John Chancellor and NBC Nightly News say goodnight -- and goodbye -- to David Brinkley as he departs for, eventually, ABC.
Just before leaving regular TV duties for good in 1996, Brinkley would -- unaware that the camera was still on during Election Night coverage -- speak great truth about the Clinton Administration after a colleague asked him what he thought of the president's re-election: "The next four years will be filled with pretty words, and pretty music, and a lot of goddamn nonsense!"
Those are what you call timeless words, able to be applied broadly to presidencies, no matter of which political stripe.
John Lydon of Public Image, Ltd., possessed many skills in 1980. Lip syncing was not among them.
Come to think of it, remembering the lyrics most of the time wasn't part of his skill set, either.
And Dick Clark thought things would go according to plan when the former Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols and his new band, PiL, came for a May 1980 visit . . . why, exactly? Like, dude, this ain't no Fabian or Frankie Avalon you're dealing with here.
WELL, Dick, it doesn't have much of a beat, and you can't do The Hustle to it, so I'll give it a . . . 275 out of 100.
IN JUNE of 1980, on the other hand, the great Tom Snyder of the Tomorrow show wasn't taking any of that s***.
If Lydon was gonna throw curve balls -- or a googlies, if you want to be cricket about it -- Snyder was gonna grab his bat and take his cuts. And not necessarily at the ball.
I've featured the Tomorrow interview before, but it's well worth another look.
After posting this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth -- what with my paean to the '80s and "colortinis" -- I got to thinking about the late, great Tom Snyder and his Tomorrow show.
The wasn't anyone the man hadn't interviewed, I don't think. And it was always a late, late show event when he did. Above, we see Snyder with John Lennon on 1975.
AND THEN, with Lennon's producer for Double Fantasy, Jack Douglas. The date: Dec. 9, 1980.
John Lennon had just been murdered the night before.
Douglas said the former Beatle had had a message for people at the dawn of the 1980s.
I think the first single off the album, which was called "Starting Over" -- which we picked while we were doing the album -- was the feeling that he wanted to have for the '80s . . . that we are, in fact, in the '80s, that we are starting over. That it's time to be optimistic about the future. That it's time to write off George Orwell and 1984.
It's time to forget about those things, that in '84, that we can have what we want if we work together and for ourselves.
I MISS an age when we could be so hopeful. Naively hopeful, but hopeful nonetheless.
That was such an improvement over the anger, strife, name calling and hopelessness we wallow in today.
Come back John Lennon.
Come back, Tom Snyder.
We've forgotten how to hope. And we've forgotten how to have a meaningful -- and civil -- conversation. We long to sit back, relax and watch the pictures, now -- hopeful pictures -- as they fly through the air.
All the bigwigs are there, including the Sarnoff dynasty -- father and son -- which wields the controls at the Radio Corporation of America, parent of the National Broadcasting Co., which owns WRC in D.C., which is dedicating its brand-new, ultramodern radio and TV facilities. It's all about color today, and I'm not talking the integration battles up on Capitol Hill. I'm talking color television. And during this particular shindig, the president will be appearing in living color for the first time from our nation's capital.
And it all will be preserved for posterity on something called "television tape." That is -- How do the kids say? -- cool.
NOW IF WE press this button on the television-tape recorder, we can fast forward . . .
. . . all the way to 2010, 52 years in the future. Robert W. Sarnoff, president of NBC in 1958, is long dead. His father, RCA founder and chief David Sarnoff, is longer dead.
For that matter, RCA is dead, too. It didn't survive the 1980s, at least not as a corporate entity. A foreign company bought the name to put on cheap electronics made in China.
Ike is dead, commentator David Brinkley is dead, analog television is dead, broadcasting is dying . . . and TV engineers had to round up a tandem of antique videotape recorders and new technology in 1988 to preserve this, the oldest surviving color videotape, for you to watch here now.
For you to make it -- this lost world -- live again.
Welcome to one of my earliest television memories -- Sing Along With Mitch.
"Mitch," of course, was the legendary Mitch Miller -- TV sing-along host, world-class oboist and hit-making record executive -- who died Saturday at 99. And, yes, his program was as corny as hell.
The critics hated it. But the audience loved it -- this show that would come to be known to Boomers nationwide, along with Guy Lombardo and The Lawrence Welk Show, as an exemplar of Stuff Your Parents Liked.
As a toddler, I liked the bouncing ball over the on-screen lyrics.
AS A MIDDLE-AGED, graying (and balding) Baby Boomer, I like that watching old episodes of Sing Along With Mitch makes me smile. And sing along.
And as someone who bemoans our culture's penchant for giving the Snookis of the world their own TV shows -- and I'm not sure what's more disturbing, laughing at the white trash or wanting to be the white trash -- I desperately miss the innocence of the idea of sitting around the Zenith console and singing along to songs whose prime was a long, long time ago.
LIKE AN old song of Milton Berle's says (and, yes, Milton Berle wrote songs), "I'd give a million tomorrows for just one yesterday." Wouldn't we all -- especially nowadays.
YEAH, this is corny stuff. Embarrassingly so. Just like family.
And it feels comfortable, like a cup of hot tea and lemon -- though we're loathe to admit it.
It feels like home . . . or what our time-edited memories of home would have us believe.
Now Mitch Miller is dead. He was preceded in death by a world that could countenance such as Sing Along With Mitch on the public airwaves.
And we mourn him. And we mourn his lost world -- that bygone era of gentler sensibilities and no Snooki . . . well, at least not on television.
The award for The Best Thing Written About the Conan-Leno Affair goes to. . . .
Envelope, please. (Where's that damn letter opener when you need it?)
One moment, please.
AHEM. The award for The Best Thing Written About the Conan-Leno Affair goes to . . . Christopher Lawrence of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Roll the videotape:
If you've ever been screwed over at work, don't watch "The Tonight Show." Conan O'Brien passed up lucrative offers, waited five years and moved, along with his staff, across the country to take over "The Tonight Show," but NBC never really gave it to him. By putting Leno on in prime time, with more fanfare and better guests -- not to mention giving viewers who just wanted to watch any talk show the chance to do that and get a decent night's sleep -- NBC set Conan up to fail from the start.
If you have any business sense whatsoever, don't watch "The Tonight Show." During his last two weeks on the air, Conan stopped being intimidated by "The Tonight Show" and started making captivating television. While Leno's ratings ticked up slightly, Conan's surged. Then there was the "Evita"-style scene with hundreds of Conan fans rallying for hours in the driving rain outside his studio. By contrast, Leno played The Mirage two days earlier, only doing one show instead of his customary two, and the venue had to offer half-price tickets. And NBC still dumped its newly minted folk hero in favor of the weasel with whom only 4 percent of Oprah's audience, some of the most forgiving viewers in the world, sided.
If you've ever been bullied, don't watch "The Tonight Show." Between slamming Conan in the press when he's contractually forbidden to respond and the tacky "Get back to where you once belonged" commercials for Leno, NBC's behavior has bordered on the shameless.
If you've ever actually been fired, don't watch "The Tonight Show." For someone who considers himself a man of the people, Leno's whining about how NBC "fired" him twice has been surprisingly tone deaf. Especially considering he doesn't even need the job, as he boasts of living solely off his stand-up money. Millions of Americans, including Conan, have genuinely lost their jobs over the past two years; Leno had his start time moved forward, then back, by 95 minutes.
In the Great Late-Night War, you can look to history for guidance as to how this thing is going to turn out.
Like, you can look at the Battle of the Bulge as a historical parallel. NBC is the Nazi army, Jay Leno is the Vichy government in France, and things are not going swimmingly as 1944 draws to a close.
The Allied armies have overrun much of France and Belgium, and they're quickly closing in on the Fatherland. Something has to be done. So the Germans launch the Battle of the Bulge in late December, with the goal of encircling and destroying four Allied armies and forcing a peace treaty.
Leno's Vichy government is quick to agree to whatever the der Führer thinks best. What der Führer thought best was the capture of The Tonight Showin Bastogne, Belgium. The Nazis would take it, then put their guy back in charge.
C'est tout! C'est si bon! Ist gut!
Finally, with Bastogne and the crippled, beleaguered Tonight Show all but surrounded, the NBC television Nazis made their demand to Allied commander Conan O'Brien: Surrender.
And Conan said "NUTS!"
THE REST will be history. Most notably, NBC and a now-damaged Jay Leno.
Look, all CBS' David Letterman did was screw young female subordinates. In this day and age, that's survivable.
But Leno, on the other hand, was an embarrassing failure at 9 o'clock. And now he looks like NBC's eager toady in sticking a shiv in Conan's back. He's the "Tonight Show Indian giver." He's the butt -- and the chin -- of all the other late-night hosts' jokes.
Letterman is having a field day.
ABC's Jimmy Kimmel, meantime, is making fun of Leno . . . on Leno's own show, and Jay was defenseless against the hilariously withering "attack."
That's damaged goods.
OH, YEAH.That's damaged goods.
So now we must quickly switch historical analogies to plumb the true good fortune of Conan O'Brien.
Press reports say negotiations are being "finalized" to pay Conan $30 million to leave The Tonight Show so Leno can take it back. Imagine it this way -- not only is Conan getting a coveted spot in a lifeboat while the crew of the Titanic is otherwise occupied rearranging the deckchairs, he's getting $30 million for the privilege of saving his own ass.
The sharp analytical minds of Conan O'Brien's writing staff at The Tonight Show may have come up with the best explanation yet of the fine mess NBC has gotten itself into.
Think of the network's suits as favoring something a little "louder" than Brooks Brothers or Armani. Add a little extra bling to go with the Rolexes. Throw in some oversized chapeaus.
And don't forget the fur coats and Cadillacs in this action-packed milieu where "management" sweet talks the fresh talent, the veteran talent is expected to produce, many Benjamins change hands, and everybody will get screwed sooner or later.
WELL, everybody will get screwed until Pam Grier shows up -- in a clever "Conan O'Brien" disguise, no less -- to whoop some serious pimp-daddy ass and try to rescue the desperate old ho who's seen better days and will do anything to avoid being dumped at the Bide-a-Wee Courts with a cap in the . . . assets.
Less than a week after NBC told him it intended to move his “Tonight Show” to a new time, 12:05 a.m., Mr. O’Brien said he would not agree to what he considered a demotion for the institution of “The Tonight Show” — and his own career — by going along with the network’s plan to push him back a half-hour to make room for his most recent predecessor, Jay Leno.
Mr. O’Brien’s statement Tuesday said that he so respected the institution of “The Tonight Show” that he could not participate in what “I honestly believe is its destruction.”
Pointedly, Mr. O’Brien did not resign or indicate he would not show up for work. But an executive at the network who declined to be identified because of continuing negotiations said that Mr. O’Brien would leave once a financial settlement was reached.
By Hollywood standards, Mr. O’Brien’s letter was an extraordinary gesture — releasing a statement to make public his anger at the company paying him tens of millions of dollars before he even reached a settlement.
The closest episode in history may be when Jack Paar walked off the set of “The Tonight Show” in a huff over corporate censorship.
Mr. Paar returned to the show within a month in 1960, but few are predicting a reconciliation between Mr. O’Brien and the network.
NBC executives continued Tuesday to work toward a financial settlement, though some indicated increasing impatience with Mr. O’Brien’s effort to blame the network for the three-car pile-up in late night.
The host, who saw his brief run as host of “Tonight” cut short when NBC decided to restore Mr. Leno to the 11:35 p.m. time period, has been increasingly upset about how he believes he was treated by NBC’s management.
A representative of the host said Tuesday that Mr. O’Brien finally reached the point on Monday where he “sat up all night drafting the statement.”
(snip)
“You have to wonder if Jay is damaged goods after all this,” said one former longtime network programmer who did not want to be identified criticizing the network. “But if they give him ‘The Tonight Show’ back, maybe it ends up all right after a while. But it just seems so unfair to Conan.”
The release of Mr. O’Brien’s statement complicated an already messy legal and programming situation. NBC executives have quietly complained for at least a month that Mr. O’Brien himself was responsible for declining ratings on the show because he had not broadened his appeal from his days hosting NBC’s 12:35 a.m. show, “Late Night.”
FOXY . . .er,"Conan" don't take no stuff off no two-bit pimp daddies. She done got the evidence, the vice squad is about to bust down the door, and the jig is just about up for the Peacock Ring's late-night racket.
But alas, Foxy's bravery won't, we suspect, save Old Ho from TV decrepitude -- or from Jeff "Zucky Bear" Zucker, who runs the "enterprise." Last we saw, a salmon-colored Caddy was pulling up to the Bide-a-Wee Courts.
Here I sit, thinking that surely there must be something I care to write about today.
Ummmmmmm . . . I got nothin'.
I've sworn off railing about my home state's long march toward self-murder because I got tired of repeating myself. And the economy is going to do what the economy's going to do, mainly because we no longer have a culture capable of growing statesmen -- honorable legislators of thick hide and long view.
Will Mrs. Favog and I ultimately go homeless and hungry before all this is done? Possibly. Most of you could say the same thing about yourselves -- and working in "old media" isn't pretty much the only thing you're qualified to do.
SO, we'll be selling stolen apples at 16th and Dodge . . . or we won't.
We'll turn out a feckless government skewed for the benefit of those who need no benefit . . . or we won't. If we do, we'll come to realize those whom we thrust into office as replacements are no better . . . or we won't.
Alternatively, the president and Congress will get a clue . . . or they won't.
We'll continue hornily and violently down the road toward complete societal breakdown . . . or, by the grace of God, we won't. And whatever little thing I have to say about any of it would make nary a difference.
WHAT YOU CHOOSE to do about any of it might make all the difference in the world.
Do what you will. I'm going to put some music into the computer for 3 Chords & the Truth.
God had died in that season; the spirit no longer flowed through the people's bank statements and 401(k) accounts and, lo, the desolation of abomination was upon them, and they were mightily afraid. Confusion gripped the faithful, and consolation they could not find.
In Miami, these scenes will have played out some 14,000 times by the time 2008 is over.
In Las Vegas, 50,000 times. In Franklin County, Ohio (Columbus), 9,000 times.
EVICTION: It's going around in these troubled times. And we're nowhere near the bottom of the mortgage crisis or America's economic crisis.
Look at the video, from Dateline NBC. At what point . . . at what rate does this kind of trauma have to happen to ordinary Americans before something collectively snaps in the United States? At what point does the suffering of the middle and working classes crash head-on into Wall Street bailouts, golden parachutes and CEOs as robber barons?
What spark might -- will? -- ignite the leaking fuel tanks of our civic society, and how much will the fireball consume?
Look at the video.
How many people with nothing left to lose does it take to make our political leaders afraid . . . very afraid?
Well, this isn't a bad way to waste 24 minutes -- this late-1940s NBC-produced documentary about . . . the National Broadcasting Company.
Behind Your Radio Dial highlights how NBC programs came to listeners' RCA Victors, Zeniths, Philcos, Crosleys and Admirals. And it briefly covers this new-fangled thing, too.
If you don't know where you've been, can you really tell where you're going?
Obviously, that's a question some fans of the NPR-canceled Bryant Park Project never have thought to ask as they continue to pile on the network's new editorial director of digital media, Dick Meyer.
To synopsize the objection to Meyer among the "new media" fans, it seems to be centered on his appreciation of some of the charms of traditional community. And, it would seem, his love of a properly made sandwich.
ANYWAY, a few of the folks at The BPP Diner seem to be all about "community," so long as it's a "restricted" community. The past is unwelcome. No "backward thinkers" or "old media farts" allowed.
That means you, Dick Meyer.
Vee haff veys of makink you tink forvart!
Also, it's all about the interaction, baby. (Just so long as it's not in any kind of a traditional, physical community with people you've known forever.) And it's all about the glorious mosaic that is diversity. (Just so long as there is enough uniformity of opinion.)
One anti-Meyer commenter -- and all but one (me) were anti-Meyer commenters -- went onabout how unique the Bryant Park Project community is:
Yes, I can appreciate some traditions because they can give one comfort. (RC hangover)
Sure Mr. Meyer is a bright man but I will not buy his book to fund his narrow mindedness. Additionally my life is too busy to read a book that seems to based on what Mr. Meyer hates about the world as it is NOW, because I am living my life NOW.
(snip)
BPP brought together a non physical community that enjoyed something that they can never have again. (Like Mr. Meyer's lunch place that is now boarded up.) Consider carefully if it was announced that Day to Day was being cancelled would there be the same outpouring? BPP was unique not just because of the talented people we heard over the media of our choice, but the interaction it encouraged and made available to any one that wanted to participate. Yes at NPR you can, "click on contact us at the top of the page...and be sure to tell us how to pronounce your name." But you might as well be sending a letter using a stamp, envelope and drop box. Which sounds an awful like what possibly could be described as Mr. Meyer's prefered way of communication.
BPP created a community by using many forms communication. BPP encouraged and seemed to delight in people communicating with each other. (Even when we sometimes agreed to disagree.)
[Unless you're Dick Meyer, who must be demonized and belittled -- R21]
What seems to be disquieting about Mr. Meyer is that if he yearning for how it USED to be how can he use his digital/media to ever reach what the BPP created in its short life? Does he want to? Will NPR ever move forward? Will it just dwindle away because eventually no one who has ever experienced a "BPP" will settle for something as mundane.
I THINK everyone on The BPP Diner would agree The Bryant Park Project's style and its melding of "old" and "new" media represented a leap forward for public broadcasting. (Until NPR canceled it and leaped backward.)
Has any of those "forward thinkers" considered that the BPP just might have been a rediscovery of broadcasting's past? Probably not -- realizing that would involve "backward thinking" if not outright worship of the past.
To my ears, as good as the BPP was, it was just a younger-skewing, less ambitious version of NBC Radio's old Monitor program.
The Bryant Park Project revolved around a witty, genial studio host. Monitor revolved around a witty, genial studio host.
The Bryant Park Project featured the hourly network news, branded to that particular program. Monitor featured the hourly NBC Radio news, branded to that particular program.
The Bryant Park Project had regular features, as well as segments for feature stories, sports discussion, music and interviews. Monitor had regular features, as well as segments for feature stories, sports discussion, music and interviews.
The two programs had their differences as well.
The Bryant Park Project featured an extensive Internet presence, via its web site and social networking. In Monitor's day -- it ran from 1955 to 1975 -- there was no such thing as an Internet. Then, social networking was accomplished at the Elks Club, over coffee and doughnuts after church and across the backyard fence.
OVERALL, especially considering the technology of the day, Monitor was by far the more ambitious program. For one thing, it ran all weekend, not a couple of hours Monday through Friday mornings.
In its early years, Monitor -- which also was part disc-jockey show and featured live band remotes -- ran 40 straight hours each weekend, from 8 a.m. Saturday to midnight Sunday. For most of 1959, Monitor also aired for two hours Monday through Friday nights.
Classic comedians showed up every weekend, including Bob and Ray, Nichols and May, Jonathan Winters, Phyllis Diller, Ernie Kovacs, Bob Hope, Bob Newhart, Stiller and Meara, Selma Diamond, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen and, later, Pomerantz and Finkelman. In the early years, Bob and Ray stayed at Radio Central for many hours each weekend, ready to ad-lib skits if remotes weren't ready or technical problems blew up a scheduled segment. In 1957, they won a Peabody Award for their outrageously creative routines on "Monitor."
WHO'D HAVE THUNK IT. Monitor even had its own "Emergency Krulwich." Monitor truly was -- in the words of its creator, legendary NBC president and programmer Sylvester "Pat" Weaver -- a "kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria."
But you couldn't expect those who live in the Eternal Now to have known that. When you live in the Eternal Now, everything is new . . . and it's ever cleverer than anything a troglodyte like poor Dick Meyer might conceive.
But we troglodytes are in on a secret. Come close . . . listen carefully, and I will share the secret of the universe. It is this:
Yes, in 1945, there was a Channel 1. What there wasn't was too many televisions on which to watch what was playing on Channel 1. That's a pity -- folks missed one of the freakin' coolest station IDs ever produced.
Back then, lots of things seemed important. They were surrounded by an air of importance. And people thought they were important.
Today? Everything is cutoffs and flip-flops.
Whatever.
I wish I had been born a couple of decades before I was. It might have been nice to live more of my life during the era of Stuff That Mattered, you know?
It's a Bill O'Reilly world at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., where the White House is upset over how NBC -- the waterboard right's fourth point along the "Axis of Evil" -- edited an interview with President Bush.
In a letter to the head of NBC News as rich with irony as it was lacking in self-awareness, a Bush aide complained the network edited Bush's answers to correspondent Richard Engel's questions with the intent to deceive. Says the administration that "edited" intelligence with the intent to suck the American people into an unjust and foolhardy war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The White House on Monday sent a scathing letter to NBC News, accusing the news network of “deceptively” editing an interview with President Bush on the issue of appeasement and Iran.
At issue were remarks Bush made in front of Israel's parliament earlier this week.
Specifically, White House counselor Ed Gillespie laments that the network edited the interview in a way that “is clearly intended to give viewers the impression that [Bush] agreed with [correspondent Richard Engel's] characterization of his remarks when he explicitly challenged it.
“This deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible and I hereby request in the interest of fairness and accuracy that the network air the President’s responses to both initial questions in full on the two programs that used the excerpts,” said Gillespie in the letter to NBC News President Steve Capus.
BRIAN WILLIAMS NOTED the letter on tonight's NBC Nightly News, adding that the entire unedited interview was available on the program's website. And above. The edited version is here -- and, no, the president didn't need someone in an NBC editing booth to make him look like a delusional moron.
Finally, it's interesting that Bush likened his opponents to advocates of the "beehive theory" -- that you leave the beehive alone in hopes that the bees stay inside.
Q The war on terrorism has been the centerpiece of your presidency. Many people say that it has not made the world safer, that it has created more radicals, that there are more people in this part of the world who want to attack the United States.
THE PRESIDENT: That theory says by confronting the people that killed us, therefore there's going to be more -- therefore we shouldn't confront them?
Q Or confronting -- creating more people who want to kill us, one could also say.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you can say that, but the truth of the matter is there's fewer al Qaeda leaders, the people are on the run; they're having more trouble recruiting in the Middle East; Saudi Arabia, our partner, has gone after al Qaeda; people now see al Qaeda for what it is, which is a group of extremists and radicals who preach nothing but hate. And no, I just -- it's just the beehive theory -- we should have just let the beehive sit there and hope the bees don't come out of the hive?
My attitude is the United States must stay on the offense against al Qaeda -- two ways. One from --
Q Smash the bees --
THE PRESIDENT: -- two ways --
Q -- in the hive and let them spread?
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me for a minute, Richard. Two ways. One, find them and bring them to justice -- what we're doing. And two, offer freedom as an alternative for their vision. And somehow to suggest the bees would stay in the hive is naïve -- they didn't stay in the hive when they came and killed 3,000 of our citizens.
UHHHHHHH . . . the killer bees, as it were, swarmed in Afghanistan and are now hiding in our supposed ally, Pakistan. A great many of those bees were bred by our other supposed ally, Saudi Arabia. And, no, a sane person does not go around smashing beehives to keep the bees from going on a rampage. You smoke the buggers out.
George Bush thought he was smashing a beehive in Iraq, and he thought that actually would work. Thing is, Iraq turned out not to be a beehive at all, and there was no al Qaida presence in Iraq -- at least before we invaded.
What Iraq turned out to be was a hornet's nest. Or Pandora's Box -- take your pick.
