Less Snider than the next guy.

Tom Snyder has died at the age of 71. Growing up, my only knowledge of him was due to Dan Ackroyd's uncanny impersonation of him on SNL in the mid-70s ("...the key to impersonating Tom Snyder -- is to wet and stick out your lower lip.") Later, I'd catch him occasionally on The Late Late Show after Letterman and though brusque, I found him to be a witty and erudite individual with a knack for getting to the truth without insulting or chastising his guests, an art lost by today's interviewers. Mark Evanier has a good writeup of him over here.








Here is Tom in conversation with Harlan Ellison and a few members of the Star Trek troupe...



I can't find any clips of Ackroyd as Tom, but this ST parody has Ackroyd as Bones, sounding an awful lot like his Snyder persona. (It's infringing copyright to show the whole thing, so it's been spliced with In Living Color & The Wonder Years.)



And finally, last night I caught an episode of Home Movies which was produced by Snyder's production company, Soup2Nuts.