Sundays With Snyder No. 38

April 25, 1990.

The guest is Herb Alpert. It’s a short excerpt – about 10 minutes.

The program comes from Bryan Olson.

This post missed Sunday by 5 minutes here on the East Coast.

Thank God it’s still Sunday out West.

Interesting talk about the format change from vinyl to CD.  Also- whatever happened to Abba?

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Sundays With Snyder No. 37

Darren McGavinYou can be forgiven if you don’t immediately recognize the actor seen in the photo at left, but I think you could figure it out if you took a good long look. It’s Darren McGavin.

There was something so earnest in McGavin’s work – his personality jumps off the screen – you feel as if you know him. Like Frank Morgan’s unforgettable performance(s) in The Wizard of Oz, McGavin’s turn as “The Old Man” in “A Christmas Story” bestows on him no small degree of immortality.

He was a hard-working guy. His massive credit list in theater, television and film shows he didn’t allow himself much downtime.

This brief excerpt from a Tom Snyder interview (from the collection of Bryan Olson) is an odd little conversation about cancer and life expectancy that’s occasioned by the deaths of Sammy Davis, Jr., Jill Ireland and Jim Henson.

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Sundays With Snyder No. 36

How delighted was I to find that this interview with Bruce Dern dates back to the release of The ‘Burbs, a favorite movie of mine. The soundtrack music by Jerry Goldsmith is memorable, as is Brother Theodore’s turn as old man Klopek.

Since Tom and Bruce grew up fairly close to each other, much of the interview has the boys reminiscing about the old neighborhood, but the talk also turns to Hitchcock – Bruce’s role in Family Plot, and Tom’s dinner with Alma and Hitch where the discussion was about cockney rhyming slang.

Bruce Dern has such an instantly recognizable voice.

Again, this one comes from the collection of Bryan Olson.

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Sundays With Snyder No. 35 - Adam West

Michael  Keaton as Batman? You’ve got to be kidding! The guy who played “Mr. Mom”?

There is only one Batman, and his name is Adam West. Adam had a real career going before he decided to do a commercial hawking Nestle’s Quik. Cast as an ersatz James Bond, West was spotted by the folks at Warner Brothers and cast as TV’s Caped Crusader. For his voice, if you ask us. After all, when your face is hidden behind a mask, you’re essentially doing radio. And Adam West had the voice to pull it off.

Adam is in NYC, Tom is in L.A., and it’s tough to tell much. Is Adam West playing it straight? Does Tom like Adam?

You be the judge.

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How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Nearly every story written about a band called Railbird - and there have been more than a few – has intimated that the brilliance and originality of their sound places them either on the brink, verge, or cusp of huge success. They have been anointed The Next Indie Band Deserving a Huge Mainstream Following.

There’s no mistaking the band’s beautiful thunder – it’s always only been a question of how far away their lightning transition to wider success might lie.

The band’s every-Wednesday-in-June residency at The Living Room (which ends June 30th) narrowed the gap to nil.

Simultaneous thunder and lightning, like clockwork, every Wednesday at 9. If you were there, you witnessed it. If not, don’t be surprised by how quickly their sound reaches you. (A matter of seconds, if you open this new window, scroll down, hit the play button, and let Sarah Pedinotti’s voice reel you in. The current page stays open in a tab.)

Railbird’s music can be as insistent and hard-edged as Limousine, their high-adrenaline closer last Wednesday… or as vulnerable and fragile as Sarah Pedinotti’s whispered opening to Not Alone, a song that skips consciousness and heads directly for the spine. Continue reading “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” » →

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Sundays With Snyder No. 34 - Roger Corman

From the files of Bryan Olson: Tom’s guest is filmmaker Roger Corman, author of the boldly titled How I Made 100 Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime.

Corman, who has made more than 100 movies in Hollywood and lost his share of dimes on his duds, seems perfectly happy with the level of success he’s achieved, but Tom suspects that Roger really wants to make a big budget movie and pursues this line of questioning rather relentlessly.

Corman is still doing very nicely, thank you… or did you miss last night’s SyFy airing of Corman’s Dinocroc Vs. Supergator? Yes, I admit, I did, too. But Entertainment Weekly called it “impeccable Saturday-night junk entertainment.” And no special effects whatsoever – all shot on a Florida golf course with real dinocrocs. (YouTube trailer from Dinocroc Vs. Supergator).

Just Corman doing what Corman does best.

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For W.C. Fields Fans Only

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Sundays With Snyder No. 33

Cary Grant IS James Bond.

No.

Hoagy Carmichael IS James Bond.

Lee Pfeiffer, author of  The Incredible World of 007 says that Hoagy and Cary were both considered. Pfeiffer is the guest on this Sept. 1, 1992 edition of the Tom Snyder Radio Show, which again comes to us courtesy of Bryan Olson.

This is interesting stuff – even if you’re not a die-hard fan of the series. Most of the talk is about the early days, including a well-deserved nod to Maurice Binder, designer of the’”gun-barrel” opening sequence. Binder is also responsible for the credits for two of the hundred or so films in my official Top Ten List: Bedazzled and Two For The Road.

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Sundays With Snyder No. 32

This one’s all about the OJ trial.

Vincent Bugliosi is so smart… so right… and so outraged… that he can’t get the words out fast enough or emphatically enough.

The recording of this Tom Snyder interview – from television – does not speed up as it progresses. It is Bugliosi that spits the words out faster and faster; Bugliosi whose voice gets higher and higher in pitch.

It’s catching – Tom’s delivery sometimes speeds up to match Vincent’s… or perhaps just to get a word in edge-ways. But if all this had gone on much longer, only dogs would be able to hear the discussion.

I believe Bugliosi is correct in his contentions, but his contentiousness switch seems to be locked in the “on” position.

He remains an outraged man. The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder was published in 2008.

Another recording from Bryan Olson’s collection.

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Sundays With Snyder No. 31

James Coburn

James Coburn (shown at left wearing Steve McQueen’s hair) is the guest. He discusses the difficulties in making Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists Of Avalon, a TV mini-series which eventually aired on TNT in 2001, roughly two years after this interview. James and Tom commiserate on the financial implications of divorce and discuss their careers in the military.

Also a bit about Bruce Lee, Robert Evans, and The President’s Analyst. The last couple of seconds are missing.

This is yet another program from the collection of Bryan Olson.

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