I watched the first show of the Tomorrow Show when I was in high school (Midnight on a Monday night). I think he had a guy with two wives as guests. Tom was one of a kind. His guests were kind of incidental because he had more stories to tell the guests than the guests had to tell. I never saw anyone smoke as much on TV. They fired Tom and put on David Letterman in his place. I was sorry to hear that Tom Snyder and Marvin Zindler passed away.
 

k.d. lang's version of "Last Cigarette" is very good, also.
 

Yes it is. It fell just outside my Top Ten along with a few others including a couple of songs by Ben Folds. I saw k.d. at Rockefeller's in the early days when the act was called, k.d. lang and the reclines. I think that was in '86 or '87. There were so many amazing shows at Rockefelller's, the only club in the world built inside a bank building that was once robbed by Bonnie & Clyde.
 

omg, that's so cool. 'borne and reared here and never knew that about B&C! You are a plethora of trivia. Yes, I too watched Tom as a teen and was enchanted with his stories. Haven't seen him in a while, so I've missed him for some time.
IO
 

Ah King's X! Love them...
 

My sisters and I used to have a "fantasy dinner party" game, where we could pick any 6 people, living or dead, to have over for dinner. For me, Tom Snyder was the only constant. I figured if he was there, there might be debate, there might be heated discussion even, or else people might laugh so hard they blew their drinks out their noses, but no one would be bored! (Do you remember the interview with Deniece Graves -- "Cherzes le phelgm"??!!)

Tom embodied the flip side (and thus proved the truth) of my Theory of Boredom: that bored people are bored only because they're boring -- because they don't have the curiosity to be interesting or interested. No matter who he was talking to, Tom Snyder was interested. If he had a lot in common with the interviewee, that was fun, and if he had no clue where they were coming from, it was fascinating to him to try to figure it out. He pulled me into many conversations that sent me scrambling the next day to find articles, books, more information anywhere I could find it!

When he was doing the show in the '90s, the second half was frequently a call-in format. You have to understand that I am a tremendously shy person, but I would get so caught up in the discussions that I can't tell you how many times I dialed that number! It's probably just as well I never got through... I'd have gotten tongue-tied the second he came on the line. (Although I have to tell you that, with an unusual degree of forethought, I often wrote myself notes on my comments while I was dialing so I wouldn't TOTALLY forget what I wanted to say!)

I've missed Tom since he signed off for the last time, after announcing his retirement. I kept hoping he'd change his mind and come back.

Guess not. Damn.

The only bright spot is that the rules of the Fantasy Dinner Party included the qualifier, "living or dead" -- so my guest list is still intact!
 

Cynthia,

Thank you for sharing the story of your "fantasy dinner party" game and your Theory of Boredom. I don't recall the interviews with Deniece Graves, but I will seek that out on YouTube.