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Isn't Life Terrible

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Sundays With Snyder - Number 24

Aug 12, 1992. Jay Leno is involved in a dispute with another late night talk show host. The more things change...

An interview with Bernard Asbell, author of The Book of You, a compendium of curious and marginally interesting statistics. Following Mr. Asbell (who also wrote What They Know About You, which sounds like the exact same book) is an hour of open phones where nearly all callers sound like they're part of the crowd waiting outside the studio for Jerry Langford. I swear, one call after another, it is the night from radio talk show hell, and you can hear Tom struggle to make either sense or entertainment out of it. Tom's day didn't start well, apparently. Something's wrong, and it's not just that Tom's show was to be dropped by WABC-AM in New York. Tom is flustered. Tom gets the year wrong at one moment... and gets his own toll-free call-in number wrong shortly after that. He blames his busy day ("my mind is a bowl of guava jelly") but does not elaborate as to what might have happened. We once again hear - albeit briefly - about the charms of Snapple Lemonade and Wheat Thins. The breakfast of champions, folks.



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Just discovered a nice appreciation of Tom that I hadn't seen before. Recommended if you're a fan.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

A Panel From The Last Mr. Magoo Comic Ever Published


I'm just sayin'.

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Incredibly, Lennon Was Also Murdered The Same Night

When you don't recognize the subject of your sentence, you say things you didn't mean to say.

Ad from the current issue of Rolling Stone.

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Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sundays With Snyder - Number 23


From June 25, 1992. Stock up on Wheat Thins and Snapple Lemonade - here's Tom taking phone calls for about forty minutes.

Unemployed? Tom feels your pain. Conspiracy theorist? Somebody tell Ross Perot. Otherwise, Tom seems uncharacteristically crabby with callers. Maybe looking forward to his vacation. You might also cue up your copy of Harry Nilsson's "Nobody Cares About The Railroads Anymore."



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Sunday, January 17, 2010

Sundays With Snyder - Number 22

Friday, 16 November 1990.

First, an quick interview with Michael Josephson, from The Institute for the Advancement of Ethics, who talks about Charles Keating and the "Keating 5" savings and loan scandal. Then some phone calls, including one from Tom's NYC co-worker and weatherman extraordinaire Dr. Frank Field... and one from "Harmonica Man."


Then, an interview with the daughter of the only comedian who appears in the Bogart classic Casablanca.

That would be Joan Benny, daughter of Jack Benny. Some radio clips from The Jack Benny Show are played, and as usual (sorry) the entire interview is not quite there.

What? You say you didn't know that Jack Benny appears in Casablanca? Well - and this is breaking news - his daughter thinks he does. The debate rages on at this very moment.



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Sunday, January 10, 2010

Sundays With Snyder - Number 21


If you're a TV person, you know Lois Nettleton as the woman who responds to a shift in the earth's orbit by perspiring heavily in "The Midnight Sun," a Twilight Zone episode from 1961.

If you're an old radio time radio person, you know Lois Nettleton as the third wife of Jean Shepherd. Or maybe from one of her roles on CBS Mystery Theater. Or Maybe from her endless list of TV guest shots. She was a charmer. Wish more of the interview was here; it's joined in progress.

Included in the Lois Nettleton segment, at no extra charge - a Folgers commercial that channels Bruce Springsteen to sell coffee. Included in the Nightside Hour - an incredible, thoroughly disgusting anti-drug commercial narrated from the coffin by a Debbie, a dead teenager. Moral: don't buy coke from anyone named Junior.

The Nightside Hour is a memorable one, because it marks the debut of a joke/prank, told/pulled by a listener, "Steve in Philadelphia," which went on to become a running gag Tom Snyder used over and over ever after. It has to do with what a tuna hears.



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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Alfred Hitchcock's Flirtation With The "Top Ten"


When you think of Alfred Hitchcock, you don't necessarily think top ten records.

But it happened in 1956, when the featured song from Hitch's remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much - Doris Day's Que Sera, Sera - scored box-office-boosting radio play by climbing the charts to reach #2 in the US and #1 in the UK. The melody and lyrics were written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, whose later work included the theme for the TV series Mr. Ed.

Hitch tried to duplicate his success with his next film, The Wrong Man (1956). But audience reaction to the Edie Adams/Ernie Kovacs duet was negative, so the song was cut and shelved. 

Determined to succeed, Hitchcock brought Billy Eckstine on board early in production on Vertigo (1958) to write the title tune. The scene as shot shows James Stewart taking Kim Novak to the Andar Pedo, a (fictitious) San Francisco Latin nightclub where Eckstine is performing. In the scene, Eckstine sees Stewart's character and, with a wink as acknowledgment, says "This one goes out to my  good friend, Scottie Ferguson." Eckstine then performs the title song, but once again, Hitchcock ultimately decided not to use the musical interlude. (Hitchcock's most famous marketing misstep, Vertigo Painting by Numbers, above, was featured in a previous Isn't Life Terrible post).

Next up was North By Northwest (1959). It was a classic Hitchcock scene: the bad guys chase Cary Grant into a radio studio, where he is mistaken for the Station ID announcer and hustled out on stage to wait for his cue. Cary sees the bad guys enter the studio and realizes that as long as he's on stage, the bad guys won't shoot him. He drags out the station ID as long as possible by singing it, then finally bolting off the stage. No real shot at the top ten for this little improvised "song," but it shows Hitchcock was still thinking about the potential for musical interludes in his features.

Hitchcock tried for the top ten again again with Psycho (1960).

Anthony Perkins' recording of This Is My Lucky Day (Norman's Theme) from Psycho never got close to the top 200.


Part of the failure doubtlessly had to do with the fact that the song, originally slated to accompany the infamous "peep-hole' scene, was cut from the soundtrack.


The theme for Hitchcock's next feature, Tomorrow Never Knows (Love Theme from Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds'), was eventually recorded by The Beatles, but not released until 1966, three years after the film's theatrical run.

However, with his next film, Marnie (1964), Hitch was positive he had another hit song on his hands.

He based his positive thoughts on Sean Connery's testosterone-fueled performance of Pretty Irish Girl in Disney's Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959). Hitch initially believed there was no reason his male lead couldn't handle the recording chores on Marnie. But when Hitchcock learned that Connery's singing voice in Darby had been dubbed by Brendan O'Dowda, he quickly switched gears and convinced Nat King Cole to record the ballad based on Bernard Hermann's movie theme.

Capitol Records released Nat King Cole's Marnie track as a single. It stiffed. Perhaps listeners couldn't relate to a love song dedicated to the title character of Marnie, a congenital liar and compulsive thief who is blackmailed into marrying Sean Connery.

In test footage, Connery lip-synched Cole's performance, but it didn't click. Nat Cole went back to the studio and did his best to sing Vertigo with a Scottish accent, but this was even worse. The song was cut from the film.

Pity, too: check out these lyrics:

But your world is lonely
Marnie Oh, Marnie
So lost yet so lovely
Take my hand
And stay with me awhile
Let me try to dry
The tears beneath your smile
Only love can save you Marnie...

At this point, Hitchcock gave up on getting another hit song out of a movie, and took things into his own hands.


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Monday, January 4, 2010

Sundays With Snyder - Number 20

This Sunday, we have an interview with Jack Haley Jr. about The Wizard of Oz. It's joined in progress - Jack is talking about the ways in which CBS shortened the film's running time for its yearly airings. It's actually been posted here before, and is here simply because more of the same show has been found. Not more of Jack Haley Jr., but the hour that follows it.

This second hour begins at around 00:31 and is spent with the colorful and somewhat puzzling Mayor Joseph Alioto, who is  to San Francisco as Ed Koch is to New York City.




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