Tom Snyder wasn’t a great interviewer in the traditional sense – lord knows his idiosyncrasies were numerous, as Dan Aykroyd regularly proved in his Snyder imitations on “SNL” – but he was a brilliant man whose odd timing and unique questions often got answers from his guests that they never would’ve offered up anywhere else. Shout! Factory already gave us a fascinating look back at Snyder’s encounters with various punk rock musicians; this time, they’ve compiled the three “Tomorrow” episodes where he met up with members of the Beatles. Snyder’s biggest coup here was one he didn’t (and couldn’t) know he was performing at the time: scoring the final televised interview with John Lennon, which took place in April 1975. The episode that’s actually included, however, was aired on December 9th, 1980, the day after Lennon’s assassination; Snyder re-ran the Lennon segment from ’75, then had others who had been close to Lennon chime in, with the most poignant memories coming from Jack Douglas, who’d worked with Lennon only hours before his murder. The McCartney interview took place in ’79, and it’s pretty inconsequential, with Macca and Linda sounding possibly (but not definitely) stoned; the ’81 conversation with Ringo is more interesting, however, giving the drummer a chance to comment on the death of his friend and bandmate as well as talk up both “Caveman” and Stop and Smell the Roses. The lack of special features is forgivable in this instance, but, really, why did this need to be split between 2 DVDs? The run time is less than 3 hours!
Click to buy “The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder: John, Paul, Tom & Ringo”
