Tom Snyder Dead at 71 (July 29, 2007)

Snyder was best-known for the edgy late night talk shows he hosted through a haze of smoke in the days before he gave up cigarettes. During the time he was the host of the "Tomorrow" show as it was called, Dan Aykroyd lampooned him often in the late 70s when he was once a Not Ready For Prime Time Players on "Saturday Night Live." Snyder's chain-smoking, black beetle brows (contrasting with his mostly gray hair), mercurial manner and self-indulgent, digressive way of asking questions as well as his clipped speech pattern made for a distinctive sendup.

Snyder's style, his show's set and the show itself, marked an abrupt change at 1 a.m. from Carson's program, "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", which ran from 1962-1992.

Snyder had John Lennon's final televised interview (April 1975) and U2's first U.S. television appearance in June 1981.

One of his most riveting interviews was with Charles Manson, who would go from a calm demeanor to acting like a wild-eyed, insanity-spouting mass murderer and back again.

It was also where back in 1981, a year before Snyder left NBC, parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic sang one of his songs, "Another One Rides The Bus", on his TV show, a few weeks after Dr. Demento, who back then once had a live four-hour show on the now-defunct 94.7 KMET in Los Angeles, made his appearrance.

After a messy attempt to reformat it into a talk-variety show called "Tomorrow Coast to Coast" with Rona Barrett and a live audience, which bombed, the show was cancelled in January 1982 and replaced with "Late Night with David Letterman" on the night of February 1 (early Feb 2 on the Eastern and Pacific coasts due to the 12:30am start time, 11:30 Feb 1 Central and Mountain times).

His catch phrase: "Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."

Snyder also hosted radio shows for ABC Radio in the late `80s-early `90s.

Snyder started his broadcasting career in the 1960s as a radio news reporter in Milwaukee before moving into local television news in Philadelphia and Los Angeles and eventually into network television, which included his late night “The Tomorrow Show” on NBC from 1973-1982 that followed Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show.”

Snyder was even able to wrap up his career on radio as his “The Late Late Show” on CBS featured a radio simulcast in 1995. Snyder stayed until 1998 when Snyder quit and was replaced by Craig Kilborn, and it's now hosted by Craig Ferguson, who once played the boss on "The Drew Carey Show."