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.”1
— 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.2 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
For whatever reason, the image above – a classic Chicago School photo – just feels appropriate for looking back at the end of a year. Especially one as productive as 2018 was for the Dave Garroway biography project.
During this trip around the Sun, we’ve accomplished a lot. The manuscript crossed the 30,000-word threshold. I received Garroway’s FBI files. Cooperation with Brandon has gone on wonderfully, and in June we met up for a most enjoyable working lunch. Another relationship, with a researcher working on a related project, has resulted in a lot of good things. In September I gave a presentation at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. And best of all, thanks to some help from a couple of very good folks, I finally established contact with some members of Dave’s family, and that has gone very well and already yielded some great discoveries. There have been other little victories along the way, too, and they’ll pay dividends as we move ahead.
What’s ahead for 2019? For one thing, with my other book project now (mostly) the concern of its publisher, that should free up time and brain power for Dave Garroway. I’m hoping to get out and conduct a few interviews this year. There’s still two or three decades worth of exploring to do through Newspapers.com. The new year won’t have a lack of things to get done.
But the best thing? This year I felt like I started to understand Dave Garroway – that the bits of information I’d collected over the years had finally started to organize themselves, and mystery began yielding to insight. And in its own way, that’s as important as any article or document or piece of film I could unearth. If I’m going to tell his story, I can’t just rattle off the facts or repeat myths. I have to understand him. I owe it to him. And this year it was as if he said from the great beyond, “Wow. It looks like you’re serious. Come inside, kid.” (I’ll do my best to not let you down, sir.)
The new year has the potential to be a great one for this project. There’s a lot to be thankful for when I think of 2018, too. I’m grateful for everything that’s happened on this project, for all the great folks I’ve met along the way, for all the help they’ve extended me. And I’m grateful to those of you who have read along as this adventure unfolds. Stay tuned…there’s more to come.
A couple months ago, Dave’s daughter Paris gave me a little souvenir, a tiny envelope and acknowledgment card that her dad would send out. It was a curious little item, but it was pure Dave Garroway, and beautiful in his understated way:
At this time of year, as we all come together, I can’t think of a more appropriate sentiment. Whatever you observe or celebrate, may it be the best you can make it.
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.3
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 Liebman4 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.5
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 mouth6, 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 cast7, 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).8 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.
You may wonder why there was no update last week. I can only attribute that to the exquisite agony of being lower-middle management at my workplace, and in particular to a project that involved outside contractors and a firm start date. And, since my job involves generally being in charge of a lot of things, I was the one caught in the middle. But it got done. Oh, and final exams and so forth were taking place the same time, too, and there was also a negotiation with a third party about a very intriguing alliance that could mean great things. So life didn’t want for action or variety the last week and a half.
With all that going on, there was not much time or available brainpower to think about anything else, especially about beloved master communicators. I intend to change that in the next few days. I also hope to have some interesting news soon, and once I can share that, you’ll read it here. Meanwhile, bear with us and we’ll have something for you soon.
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.9 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.10
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 Sarnoff11 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.”12
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 87.13
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.
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.14 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.15
Sinclair’s boss had assigned him to spend time with the Cunningham and Walsh agency16 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 Hall17, 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.”18 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.19 “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.”
Over the weekend we observed Veterans’ Day here in the States and took time to remember the service and sacrifice of all those who have worn the uniform. Our own Dave Garroway was no exception, so let’s take a few moments to honor his service.
Garroway’s Navy photo
When the United States entered World War II, Garroway expected he’d get a summons to service. A few months after Pearl Harbor, that arrived. He was ordered to Cambridge, Massachusetts for Navy officer training, which he completed in early July. When that was done, he waited around for orders to a unit. A month later, he was ordered to Alameda, California, where he would join the crew of a ship.
Garroway couldn’t wait to go to war. The name of the ship he was assigned to – USS Devastator – no doubt helped fuel the images in his head of combat glory, the fantasies he harbored as he traveled across the continent. But his initial hopes were dashed when he arrived at the shipyard in Alameda, only to find that his ship – a minesweeper – was only two weeks into being constructed. With the war going on without him, Garroway grew bored waiting around with little to do. Before long, he requested to be put to work helping build the ship, buying a set of tools and safety gear and even joining the shipbuilders’ union.
After the ship was launched, it was towed upriver and moored to a pier while the last tasks were completed. Garroway reported aboard one day. Within a few minutes, he didn’t feel so well. Moments later, he was heaving over the side of the ship. Even though the ship was securely moored, just the tiniest sensation of being afloat was enough to make him violently seasick. Things only got worse when Devastator went out to sea for the first time. As his crewmates gazed up at the Golden Gate Bridge looming over them, Garroway was again in agony. Every day at sea was misery, with the young communications officer unable to do his job. The captain tried to encourage him. “It’s all in your head,” the skipper said, and Garroway hoped he’d find his sea legs in time.
The day finally came when Devastator would leave California bound for Pearl Harbor. Any hopes Garroway had of conquering his seasickness were soon dashed. Soon he was unable to stand a watch, vomiting so much and so hard that he spat up blood from torn stomach tissue, so weak he could hardly stand. He was soon after excused from further watches so he could stay in his bunk, where he slept as much as he could and counted the hours until Pearl Harbor was in sight.
At Pearl Harbor, Garroway was taken off the ship and hospitalized, and after six weeks of recovery was reassigned to the officers’ pool. It happened that the officer in charge of the pool was someone he had befriended at Cambridge. From a list of available jobs Garroway selected a post that put him in charge of a yeoman and stenography school. He didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but it would keep him from having to go to sea.
As it happened, the new assignment was an easy one for him, and left him plenty of time for other things. When the night life bored him, he sought other challenges. On a hunch, he stopped by radio station KGO, NBC’s Honolulu affiliate, and asked if they needed any announcing help. The station’s program manager, desperate for good personnel, hired him on the spot. It was during that time that Garroway, given a 9 p.m. slot and told to fill it the best way he knew how, began to build his own unique style, talking to “one and a half people” between records, taking listeners on imaginary strolls through towns back on the mainland. Homesick personnel ate this up and soon Garroway had a following.
When the war ended in 1945, Garroway returned home, his life changed in ways large and small and unexpected. And while not everything he returned to was happy, the war had, in its way, been an influence on the stardom he was about to build. And had it not been for a little minesweeper and a case of acute seasickness, the world might never have known the smooth, eccentric charm that was Dave Garroway’s trademark.
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.)
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.
