He talks with his eyebrows-thick, black behemoths that do more lifting in the course of an hour than most body-builders. Now he’s causing a lot of raised eyebrows across America. Like bell-bottoms and disco, other ’70s favorites, Tom Snyder is making a comeback.
Snyder gave his best-known mimic, Dan Aykroyd, a lot to satirize back in the ’70s on “Saturday Night Live.” A new generation of impressionists will discover the talk-show icon when he begins “The Late Late Show” on CBS in mid-December. Just consider what comedians can do with the Snyder laugh, a bellowing “Ha-ha-ha!” far noisier than Beavis and Butt-Head’s heh-heh-hehs.
His TV resurgence is all the more stunning because the silver-haired star isn’t conventionally handsome; he refuses to scale back his brassy persona; and, at 58, he lives outside the 18-to-49 demographic so prized by advertisers and network programmers.
In other words, he’s-egad!-too old for the TV culture.
Snyder’s return is news for his defying the age trap. But it’s news, too, because he’s good, really good.
Big, bombastic Tom does broadcasting his way. TV has a tendency to round off performers’ edges, but Snyder, who has worked as a reporter, anchorman and radio host, has kept all of his. With the energy of a caffeine-addicted referee, he boldly points at guests and the camera, and waves his hands to drive home points.
He’s Ted Baxter with a brain, too smart to ignore and too egocentric to let you try.
You can preview that style-if you’ve forgotten what he was like in the ’70s on NBC’s “Tomorrow Show”-by tuning in his CNBC talk show at 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. (The live, Los Angeles-based show for CBS will resemble the bare-bones CNBC effort, but with a spiffier look.)
One viewer who never forgot Snyder was David Letterman, who, having been born in 1947, can recall a lot of TV culture. During a Snyder appearance on “Late Show” in April, Letterman remembered watching “Tomorrow.” “I’d come home, turn on the TV, and suddenly NBC has this wonderful new show,” Letterman confided to Snyder. “It was you, sitting low in your chair, darkly lit, smoke rolling out of your nose. The image and feeling of intimacy was overwhelming.”
The intimacy remains on the CNBC show, but the cigarettes are gone, given up several years ago, though Snyder still smokes cigars.
Letterman wanted Snyder to host the follow-up program to “Late Show,” and prevailed upon CBS executives to go with Snyder, the man Letterman replaced on NBC in 1982. For Letterman, who always wanted to do “The Tonight Show,” this has to underscore his ascension as Johnny Carson’s true late-night successor, albeit on CBS. Snyder, after all, followed Carson from 1973 to 1982.
Letterman’s deal with CBS lets him produce the post-“Late Show” series, so credit his clout for Snyder’s re-emergence, but also credit Letterman’s passion. If only more programmers thought like Letterman, and fought for what they believed. If you subscribe to the TV culture’s age theory, there’s no way Letterman’s young audience will stick around for Snyder.
Just sit back and watch. Letterman knows an original broadcaster when he sees one. The Snyder enthusiasm (“I think life is fantastic!” he said on a recent show) will be a solid counterpoint to Letterman’s sarcasm.
With Letterman behind him behind the scenes-and in front of him on the schedule-Snyder should escape the meddling that befell “Tomorrow.” In 1980, that hour series was expanded to 90 minutes, and Snyder picked up an audience and a co-host, gossip queen Rona Barrett. Bickering followed between the leads, Barrett left the show a couple of times, and by January 1982, “Tomorrow” was off the air.
Therein lies a lesson: Don’t mess with Snyder’s style.
Now, Snyder’s coming back to network TV, to be seen in about 70 percent of the country when his CBS show starts. Unlike his main time-slot competition, NBC’s Conan O’Brien, he has an identifiable persona and a rich career in front of the camera. He has stories to tell, he mixes it up with ease, he listens. His hair has thinned, but his life is richer, a lesson often lost on age- and appearance-conscious TV.
The memorable Aykroyd impression focused on Snyder’s healthy ego, but there’s the other side, too: Snyder is a thoughtful interviewer.
In a repeat last week on his CNBC show, a female caller from Palm Springs, Calif., said she talked to Snyder every night.
“You don’t hear me,” she said. “Tom, you’re such fun. You’re just fun.”
No age-fixated bean-counter can measure that. Talent, unlike bell-bottoms and disco, never goes out of style.
