The former host of "The Tomorrow Show" and "The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder" has passed away from leukemia. He was 71. Loved his shows. They were late night fixtures in my life.

I was just about to post this myself. I was a big fan. Though I was quite young when TOMORROW was on the air, I grew to appreciate Snyder first on radio and then as the host of intelligent talk shows on CNBC and then CBS, where his LATE LATE SHOW was created to follow David Letterman. One of the most human television personalities of his era, Snyder was unpredictable, emotional, sometimes acerbic, good-humored, smart, confrontational. TV misses him and so do we.

If you do a YouTube search, you'll find a lot of interesting stuff, including full shows with cast members of STAR TREK and THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. A search for "NBC News" or something similar will bring up some old NBC News Updates: 60-second casts that ran during prime time (although one of my favorites featuring Snyder I now notice has been removed by YouTube). Also, a portion of Snyder's electrifying interview with Howard Stern, done when Snyder subbed for Bob Costas on NBC's LATER, is there.

Snyder's obit

What a range of guests he had on his show. I wish they'd replay his interviews with folks like Hitchcock, King Vidor, Bob Fosse, members of Monty Python and many more over the years.
At least I'm glad he was around to see the Punk Years dvd released. Those early appearances of The Jam, Iggy Pop and PiL helped shape my musical outlook.
Thanks for so much!

Thank you, sir.

I just picked up Shout! Factory's Tom Snyder's Electric Kool-Aid Talk Show with edited shows including interviews with Ken Kesey and Jerry Garcia, four superb performances by the Grateful Dead, further interviews with Garcia, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman. Other shows on the disc featured writer Tom Wolfe and acid guru Timothy Leary. I would've loved to have seen these shows in their entirety. Although the Wolfe segments didn't talk about drugs, Snyder didn't hold back about his drug questions toward Kesey, Garcia and Leary...all of whom showed great spirit and humor about the subject matter. Nobody back peddled like they do today...

Snyder displayed knowledge, smarts and - as always - told great personal stories with the obligatory cigarette going.

Not as complete as the Snyder Punk and New Wave set, which featured - I think - shows pretty much intact.

I hope Shout! gets more complete shows from Snyder but I'd imagine its difficult as many were probably taped over.

Snyder was always entertaining, provocative and funny as hell. I missed him when he left the airwaves and I'll miss him now.

Loved his interview with with John Lydon. Great TV.

I wrote this to a couple of friends earlier today from work, so forgive me if I'm misremembering some things:

Just read that Tom Snyder died and I feel nearly the same as I did when I heard Carson died - something from my childhood disappearing.

It wasn't often that I got to see Snyder growing up, but on nights where I was sick and/or couldn't sleep, I would sneak out to the television set in the living room and watch Synder. I always thought it was a perfect format for interviews, with Snyder alone on a darkened stage, seated opposite the guest and just talking about a variety of topics for a half-hour and sometimes even longer.

I vaguely remember when Harlan Ellison made one of his frequent appearances on the show, and the one that had a few of the secondary stars of Star Trek. I also remember one with director/dander Bob Fosse for ALL THAT JAZZ which came back from a commercial too early and caught Fosse saying some rather not-so-nice things about someone he had worked with, not realizing that they were back on the air. And of course, there's the famous (or infamous) interview he did with KISS that showed Ace & Peter frustrasting an ever-angrier Gene Simmons when they took complete control of the interview away from him.

I was just getting out of high school when the format changed and The Tomorrow Show grew to 90-minutes. It sunk not only due to the unneeded addition of Rona Barrett (who can forget the exchange where Rona ended her segment by saying something like, "I'll be seeing you, Tom," with Tom firing back, "Not if I see you first.")

The show was never the same, and although it still had some great moments, it died pretty quickly to be replaced by Late Night with David Letterman in February 1982.

Tom wasn't always the best interviewer - he had a tendency to go off on tangents about things that had little to do with the major topics that needed to be covered (such as a segment where artist Neal Adams appeared to gain support for Shuster & Siegel over their fight to be named the creators of Superman, only for Tom to want to talk mostly about the old train ads that appeared in the back of comics). He also seemed to setup jokes that weren't very good and drain away time for more serious questions, but at least you never knew when a good quote or story would be dug up by Tom. Nor did he try to softball questions to people like most interviewers these days.

They just don't make 'em like Tom anymore, I guess.

"And of course, there's the famous (or infamous) interview he did with KISS that showed Ace & Peter frustrasting an ever-angrier Gene Simmons when they took complete control of the interview away from him."

Just wanted to point out that this interview (or one long segment of it) is available on the second volume of KISSOLOGY. (fwiw, I got my set at Sam's to get the Largo show extra available at Sam's and Wal-Mart.)

I enjoyed the show a great deal and I wish more Tom was available on DVD. I think Simmons seemed slightly peeved from the beginning of the interview. It was slightly surreal seeing Tom - in a pullover sweater - interviewing the group in full regalia. He certainly had a rapport with the group and seemed to enjoy the interview.

((I also watched part of the KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK on the same disc. I was amazed at how good the image looked, even though it's a widescreen presentation on DVD. Wasn't this a made for TV film??))