Tom Snyder by Jim Smeal/WireImage.com
I've been thinking a lot about Tom Snyder since his death from leukemia was made public, in part because my mind already had been preoccupied with the '70s, when this unforgettable talk-show icon was in his late-night NBC heyday.My own late-'70s time warp was prompted by a 30-year high-school reunion over the weekend in which I referenced That '70s Show more than once. (Did we really look like that? Dress like that? Have hair like that? Only our senior class pictures know the truth, and I'm not sharing.) During my high school and college years, Snyder was a blazing, sometimes hair-raisingly pioneering presence in what had been a late-night wasteland following Johnny Carson's legendary Tonight Show.Snyder's show, which aired from 1973 to 1982, was called Tomorrow, and to me, the title always underscored the fact that everything about it was a bit ahead of its time. The show's level of discourse, its idiosyncratic host with his brash intensity and eclectic range (historic interviews w...
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Tom Snyder by Jim Smeal/WireImage.com
The late-late night Johnny Carson, Tom Snyder died Sunday of leukemia at the age of 71. From 1973 to '81, the ciggie-puffing funnyman hosted The Tomorrow Show, which, natch, used to follow The Tonight Show. In '95 he staged a witching-hour comeback, emceeing The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder after David Letterman's Late Show broadcasts. In '98, he was replaced by Craig Kilborn, but to many, he remains irreplaceable.
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