even originating from the RCA Exhibition Hall. And Jack Lescoulie was signed to host the program.
With Judy Johnson on the “Tonight!”/”Today” set (NBC photo)
Unfortunately, the new format was an almost instant flop. Two months in, Lescoulie insisted the program still had a chance, stating that he took the job because he believed in the show and still did, writing that critics’ reviews were “unfair” and “hitting below the belt,” and that improvements had been made. Yet he admitted that Dave Garroway was holding open his old slot on Today for him because Dave “is such a good friend” and “wants me back” should Tonight! flop. “That is the way Dave is.” As it happened, Lescoulie was let go from Tonight! in mid-year, and returned to Today on June 24, 1957, just in time to fill in while Garroway took seven weeks off. The next year, he accepted a role as co-host of the quiz program Brains & Brawn.
Lescoulie’s talents weren’t just behind the microphone. In high school band he had played the trombone, and during his years with Gleason the great man had persuaded him to get back into playing it. With a few other notables, Lescoulie played in a little combo. “Garroway plays a very bad set of drums and Gleason plays a very bad trumpet,” he said. “Once in a while we get together at Dave’s house as a Dixieland band.” Sometimes Steve Allen would stop in and play piano or tuba, or Jac Hein23 would sit in on trumpet and drums. And Lescoulie was a good enough amateur golfer to play in matches in the United States and Canada, once scoring a hole in one at his home course, and even playing against Arnold Palmer in 1963.
And even with his lucrative announcing gig, he wanted something more. “Show me an announcer and I’ll show you a frustrated actor or singer,” he said. “Like all other announcers, I just fell into the business. It’s really an illegitimate profession.” He likened himself to a singer or actor who “missed the boat somewhere along the way and took to announcing because they couldn’t get anything better.” That had happened to him, he insisted. “I had a long stretch of unemployment. Ever try to act on an empty stomach?” While announcing and hosting, he still took dancing and vocal lessons, and yearned to “get my teeth into a good part, and I will accept it providing that it’s entirely foreign to the television host you now see on your television screen. I would love to play the meanest heavy I could find.”
There are several treatments of the early days of Today. Some of them are oral histories, some of them reminiscences, some of them as parts of books. Nothing, though, quite matches a contemporary account of Today during the Garroway era. And one of the most interesting, and inadvertently insightful, was printed in the June 1954 Esquire, and it’s a story that has a story of its own.
Esquire photo
“The Man Who Came To Breakfast,” written by Richard Gehman24, is a bird’s-eye view of Today in its second year. There’s some good material about Garroway himself, but he’s not the main focus. Gehman spends a good bit of time on what goes into making an early-morning program work five days a week, the people behind the scenes who made it happen, and the unusual pressures they face.
One issue they faced was how the early morning hours messed up normal daily routine. Staffers complained that their kids didn’t know who they were any longer, that wives had to go to parties alone, that they had difficulty ordering in restaurants because the weird hours meant only breakfast menus were available when the staffers were free.
Another challenge? In the parlance of the day, “nervous tension.” Gehman surveyed a group of Today staffers at Toots Shor’s tavern25, saying they were conspicuous by how they kept checking their watches or a nearby clock. Some had developed nervous tics. Gehman described their routines as a “vicious circle” in which “they get keyed up on the show to such a degree that when they return home even a few drinks won’t help them sleep. Finally, after hours of tossing, they manage to fall into restless comas. The alarm goes off. The moment they get to the studio, the tension begins again. In mid-morning, real fatigue sets in.”
And here’s where the piece gets really interesting, for it touches on a famous part of Garroway lore, and shows it wasn’t exclusively his province: “To offset [the fatigue],” Gehman writes, “they take doses of a compound they call The Doctor, a Dexedrine-and-vitamin stimulant obtained by prescription, widely used by combat crews during the war to forestall fatigue.” The Doctor, Gehman noted, kept them so alert that they couldn’t get to sleep, and it fed a cycle.26
While Gehman noted that staff members seemed to face “a killing grind,” he saw no signs of the strain in Garroway. “He is happy about Today because he feels that it is educational and amusing at once,” but is always looking for ways to make the show better, Gehman wrote. And, apparently, the odd hours agreed with Garroway. Writer Charlie Andrews told Gehman that Garroway didn’t care much for parties but didn’t like to refuse invitations. “Now that he’s got this show, he can always go to a party, have one drink and escape, pleading that he has to go to bed around nine, which is true. It’s perfect for him,” Andrews said.
Gehman describes what happened in the RCA Exhibition Hall as a typical program happened, and for that alone the article is worth seeking out: the four cameras (including one on a platform), the nearby turntables, the array of desks and telephones and teletypes, everything you see in the few preserved kinescopes. But we also meet the writers (including Andrews and Paul Cunningham), directors Jac Hein and Mike Zeamer27 and their several assistants, and go inside the downstairs control room to learn about the particular kind of stress they faced making the program happen.28 We appreciate why, just after each day’s broadcast ended but before the daily post-mortem meeting in the program offices in the RKO Building, the working crew stopped off for a quick decompression at the Hurley and Daly tavern across 49th Street.29 Then it was off to the meeting, which typically lasted to around one in the afternoon.
Then after that, a group of Today staffers, calling itself the “Telop One Club,”30 adjourned to Toots Shor’s for what Mike Zeamer called “the daycap” – as Gehman explained, the daycap “differs from a nightcap in that it is not the last, but the first of several.” The club’s members unwound by telling jokes and airing gripes, and sometimes those sessions turned into impromptu conferences about new ideas for the program. And thus the cycle continued.
There’s one more item of interest in Gehman’s article: he describes the work of “a lovely, scrubbed-faced girl who also takes care of the weather board,” who also “writes the book and magazine reviews as well as serving as decoration on the show, and often gets as much fan mail as Garroway.” That lovely, scrubbed-faced girl was Estelle Parsons. While gathering the material for this article, Gehman struck up a connection with her that eventually culminated in their marriage.31
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 in January 1957, Lescoulie left Today to enter the realm of late night. When Steve Allen left Tonight, NBC restyled the program into a live, roving look at the country’s nightlife. The new Tonight! America After Dark promised live remotes from different points around the country to see what was going on. It took cues from Today, even originating from the RCA Exhibition Hall. And Jack Lescoulie was signed to host the program.
Lescoulie’s talents weren’t just behind the microphone. In high school band he had played the trombone, and during his years with Gleason the great man had persuaded him to get back into playing it. With a few other notables, Lescoulie played in a little combo. “Garroway plays a very bad set of drums and Gleason plays a very bad trumpet,” he said. “Once in a while we get together at Dave’s house as a Dixieland band.” Sometimes Steve Allen would stop in and play piano or tuba, or Jac Hein