Thomas James Snyder was an American television personality, news anchor, and radio personality best known for his late night talk shows Tomorrow, on NBC in the 1970s and 1980s, and The Late Late Show, on CBS in the 1990s.
32 Facts About Tom Snyder
2.
Tom Snyder was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Frank and Marie Tom Snyder, who were of German, Cornish, and Irish descent.
3.
Tom Snyder received a Catholic upbringing, attending St Agnes Elementary School and graduating from Jesuit-run Marquette University High School.
4.
Tom Snyder then attended Marquette University, after which he had originally planned to study medicine and become a doctor.
5.
Tom Snyder loved radio since he was a child and at some point he changed his field of study from pre-med to journalism.
6.
Tom Snyder once told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tim Cuprisin that broadcasting became more important to him than attending classes, and he skipped a lot of them.
7.
Tom Snyder began his career as a radio reporter at WRIT-AM in Milwaukee, now WJYI-AM and at WKZO in Kalamazoo in the 1950s.
8.
Tom Snyder moved into television in the 1960s; he talked about driving cross-country in an early Corvair from Atlanta to Los Angeles around 1963.
9.
In 1965, when Westinghouse Broadcasting moved KYW-TV back to Philadelphia as the result of an FCC ruling, Tom Snyder went along and remained in Philadelphia for five years.
10.
In July 1970, Tom Snyder returned to Los Angeles and joined NBC News, who assigned him to anchor the 6:00 pm weeknight newscast on KNBC.
11.
Snyder gained national fame as the host of Tomorrow with Tom Snyder, which aired late nights after The Tonight Show on NBC from 1973 to 1982.
12.
Tom Snyder appeared to be as happy as a "kid in a candy store," picking up various locomotives and asking lots of questions.
13.
Tom Snyder's collection was later donated to a New Jersey toy train club, the NJ Hi-Railers.
14.
Tom Snyder stayed at WABC for two years, then returned to the talk format in 1985 at KABC-TV in Los Angeles with a local afternoon show.
15.
Tom Snyder had hoped to syndicate the program nationally the following year, but those plans were scratched after Oprah Winfrey's Chicago-based syndicated show entered the market first, and took over Snyder's time slot on KABC-TV.
16.
In 1988 Tom Snyder inaugurated a similar three-hour program on ABC Radio.
17.
The first hour was spent chatting with a celebrity guest; during the second hour Tom Snyder engaged someone in the news; and the final hour was consumed chatting with his legion of fans.
18.
The Tom Snyder Show for ABC Radio Networks went off the air in late 1992.
19.
Tom Snyder returned to television on CNBC on January 21,1993, adding the opportunity for viewers to call in with their own questions for his guests.
20.
Tom Snyder nicknamed his show the Colorcast, reviving an old promotional term NBC-TV used in the early 1960s to brand its color broadcasts.
21.
Tom Snyder continued his trademark of talking to offscreen crew and made frequent reference to the studio, reminding viewers of its location in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
22.
The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder aired live in the Eastern and Central Time Zones, and was simulcast to other time zones on radio to allow everyone a chance to call in.
23.
Tom Snyder's CNBC show was taken over, largely unchanged in format, by Charles Grodin.
24.
When Tom Snyder took ill with the flu, comedians Martin Mull and Jon Stewart filled in as hosts.
25.
In February 2000, Tom Snyder hosted two episodes of The Late Show Backstage that aired in The Late Show time slot when Letterman was recovering from heart surgery.
26.
Tom Snyder hosted a video production called A Century of Lionel Electric Trains, commemorating 100 years of Lionel Trains covering Lionel from 1900 to 2000.
27.
Additionally, he hosted another program from the same production company called Celebrity Train Layouts 2: Tom Snyder, featuring his own collection of trains.
28.
Tom Snyder posted regular messages on his own now-defunct website colortini.
29.
When Tom Snyder left The Late Late Show in 1999, David Letterman gave him a white 1960 Cadillac Series 62 convertible as a going-away present.
30.
Tom Snyder died of complications from leukemia on July 29,2007, in San Francisco at the age of 71.
31.
Tom Snyder was posthumously inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame in 2008.
32.
Tom Snyder is played by Ed Helms in A Futile and Stupid Gesture.