Tom Snyder

Thomas James Snyder (May 12, 1936 – July 29, 2007) was an American television personality, news anchor, and radio personality best known for his late night talk shows Tomorrow, on NBC in the 1970s and 1980s, and The Late Late Show, on CBS in the 1990s.

Snyder began his career as a radio reporter at WRIT-AM (unrelated to the present-day FM station) in Milwaukee, now WJYI-AM and at WKZO in Kalamazoo (where he was fired by John Fetzer) in the 1950s.

For a time he worked at Savannah, Georgia, AM station WSAV (now WBMQ).

Snyder moved into television in the 1960s; he talked about driving cross-country in an early Corvair from Atlanta to Los Angeles around 1963.

After a year-long stint in a news job at KTLA, he became a news anchor for KYW-TV (now WKYC-TV) in Cleveland in 1964.

In 1965, when Westinghouse Broadcasting moved KYW-TV back to Philadelphia as the result of an FCC ruling, Snyder went along and remained in Philadelphia for five years.

Snyder was also the pioneer anchor of the prime time NBC News Update, in the 1970s and early 1980s, which was a one-minute capsule of news updates.

Snyder was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Frank and Marie Snyder, who were of German, Cornish, and Irish descent.

He received a Roman Catholic upbringing, attending St. Agnes Elementary School and graduating from Jesuit-run Marquette University High School.

He then attended Marquette University, after which he had originally planned to study medicine and become a doctor.

Snyder loved radio since he was a child and at some point he changed his field of study from pre-med to journalism.

He once told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tim Cuprisin that broadcasting became more important to him than attending classes, and he skipped a lot of them.

In July 1970, Snyder returned to Los Angeles and joined NBC News, who assigned him to anchor the 6:00 pm (Pacific time) weeknight newscast on KNBC.

In the late 1970s Snyder interviewed Disney animator Ward Kimball regarding his toy train collection and his full-size trains.

Snyder appeared to be as happy as a "kid in a candy store," picking up various locomotives and asking lots of questions.

Snyder's love of toy trains started with his first Lionel locomotive, a scale steam switcher, which he claimed never worked too well.

His collection was later donated to a New Jersey toy train club, the NJ Hi-Railers.

Snyder remained in this capacity even after NBC launched the Tomorrow show with him as host in October 1973, working alongside Tom Brokaw, Jess Marlow and Paul Moyer at the KNBC anchor desk.

Another KNBC broadcaster, Kelly Lange, later became Snyder's regular substitute guest host on the Tomorrow program, prior to the hiring of co-host Rona Barrett in the program's last year.

Snyder gained national fame as the host of Tomorrow with Tom Snyder (more commonly known as The Tomorrow Show), which aired late nights after The Tonight Show on NBC from 1973 to 1982.

It was a talk show unlike the usual late-night fare, with Snyder, cigarette in hand, alternating between asking hard-hitting questions and offering personal observations that made the interview seem more like a conversation.

Snyder moved to New York City in late 1974, taking the Tomorrow program with him and kept his hand in news, anchoring weeknight newscasts on WNBC-TV until 1977, and Sunday broadcasts of NBC Nightly News during 1975 and 1976.

Unique one-on-one exchanges were common to the program, notably with John Lennon in 1975, John Lydon of PiL and The Sex Pistols in 1980, Charles Manson in 1981, actor and writer Sterling Hayden, author Harlan Ellison, and author and philosopher Ayn Rand.

A one-on-one program with David Brenner as the sole guest revealed that Snyder and Brenner worked together on several documentaries.

When not grilling guests, Snyder would often joke around with offstage crewmen, often breaking out in the distinctively hearty laugh that was the basis of Dan Aykroyd's impersonation of Snyder on Saturday Night Live (12 occasions, 1976–79 and 1995).

Some of the footage from this show was later included on the Kissology—The Ultimate KISS Collection Vol. 2: 1978–1991 (2007) DVD.

An infamous edition of The Tomorrow Show broadcast on October 31, 1979, saw Snyder interview the rock group KISS.

During the episode, a visibly irritated Gene Simmons (bass) and Paul Stanley (guitar) tried to contain the bombastic (and drunk) Ace Frehley (lead guitar), whose nonstop laughter and joking overshadowed the rest of the band.

Snyder and Peter Criss (drummer) were obviously enjoying it though, chiming in with several jokes, much to Frehley's delight, and Simmons' disgust.

Criss made repeated references to his large gun collection, to the chagrin of Simmons.

In 1981, "Weird Al" Yankovic had his first appearance on national TV performing Another One Rides the Bus.

Following a disastrous experiment with turning Tomorrow into a more typical talk show—renaming it Tomorrow Coast to Coast and adding a live audience and co-host Rona Barrett (all of which Snyder resented)—the show was canceled in fall 1981, to make way for the up-and-coming young comedian David Letterman, after Snyder turned down moving to the 1:30 to 2:30 am time slot after Letterman.

Snyder returned to local news in 1982 after ending Tomorrow, to become an anchor at WABC-TV in New York City.

In 1982 Snyder joined WABC-TV in New York, anchoring the 5 pm Eyewitness News program with Kaity Tong.

In 1985, he returned to Los Angeles but stayed with ABC, to anchor at KABC-TV.

He stayed at WABC for two years, then returned to the talk format in 1985 at KABC-TV in Los Angeles with a local afternoon show.

He had hoped to syndicate the program nationally the following year, but those plans were scratched after Oprah Winfrey's Chicago-based syndicated show entered the market first, and took over Snyder's time slot on KABC-TV.

In 1988 Snyder inaugurated a similar three-hour program on ABC Radio.

The first hour was spent chatting with a celebrity guest; during the second hour Snyder engaged someone in the news; and the final hour was consumed chatting with his legion of fans.

Occasionally the caller would be a well-known fan like David Letterman or Ted Koppel.